Mosquito Lagoon, John Kumiski

Fishfull Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report

The report name may be slightly misleading. We spent five days on the Mosquito Lagoon this week, and although we caught some fish every day, we weren’t covered up every day. But three days we saw a lot of fish- thus the fishfull Mosquito Lagoon fishing report.

The Indian River Lagoon Chronicles is now available as a paperback book, either from me or from amazon…

In reference to last week’s report about the Rock Springs Run, I got the following email from subscriber Tony Magner, which he graciously allowed me to publish here:

“I wanted to comment on this weeks report on fishing Rock Springs Run. Last Friday we had family in town from Vermont. My wife found King’s Landing online and thought it would make for a great paddle for us all. We had never been here before. I must say that Hurricane Irma definitely left her mark. Big time!! We elected to take canoes as we were expecting a leisurely cruise down the river. This was far from what we found. Portions were very difficult to navigate. Especially in a canoe. Two members of our group elected for single kayaks. They had much better luck. I felt that a report of the difficulty of this trip would have been appreciated with your report.”

Point made, sir. There were downed trees all over the place, although someone had been there with a chain saw and cleared a path. I’ve been on trips like that where the trees were down and no one had cleared a path, which is probably why I neglected to mention it. Anyway, Rock Springs Run requires maneuvering, so be ready for that if you go.

This is really tough maneuvering…

…as is dragging your boat over fallen trees. The things people do for fun!!!

Upcoming Events–

-Florida Fly Fishing Association meeting, Kay’s Barbeque, Cocoa, March 27, 7 PM.

Tuesday

Old friend Kevin Linehan and I went scouting on Mosquito lagoon. In five hours I saw one redfish. The half-dozen trout we got were all short. Not very fishfull.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

I had the pleasure of hosting Bob Elliot, a fly fisher from Rochester, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Thursday morning we started out of River Breeze. It was cold. The wind screamed, out of the north 20+ with gusts. That first boat ride was painful.

I poled from north of JB’s Fish Camp to Bissett Bay. The wind may have helped a bit. Bob got two reds along the way. Both were shorties. Both took the same olive and white Clouser minnow. It never did warm up much. We never lost our good spirits, an excellent development considering we had three days still to fish.

Friday morning we started out of River Breeze. It was cold. The wind screamed, out of the north, pushing 20 with gusts. That first boat ride was painful, more so than the previous day.

It warmed up to almost comfortable fairly quickly, and we found some fish. We could not get them to bite, but we at least saw them, slot reds, honker trout, nice fish.

Bob got a rat red on a Bouncer streamer.

We changed locations and found more fish, got some good shots but no takers. When the sun was nearing our quitting time Bob tossed a Slider at a fish I saw. The cast was good, the redfish took. Bob set the hook- twice. The second hookset broke the leader. Ouch. That was the last bite we got.

Saturday we launched at Beacon 42 ramp. The weather was nice. We stayed at the first spot for hours. Bob got two nice trout there on a Bouncer streamer, but the redfish just did not want to play. There were a lot of them! They laughed at everything we tried! Finally succumbing to frustration, we tried two other spots. The first lacked fish, the second had a sparse selection of uncooperative specimens. The two trout were it for the day.

Sunday we launched at Beacon 42 ramp. The weather was awesome. We stayed at the first spot for hours, the same spot where we could not get a red the previous day. They cooperated just as readily, and we did not get a bite in spite of the significant time investment and several fly changes.

Spot 2 looked awesome with a minor biological desert problem. I’ve caught lots of fish there before.

At Spot 3 there were trout, redfish, and small black drum. Clouds kept turning off the lights. Bob had easily 50 shots in the 10-15′ cast range, always tough to convert. Using a Redfish Worm he got a rat red on a blind cast. In spite of being in fish most of the day that was the only bite he got.

So we saw hundreds of fish over three days and got a handful of fish to show for it, tough, tough fishing. A good time was had by all in spite of some frustration!

And that is the fishfull Mosquito Lagoon fishing report.

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- Go Fishing!

John Kumiski
www.spottedtail.com