Windy Week on Mosquito Lagoon

A father and son team caught a few redfish recently while fishing with Capt. Mark Wright. This brace of redfish were taken on Z-Man Diezel Minnowz while others fell to mullet chunks tossed along grass-lines.

It was another windy week for us in the Mosquito Lagoon which is quite normal for November. Happily though, the air temperature stayed very comfortable once the early morning chill dissipated shortly after sunrise.

The windy conditions have the water stirred up and muddy in most areas. In fact, it’s pretty stirred up in many sheltered areas too due to the huge black mullet feed in the remaining grass beds! It won’t be long before these mullet migrate to the sea for their yearly spawn. It’s worth noting here that as the mullet are working through the grass we’re seeing LOTS of immature shrimp jumping out of the water.

The presence of so many little shrimp seems to indicate a bumper crop of these delectable critters growing in the shallows. Food for our local game fish already and eventually food for us in a couple of months once they gain some size!

The tailing redfish activity from the last two weeks stalled, at least for me, this week though we did see a tail here and there. Blind casting with Z-Man Diezel Minnowz and EZ Shrimpz rigged weedless on EZ Keeperz hooks worked well in the same places we caught tailing reds earlier in the month. Long casts help to up the angler’s odds of getting bit, even in the dirty water.

Our best results came on natural bait this past week in the form of cut mullet chunks on the bottom and live shrimp under a float between the chunk baits. Tossing the live shrimp out at twelve o’clock with chunks at ten and two o’clock cover a sizable area for a marauding redfish or trout to stumble upon and they certainly did!

Unfortunately, we encountered many more whiskered fish and critters with barbed tails than we wanted, but it is part of the game when natural bait is used. Fortunately, kids (of all ages) enjoy catching them every bit as much as the game fish!