Good Fishing!

This week has been really good, lots of large drum still roaming the flats and bridges along with large redfish and some nice seatrout as well.

This week we managed a few days of slick calm conditions which was just what I hoped for. I focused my attention on the northern Indian River Lagoon this week and changed over from spinning to fly fishing, the slick calm conditions made sight fishing ideal. After a few small trout and redfish we decided to go after some larger black drum, most of the fish were between 10 and 20lbs and proved to be a great battle on fly. Black drum requires lots of patience with a fly, more so than most species. The best way to present your fly is to place it just before the school and barely crawl your fly across the bottom, the slower the better. My favorite patterns are tiny black or tan crab and shrimp imitations.

Nearshore the cobia have made a pretty good appearance, the majority of the fish have been between Cape Canaveral and Sebastian inlet, look for manta rays cruising the surface or just below and the fish will be trailing them. I like to use custom Handler Fishing Supply cobia jigs, but any large buck-tail, swimbait or artificial eel will get the job done as well. Keep your distance from the ray and cast as close to the ray as possible (without snagging it) and the cobia shouldn’t be far behind. Large croakers, handpick shrimp, pinfish, and squid work well too.