Central Florida, John Kumiski

Mixed Bag Central Florida Saltwater Fishing Report

Thank you for reading this Mixed Bag Central Florida Saltwater Fishing Report!

Thanks to all of you who bought books. Shipping all those books reminded me of the good old days!

FISHING

Tuesday
Tammy and I took the Mitzi out of Port Canaveral. The ocean looked like a pond. I tossed the net a few times north of the jetty, and was finally rewarded with a couple dozen pound-and-a-half menhaden. Truly, I’ve caught much smaller fish while using hook and line. But we had some bait.

As we cruised along the beach looking, there were scattered outbreaks of Spanish mackerel and little tunny. I got a nice mack on a Sting Silver.

Finally we saw what we were looking for- rolling tarpon! I shut the boat down and dropped the trolling motor. For a couple hours it looked like Sea World- strings of tarpon cruising just under the surface, monster jacks running by, five foot sharks making their presence felt, even a few king mackerel attacking the baits. There were loggerheads copulating all around us. We had several tarpon bites and Tammy put a big one in the air a few times.

Turtles were copulating all around us.

The bite slowed down and we made the mistake of thinking we could find more fish by searching again. We were wrong.

More copulating turtles!

We returned to the hot spot to find only an occasional roller. But there were thousands of five pound jacks, many with fins in the air. A fly rod appeared, and several fish cooperated by crushing a Krebs popper.

Tammy lays the cast out.

A fish cooperated.

Mission accomplished!

All-in-all it was an awesome day, as fishing with Tammy usually is.

Thursday
Scott Radloff and I took the Mitzi back out of Port Canaveral. The ocean did not look like a pond. It was choppy and sloppy. I could not catch any bait.

I used the tried-and-true tactic of returning to the place where the fish were last time I was out. The fish did not use that same tactic, however. NO one was home.

We ended up off the tip of the cape. Northern sennett were thick and aggressive. Bluefish and blue runners were there. We got a few small jacks and ladyfish. We saw a few tarpon roll. So we caught a lot of fish, but they were all small ones.

Friday
Nils Johnson and Allen Dronko joined me at Port Canaveral for some ocean fishing. We cleared the jetties. It was choppy and sloppy. There were three of us the skiff instead of only two. So I turned around, loaded the boat, and went to Mosquito Lagoon. The trout bite had been good. It seemed like a solid plan.

The trout had left the building.

We worked it hard all day for exactly two slot trout, basically touring most of my trout spots in the process. It was a tough, frustrating day. But thank you for fishing with me, gentlemen!

As I left Haulover I realized that I had blown a wheel bearing on my trailer. Jim Savage used to tell me, “Trailering is the weak link in boating.” I had been meaning to do bearing maintenance, had procrastinated, and now probably have to replace the axle. Argh!

That’s this week’s Mixed Bag Central Florida Saltwater Fishing Report! Thanks for reading!

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- Go Fishing!

John Kumiski
www.spottedtail.com