Happy Monday Spacefish!

We’re in April folks, but for the past week or so you wouldn’t know it if you get up out of the house before 7 am – it’s been in the 50’s the past 5 mornings in Melbourne at day break, but since the rain we got on Thursday we’ve had 3 straight days of bluebird skies and the barometric pressure has been way up. This past weekend I was slammed, I did a Habitat for Humanity service project with a group of student-athletes from Melbourne Central Catholic, and this past Saturday night we had the Green & Gold Gala, so after not getting home until after midnight and the temperatures being way down in the morning, I decided to sleep in, get some much needed rest, and take my kids fishing Sunday afternoon. So what I am going to write about in this report are two shorter trips.

Guide for a Day

Last weekend my brother, and his two kids came down and spent the weekend, on Saturday my cousin and his wife were in town so we did a big family beach day, on Sunday my brother wanted to go out and do some inshore fishing so I picked him up and we got out for a few hours. The last two weekends have been pretty similar in terms of low morning temps, so I told him in terms of getting our money’s worth, we’d be better off getting out after noon and let things warm up. So I picked him up from our parents house in Melbourne Beach around 12ish, and we went and we launched out of Honest John’s Fish Camp, located at 750 Old Florida Trail, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951. I wrote a piece about fishing the Mullet Creek area of the Indian River Lagoon, launching from Honest John’s. You can read that report here –
https://spacefish.com/byte/kayak-fishing-honest-johns-fish-camp/

Back to more recent times, I picked my brother up, we got 2 dozen live shrimp and got the kayaks in the water around 1. We had roughly 3-4 hours to fish, my parents took my kids, and his to the beach…I have a 4 and 3 year old, his two kids are 4 and 2, so that being said, we had to be back to provide some man power! It was a blue bird, high pressure day, and being that this was only his 2nd time inshore fishing, I thought live shrimp would be the best move in terms of him getting the most out of a short trip on a day where the odds were not in our favor.

I did very little fishing, mostly taking him from spot to spot, and scouting the area to increase his odds. He ended up having a solid day! He caught 3 Snook, 1 Trout, 2 Mangrove Snapper, 1 fun sized inshore Jack Crevalle, and of course 2 Catfish as well. All in all, for someone that doesn’t get to fish inshore, and has very limited kayak experience he had a great time, and I was just as excited as him each time the popping cork went down!

I had him set up on one of my 7 foot Ugly Stik/Penn 2500 combo’s, 10 pound braid, a Cajun Thunder popping cork, 12-15 inches of 30 pound flurocarbon and a 1/0 circle hook, he hooked the shrimp right under the horn, and would cast his cork to certain targets, let the rings dissipate, then slowly retrieve it with sharp pops, and long pauses.

We got the Trout in open water on a depth contour, the Snook and Snappers were hanging tight to the mangroves, and the Jack was caught in an area I just knew he was going to catch a quality Snook. There was bait and birds along this mangrove shoreline that had a deeper cut and more depth, water was wrapping around a point which made for a perfect ambush point, he made a perfect cast inches from the mangroves and the cork shot straight down within seconds, it wasn’t the slot Snook I was hoping for him, but it was a drag pulling Jack, that provided a fun fight for a novice kayak angler.

Now my brother is a good angler, he caught an 8 pound bass a few weeks ago, but this was his 3rd time kayak fishing, and his 2nd time fishing inshore. I feel like we all have times where we’re taking someone fishing and they’re either new to the sport, visiting the area, or maybe for us experienced angler’s facing tough conditions, or we’re in the middle of a rough patch of bad outings…whatever the case may be, never discount the power of live shrimp to provide some action and excitement!

Short Evening Trips on the Eau Gallie River

I’ve written a couple of pieces about the Eau Gallie River, it’s been a little while since I have talked about the EGR, but it’s the closest body of water from my house, I live roughly 5 minutes from Ballard Park. So while I may not write about the EGR a lot, it’s where I got when I just need a little me time on the water, or I just want to fish for fun (not for reports), or if I want to experiment with some new stuff before I use it on a report or something. Because of my tight schedule and time constraints the past two weeks I have gotten out twice on the EGR in the last two weeks for some evening fishing. I launch out of Ballard Park, located at 924 Thomas Barbour Dr, Melbourne, FL 32935.

Good Evening Topwater Bite

Even though the mornings have been cold, the air and water have been heating up with warm afternoon temps, and the lack of clouds, when the sun is high the bite has been tough unless you find deeper water, and bounce something on the water, but once that sun starts to get low on the western horizon the topwater bite has been good for me in the evenings with Trout, Snook, and Jacks actively hunting and feeding in the shallows. I have to cast closer to structure to get the Snook bites, but I look for bait being chased to wherever to target Jacks and Trout. I haven’t caught an overly impressive Trout or Jack, but I did catch two decent Snook recently on evening topwater. I am using the YakTribe Topwater in the Owie (Black & Silver/White Belly) or Dulce (Bone) colors with single in-line hook replacements. I like to throw top water plugs on a bait caster set up, usually with 20 pound braid, tied to a short 50 or 60 pound Monofilament leader – I always use Mono for topwater because it floats and doesn’t drag the nose of the plug down. I have been getting twice and many misses and take downs, but I just keep working the plug, more often than not the fish that made a run and missed will stay on it, I just usually slow down the speed, but try to make it walk side to side while slowly bringing it back. I keep the rod tip moving fast, while the handle of the reel moves slow. The only time I speed up the cadence is when I toss the plug into a panicked school of bait fish, then the speed seems to actually help.

We Lost a Lot of Good Men Out There

So I have one casting combo that I use every single time I got out, it is my all time favorite go to set up, I had another combo that was a specific bait casting set up for inshore fishing, a rod designed to throw lighter stuff; This rod was an absolute work horse, I nicknamed it Christian McCaffrey because like the versatile NFL RB that can tote the rock between the tackles, but also split out and be an effective pass catcher/route runner in the slot, this rod could do it all inshore for me. It could throw anything from 1/16 oz jigheads, to half ounce topwater plugs, it was firm, yet sensitive, and with a super fast action tip this rod could walk the dog with minimal effort or make jerk baits twitch with just the flick of the wrist, which when you’re doing those things for hours on end, it makes a difference. After 17 months on duty, and hundreds of fish caught, I was guiding the Snook in the header photo into the net when the rod tip snapped. What a good run this rod had, all I can say is, “and now his watch has ended.” RIP Christian McCaffrey, good night sweet prince. I thought about trying to get it fixed up with a new tip, but I just feel like it would never be the same.

Bottom Bouncing

Ok so for these mid to late afternoons, 4ish-6ish, before the topwater bite turns on, I have had success finding areas of deeper water, now when I am talking deeper water, I am talking 4-6 feet, nothing too deep. But 4 or 5 weet of muddy water is going to be a lot cooler to a fish than 1-2 feet of skinny water on a sandy bottomed flat. Of course depending on where you may be fishing shaded water may be the ticket on bright, and sunny afternoons. But On the Eau Gallie/Elbow Creek the water level is a little lower and there are not as many Snook in the mangroves as I would see in the summer time. I am sure they are moving to the deeper end of docks. All of my recent EGR Snook have come on Topwater, I have been fishing a jighead/paddletail in areas of slightly deeper water. The Fish, or Die Minutemen in Swampfox (Silver with Gold Flake). I use a 3/16 oz Z-Man Trout Eye Jighead in Red or Gold. I love this weight as it’s perfect for getting down to the bottom, but not too heavy to do a slow roll either. The paddle tail is 3.5 inches, is chunky and durable. It has a great wobble on the slow roll, and has a good tail kick on the fall when jigging it. I haven’t caught anything crazy big or bragworthy, but it’s put a few fish in the yak for me recently in a tougher part of the day.

The area I have done well has been the area just south of Ballard Park, it’s an open cove just east of the top of Elbow Creek. This areas has been holding a lot of bait, and Trout, as you work down Elbow Creek towards the southernmost US Hwy 1 bridge on the EGR, there is good water depth between the boating channel and the eastern shoreline, small Trout have been hanging on the ledge, and small Reds have been caught kind of in-between the 4 foot water and the shallow shoreline.

Conclusion

I am ready for summer! Both for consistent fishing patterns, and for school to be out for a while so my fishing schedule opens up! I haven’t been on true solo trip since I went to Lake Baldwin on Good Friday, but the nice thing about kayak fishing, even when life gets hectic and busy, it’s nice to be able to pack/load up quickly and be on the water somewhere in minutes, being able to get out on the water, even if it is a series of quick evening trips is so much better than not being on it at all!

Thank you for reading, and thank you to Kayaks by Bo, for being our paddle partner. As summer approaches, this is the perfect time to look into upgrading your kayak fishing, and paddle sports set up, go check out Kayaks by Bo in Titusville – they have a spectacular inventory of kayaks, paddle boards, Yak Attack accessories, and apparel.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week…stay safe, be happy, and may your fishing lines be ever tight. Until next time!

Happy Monday Spacefish!

Last week I had a chance to get over to Orlando and fish another lake in the urban jungle that I have never fished before – Lake Baldwin. This lake is located on the NE side of town, which makes it an easy commute from the Space Coast, roughly an hour from Melbourne, so if you are a north end of Brevard person this lake is roughly 40ish minutes away, which depending on the times of day, make it more conveniently located than other places for Bass fishing. I was excited to go check this lake out, as over the last year this is the 7th different Orlando location I have covered on Spacefish. One thing I like about the Orlando lakes is the fisheries are all a little bit different, and compared to the St. John’s River lakes, Headwaters/Stick Marsh, and Fox Lake, it is interesting to fish in an urban area.

Where to Launch

I launched my kayak from Lake Baldwin Park, located at 2000 S Lakemont Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. This is a really nice park, and also holds a single lane boat ramp, as well as nice restroom facilities and picnic tables. When I talk about launch spots, sometimes I ask myself why I provide commentary on the parks and places I launch from, for those that know me well on a personal level I sometimes talk just to talk, I do love to talk. However, on this trip the forecast looked sketchy and I always bring a backpack full of clean clothes and deoderant so if I ever get pouring rain, like I did on this trip, I can change into clean clothes afterwards. My hour drive home was much more pleasant from having the ability, and the facilities to get cleaned up and changed in afterwards.

Fishing Report

Lake Baldwin is almost a perfectly symmetrical circle, there are some deep holes throughout the lake. There is a lot of eel grass under the surface, and some lotus pads in patches along the shorelines, and there are reeds along the banks of the lake. I was able to catch a handful of fish in the lotus pads, but most of the fish caught were in hanging out in the eel grass and the magic number for water depth seemed to be around 4 or 5 feet. I didn’t have a crazy good day in terms of the total number of fish, but a big part of this was weather. I was on the water at daybreak, but the wind picked up early, and it drizzled off and on all morning, but the rain and wind really picked up later in the morning, I caught a nice fish in the 5-6 pound range but was having so much trouble with on the water navigation and poor visibility in the heavy rain I ended up getting out of it and letting it pass over, once the bigger rain band passed through the sun came back out and but the wind was still a little on the stiffer side, but I was able to get back out and catch 7 fish in the 2 hours after the rain, I caught 6 fish before I was driven off the water. All in all, I was there for roughly 6 hours, but in terms of actively casting and retrieving it was more like 3-4 hours of actual fishing. After the rain cleared up I had another chance to catch a quality fish, but ended up getting taken down into the eel grass and the fish came unbuttoned. Also, pictured below is an area that was my biggest hotspot of the day, it featured a depth contour where shallow 1-2 feet quickly dropped off to 4-5-6 feet within one cast’s distance, I was able to catch roughly half of my fish in this one spot, think the wind blowing water around this point of the reeds also contributed to the hot bite at this spot as well.

What Worked – Topwater

The morning conditions were perfect for the topwater frog, overcast skies, intermittent rain, and choppy surface due to wind. I fished the Hendrix Voodoo Frog in OG Green, I used the popping version so that I could make the bait chug and splash and cause more surface disturbance than usual. I also threw around a topwater, walk the dog style plug and caught 2 very small dinks, but I was not able to effectively work this bait in the choppier water, or in areas where the lotus pads were thick, or in areas where the eel grass was topped out to the surface. I ended up catch 3 total fish on the Hendrix Voodoo Frog.

What Worked – Swimbait

The Fish, or Die Minutemen in Bugle has been a good swimbait profile, and color for me for the last few months. The color is like a Green Pumpkin with Purple Flake, but due to the windy conditions, combined with rain and largely overcast skies, I added a little twist with a gold underspin to add a little extra flash and vibration to get more fish keyed in on the bait. I was able to catch 4 fish on the combination with 2 solid chunks coming on this presentation. The key was finding areas where thick, topped out eel grass gave way to a ledge or drop off, the fish seemed to be keyed in on ambushing smaller baitfish on the drop offs from 2ish feet of water to 5ish feet of water, so I was casting up into the shallows and retrieving this bait into deeper water.

What Worked – Speedworm

Of course this would not be a proper Bass fishing report if I didn’t talk about speedworms, I made some tweaks and adjustments here as well…just kidding I threw the ole faithful – Zoom Junebug Red, on a 3/16 oz Texas Rigged Tungsten, pegged at the hook. I caught 4 fish, all on the smaller side, all around the lotus pads. So nothing to brag about, but this is Florida, the speedworm is always tied on, and the speedworm almost always produces something.

Ok, so first off, it was a fantastic morning for topwater. In the first hour or so of daylight I caught 4 different species of fish, and one human finger, and ended up catching 9 total fish, in the world of artificials, that’s about as good as it gets as far as action goes. So as far as the “good”, this is my good. None of the fish were of trophy size, but man, it is fun when the fish are hitting topwater and you can go out and have a numbers day on top. The picture at the beginning of this section was my last topwatwer fish of the morning, a fun sized Sea Trout, and here below is my first Snook, and the one that also led to the bad and ugly.

Conclusion

It was kind of a wacky day for me with the weather, but it was a good day of fishing nonetheless. I caught a nice quality 5-6 pounder on the frog, and a dozen other fish to keep the numbers up and make it a fun outing. My only regret was catching my biggest Bass of 2024 in the driving rain, and instead of taking my phone out, relied on my GoPro for images, and they came out kind of crappy, but hey that’s life (and fishing) and the cold hard truth is, without the heavy rain, that fish probably sees in the the calm clean (clear) water that Lake Baldwin is known for, that this is an artificial and would stay away from it due to being in that lake for years and probably having a hundred topwater frogs thrown at it before. So the rain giveth, but it also taketh away.

Thank you for taking the time to read my kayak report this week – I’d like to thank Kayaks by Bo for being our paddle partner on our weekly adventures. If you are wanting to go test drive a new potential kayak, make sure you check out Kayaks By Bo in Titusville, the only place you can try before you buy!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week! Stay safe, be happy, and catch lots of fish! Until next time…