In the past, while fishing some residential docks on the east side of the Indian River a few times, I’ve noticed there is always a good amount of sheepshead looking at me while I target other inshore species. So on my way to the ol nauti ice (aka my boat / the name is still a work in progress), I stopped in at Man Overboard Bait and Tackle in Indian Harbor Beach, and I saw a good deal on live fiddler crabs. I decided to grab a few dozen critter crawlies with sharp pincers and determined that today would be the day I catch my first sheepshead.

This week on the water was both action packed but also an off week of fishing. The fish we did find were spread out from one another, and despite having multiple opportunities, we couldn’t seem to get hooked up. After a few swings and misses, we reloaded the bait well with live pinfish and croakers, and found schools of finger mullet being blown up on in the Banana River.

I admittedly haven’t been fishing as often as I planned to since coming back to teaching this school year. That being said, for someone who hasn’t been out there enough during the week to pick up on patterns, I feel like I have done pretty well finding big redfish inshore this late summer / early fall season. I’d like to take credit but since I haven’t been able to go out enough and see what’s happening for myself, I’ve been heavily relying on reports from this fishing community to eliminate water.

I know it’s been a little bit since I have made a report, but rest assured that I’m getting back into the swing of things. I’ve been staying busy, mostly rippin cast nets, breaking the tips off my fishing poles, getting skunked while fishing tournaments, finalizing dock/boat lift repairs, and planning for my fall classes (I teach high school, just don’t tell anyone or make fun of my writing. I’m not an English teacher).

This time of the year is the most exciting time to fish for me personally because I live in the south end of the Banana River and do not have to travel throughout the central Brevard IRL region to find awesome fish. Over the last two weeks, I’ve caught multiple trout over 20” inches, and lost just as many.. I’ve seen a few tarpons starting to show in the residential canals, we jumped a couple but both spit the hook. Also, it seems like both the white/striped mullet are appearing more frequently in my cast net.

This week I had a good buddy of mine in town from Tennessee that wanted to try out inshore saltwater fishing. My goal was to start off in the early afternoon fishing near rocks n docks between Dragon Pointe and the Eau Gallie River. We fished everything from dead shrimp, to live mullet, live croakers and finally artificial lures. I was hoping to put SuperDuperHooper onto as many different kinds of fish as possible, while hopefully also learning some fishing basics during our trip.

Just a quick update this week. I’ve been mostly running between the Pineda Causeway and Mathers Bridge in the Banana River, and from Dragon Pointe to Crane Creek in the Indian River. There’s been a lot of bait balls consisting of tiny fry, which I believe to be small anchovies. When these are present, some unknown fish have been tearing them up, but not biting anything that I’ve offered. I’m thinking it might be leatherjackets. Near Crane Creek and Eau Gallie River, when these anchovies are present, the snook and tarpon have been nearby.

Finally, it has happened to me right in front of my face, my feelings can’t describe it… Last week while fishing for snook in the Eau Gallie River, I was surrounded by rolling tarpon. In the front of the river by Ballard Park was mongos, a little deeper into the river there was mid-sized, and finally near the spillway was juvenile tarpon. I found success early with snook by switching to a smaller presentation, but the tarpon had me retying and trying different tactics all week. This week I returned to the Eau Gallie River / Ballard Park area with a live well full of menhaden and white mullet.

After receiving a tip about a hot midday snook bite going on in the Eau Gallie River, I decided to spend a couple of days to investigate. I’ve noticed the bite in the larger rivers such as the Banana/Indian has been good between 6am-8:30am and 6pm-8:30pm, but ZachTV aka the guy making fun of me for sloppy releases in my first Eau Gallie River Video, told me he has been experiencing the opposite in the EGR.

First report of the summer! My body still feels like its learning to walk again, as summer is more of a time for mental/physical recovery for teachers rather than vacation. This week I’ve been focusing the majority of my trips close to home, around the south end of the Banana River. The east/west winds have been providing a strong wind current in/out of the residential cuts from the river to the Grand Canal. Combine these winds currents with a lot of bait that has been present in the area and there has been a lot “fishy” action.