June '12 - Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River, Ponce Inlet Area
Capt. Nathaniel Lemmon
June 9, 2012
New Smyrna Beach - Saltwater Fishing Report
Don't blink now, in a few weeks, half of 2012 will have passed us by. Summer months mean everything's a potential target...speckled trout, redfish, tarpon, flounder, jack crevalle, baby grouper, sharks and more. Whether you want to fish them with lures, live bait, and/or fly tackle, it's all good and I welcome and enjoy them all. Water levels have been higher than normal for a couple months now, scattering fish over grass flats and oyster beds. Water clarity is still really clear in all of the Mosquito Lagoon and North Indian River Lagoon which allows for pristine sight casting. In the creeks and channels to the north near Ponce Inlet and Daytona Beach where we don't sight fish, we are fishing the tidal areas with pigfish, croakers, and live shrimp catching numerous fish of varying species. Many people wrongly assume that the hot summer months lead to slow fishing, that's far from the case. Most days we are catching fish throughout the day, providing afternoon rain showers don't chase us home.
The Speckled Trout bite has been great over the past month and that will continue throughout the summer. This year has been the best year for trout fishing since before the big freeze we had 4 years ago as there are numerous fish in the 20-30" range in our region again. We are catching most of our trout fishing with live baits like pigfish, croakers and finger mullet. It's an extremely fun way to fish as we are actively fishing baits instead of sitting and waiting hours for bites. We routinely catch dozens of trout per day in the slot range of 15-20", and generally a few each day in the 4-5lb+ range or better. We will also catch our share of trout, however, casting plugs, soft plastics and jigs for those that prefer using artificial lures. Fly anglers also find success sight casting laid up trout in sand spots on the flats in the Lagoons.
The best action for Redfish has been on the trophy size fish in the 15-40lb range. These GIANT bulls are forming into bigger schools each week in preperation of a summer spawning season in July and August in the Indian River Lagoon and Mosquito Lagoon and then again in September and October around Ponce Inlet. As this approaches these fish become much more aggressive eating plugs, soft plastics, and flies. On the shallow flats of the Mosquito Lagoon and in the creeks around New Smyrna Beach we'll find lots of singles and small pods of smaller 5-10lb redfish. Depending on how much time we want to spend fishing for redfish, on an average day we'll catch anywhere from 5-15 or more on a variety of live baits, lures and fly selections.
Resident Tarpon in the 20-30lb range have been active and roaming for 2 months now. I've seen a lot of tarpon in both the Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River Lagoon, the main ICW, and around Ponce Inlet. Bigger adult migrating fish over 50lbs are shadowing bait pods out along the beach for the past couple weeks. Lately it's been too breezy to spend much time fishing for them, however, they will be around for the next 4 months and conditions and fishable numbers will improve with each passing week. Mullet and pinfish are preferred live baits and swimbaits, plugs, and DOA jigs are preferred lures.
The Flounder bite has been good as of late. We've been catching some on most days around New Smyrna, Ponce Inlet, and Port Orange. The outgoing tide in creeks and around oyster bars have been consistent producers as well as some docks along the main channels. Flounder fishing only picks up from here through the remainder of the year as these fish migrate towards the Inlet following bait pods.
It's been an extremly busy start to the year, matching the record year I had last year. Only a handful of dates left in June and July dates have been filling quickly. I do also run afternoon charters as well fishing with live pigfish and croakers. Call or email to secure a reservation. I look forward to fishing with you soon…386-212-4931.
Check out my website to see some pictures from the past few weeks... http://www.floridasightfishing.com/report.htm
Target Species:
Redfish, Speckled Trout, Tarpon, Flounder
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