Indian River Lagoon Coast Fishing Report, May 22, 2008

Compliments of Mosquito Creek Outdoors, Apopka, Florida

Well it looks like May has finally arrived on the Indian River Lagoon Coast. Today was my first day on the Lagoon where the winds laid down, and yes we even had a rumble of thunder and some well-needed rain although brief, thank you Lord.

I started out my week fishing on Sunday, where I was privileged and honored to spend the day on the water with Paul and Diana Faircloth and their nephew Clay. You see, it was Clay’s 11th birthday, and it was our mission to break in Clay’s new fishing rod. Our day started out slow with a few small sea trout in the morning, but as the day grew longer the bite improved, and we ended the day with a good number of sea trout caught on Riptide Jigs and top-water Rapala Skitterwalks, and yes Clay was successful in breaking in his new birthday rod.

Several other trips were planned during the week, but they were either scrubbed or postponed for future dates due to windy conditions.

For the past two months, I have been diligently trying to fish in the No-Motor Zone with local angler Jim Rawnsley from the Oak Hill/Edgewater area, but windy conditions kept us off of the water until today. Jim was the winner of the ISAA Raffle for the Captain Shawn Williams Family Charity charter I donated last spring, and I’m glad we waited.

The wind was light from the southwest as we polled out onto the flat, and we didn’t see any significant fish for the first few hours. After covering a lot of ground and messing with small trout on top-water plugs, we located a nice school of redfish. At first Jim made several nice top-water presentations, but the school lifted and began moving off. At that point, we opted to leave them rest and catch us some bait and then return later.

As the day grew longer, the wind laid down even more, and on our return the redfish school was spread out across the flat happily tailing in every direction. In addition to the redfish, there was also a good number of tailing black drum mixed in, which was an unexpected surprise. For the next several hours we chunked cut bait, and Jim successfully land three over slot redfish with the larges being 43-inches. The tails continued to pop-up everywhere, but a distant rumble of thunder sent us hightailing it back to the launch site as the rain set in. Hopefully, this trip was a prelude to the summer and the wind has finally begun to subside, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

As always, if you need more information or have questions, please contact me.

Good luck and good fishing,

Captain Tom Van Horn
Mosquito Coast Fishing Charters
www.irl-fishing.com
407-416-1187 on the water
407-366-8085 landline
886-790-8081 toll free

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