East Coast, John Kumiski

Early June East Central Florida Fishing Report

June- tarpon time, and I go to Alaska soon, far from tarpon. This early June east central Florida fishing report covers the Mosquito Lagoon and Port Canaveral.

It still rained a lot this week.

Tuesday Robert Ungvarsky and his two delightful daughters joined me for some Mosquito Lagoon fishing. Our goal was simple- keep the girls catching fish. To that end we stopped at Anchor Hardware and bought 50 shrimp, small ones, to be tossed on ultralight spin tackle. Terminal tackle consisted of a #8 hook and a split shot. We broke each shrimp in half, effectively getting two baits out of each one. Even at that we used all but four.

As luck would have it one of the first fish we got was a 13 inch pompano. Lots of squealing from happy kids on that one! Trout, catfish (of course), pinfish, snapper, ladyfish, a couple of big whiting, a puffer, and a flounder rounded out the catch. The plan worked well, something that doesn’t always happen in fishing. Everyone was happy and we all had a great time. Robert, thank you and I hope you will join me again.

Fred with one of many trout they caught.

Friday found the Finger twins, Tom and Fred, on Spotted Tail, on Mosquito Lagoon, hunting for fish. The hunt took about 30 minutes. Then we hit trout steadily for a couple of hours. Although many were just under slot, we got some to about three pounds. CAL jigs were the weapon of choice. Once that bite dried up we did not find much else, and trailered the boat about 2 PM.

Saturday I joined Tom Van Horn and Rodney Smith on Tom’s Hewes out of Port Canaveral. Someone was holding a tournament and the ramps were chaos. We managed to get out of there and went for a ride.

Zzzz-ZZZzzzzz-ZZZZZZZZZ! Tunny are awesome!

I spotted some breaking fish and tossed a jig at them. BAM-ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! I love that sound! Little tunny, one of the ocean’s finer light tackle fish. They were good sized ones, 12 pounds or so. We got several, along with a single Spanish mackerel.

We knew we might hook some larger fish when a 100 pound tarpon jumped after eating Rodney’s jig. We’re lucky it jumped off. That little spin rod was not designed for that work. We went close to the beach and netted some pogies.

Two musketeers? Two stooges? Two hookups, definitely!

Moving back to deeper water we almost ran the tarpon over. Rodney and I both cast baits out, using actual tarpon gear. Getting his bite took about 20 seconds, mine about twice that long. So we had a tarpon double, both 100+ pound fish.

happy Rodney

 

Getting close!

 

A graceless ballet ensued aboard Tom’s vessel, punctuated by grunting and an occasional curse, and sounds of delight when the fish jumped. After about 40 minutes I had my fish near the boat when the hook pulled. Rodney’s took a little longer. He broke it off next to the boat. After that we messed around long enough for Tom to hook a five foot blacktip shark. After that it was all over except for the ride back to the boat ramp. We left early to beat the crowd!

And that is the early June east central Florida fishing report!

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- Go Fishing!

John Kumiski
www.spottedtail.com