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.

In preparation for fishing in the Central Florida Shootout, I meticulously rigged each pole, triple-checked the boat, reviewed the weather, pre-fished a few spots, and even bought a new live bait pen from Handler Fishing Supply. Being the first tournament I’ve fished (as long as you don’t count the free tournament my dad signed me up for when I was 9, which lasted all of five minutes because I threw a hissy fit and scared all the fish away), I wanted to make sure I had everything ready to go.

With the Central Florida Shootout coming up, I wanted to get back to my roots and focus on some local areas that have produced well for me in the past. This week, I scouted out my home waters, the south end of the Banana River. I made it to my first spot just after sunrise, a long flat on the west side of the river, just north of the Pineda Bridge. As you can see from the video, the water on this side of the river is pretty clear, you could see the bottom in water depths of 1-3 feet.

Last weekend was a three day weekend for me and Mini tropical-like storm or not, I was going fishing. The name of the game was finding wind protected shore lines with some kind of structure.