Dad didn’t catch the most fish of my father and son team from Scotland, but he did catch the only slot redfish of the morning. This fish ate a chunk of mullet on a recent trip with Capt Mark Wright

We managed a couple of trips this past week and things are changing in both the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River alike.

At a time of year when I expect the water to be high and relatively clear, but I’m witnessing falling water levels and dingy water conditions nearly everywhere I’ve been. Also, it seems as if our silver mullet population has decreased in a big way. To be sure, there are plenty of big black mullet on most every flat and back-water bay, but I saw only isolated pods of fingerling or adult silver mullet at random intervals.

Sunday I enjoyed a beautiful weather morning with a father and son from Scotland. We started off in a favorite backwater bay. The guys did their best at blind casting soft-plastic lures as the sun made its way above the horizon. Each of them had few missed bites from who knows what before Gary hooks a wee redfish on the Z-Man Diezel Minnowz he’d been tossing.

Forty or so minutes into our day I realize we’re “hemmed in” by other boats to my north and south. Though I really wanted to leave here I decided to anchor the boat and try our luck with cut mullet and live shrimp. A half hour later we were able to leave our “spot” without interfering with other anglers, but not before adding several hard-heads to the Scot’s tally.

Yes, they were keeping score!

A few more locations and lots more hard-heads were boated along with a slot red and trout. While the bite was not on fire the guys were happy with the morning and so was I.

Wednesday I was joined by a regular client. Bill and I covered skinny water in two areas and played briefly with the big reds in deeper water. The breeders had their track shoes on this particular morning and ignored out top-water plugs completely. The Gafftopsail catfish on the other hand blasted our plugs repeatedly.

These and a few trout were all we managed on this outing, but we did find tight-lipped slot reds and breeder reds scattered about the shallows. I’m betting we went home too soon…