Indian River Lagoon

Capt. Mark Rosen
December 27, 2015
Port St. Lucie - Saltwater Fishing Report

I had a 2 person charter yesterday. The weather forecast was not great but I had hoped it would improve just a little so we could do some bottom fishing. Unfortunately the weather forecast deteriorated even move when I checked in the morning. 4 to 6 foot seas. I checked with the weather buoy off Fort Pierce and the seas were 4.8 feet with a 5 sec period and the waves reported to be steep. The forecast also said the wind would be increasing to 20 Knots by late morning. The water clarity was extremely poor, we had incoming water with a lunar tide there was a lot of water in the Indian River Lagoon.
With that type of a forecast I decided to offer them a river trip on the 24 foot center console. The forecast was very accurate this time the wind was out of the SE at 15 knots when we got to the boat ramp. We launched and headed north of Fort Pierce Our first stop was just about a mile south of harbor branch starting at the channel we drifted NW across the grass flats I stayed in 3 foot plus water
We were using a variety of lures including a yellow 17MR and a brown spotted 17MR also a gold spoon. I also brought live shrimp with us and had shrimp out on ultra-light rids with 6 pound test flora carbon line. On our 4th drift almost to harbor branch we had our first fish a lady fish that jumped several times and gave my client a great fight. The other client had a couple of lady fish in the spoon as well but they spit the hook
I decided to try fishing the turn basin. Using my Minkota tolling motor anchor watch I put up on some nice structure in 25 feet of water. We switched to bottom rigs with some squid which yielded several sail cats including a very large sail cat. I put the shrimp back out as well. We got a hard hot on the ultra-light the fish was pulling line out at a very fast pace. The charter got the other line in the boats and I fired up the engine and started chasing the fish down. After about a ½ hour we had the fish next to the boat and in the net, a nice 26" Spanish mackerels. It was a nice way to end the day.

Capt Mark
772 340 7440
www.pslfishing.com

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