Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report 2/20/11

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Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report
Sat. Feb. 20, 2011

Moon - Full today
M.F.=  12:00 pm +/-
Temp.: 57-75 deg. (cool)
wind: NE @ 3  to 8 mph, gust to  - mph 

pressure: 30.17

humidity: avg-66%    (41-94%)

rain: 0

sunny

I talked my dad into making a trip to mosquito lagoon this weekend. I met him at his house at about 6:15am and we loaded up and headed out. He had already had to repair a flat on the boat trailer and that should have been a tip off as to how the day would go.

We headed to the river where the day before dad had caught some finger mullet for bait and left them in a wire basket to give us a head start this morning.

By the time we reached the the guard shack at the Canaveral National Sea Shore it was probably after 8:00. I did not think about it being a holiday weekend and there were boats everywhere! I had planned to put in at the dirt launch on the east side of the lagoon at the end of South Atlantic where I have been putting in with my kayak. The Guard said the parking lot at the ramp was full but we could park down the road. Either there was some confusion on his part as to where we wanted to go or you can't launch a power boat at the south most dirt launch.

The guard was less than  corgile but we decided to put in at the ramp just inside the entrance and run south to the flat I wanted to fish.

The only problem with this plan was neither one of us has done that before and it is quite a haul to get there with a maze of islands that all look the same. I knew I needed to stay to the left all the way south but after running up on a couple shallow sand bars I decided to follow another boat that looked like he knew where he was going and headed south. I could tell we were angling to the south west but there was no way to get back to the east until we came to a big flat that I thought was just north of Georges bar. It turned out to be only about half way there and we had a heck of a time getting across it to get back to the east side.

We ended up spending most of the morning just trying to get to my honey hole. When we finally arrived to the spot a single boat was polling thru the sandy slew I wanted to fish! He was moving away so we polled up there and into the flat to a sand pot hole I knew about. The water was real low and it was tough getting the boat up in there. Of course getting the kayak in there was never a problem and I kind of over looked how long a polling job we were in for.

After all that effort, I quickly realized the flat was dead! There was no sign of bait, no muddy water and no disturbances on the water surface for as far as the eye could see. We fished the hole for a bit but headed out of there after a short time. The water level was really low and the fish were just not there.

We stopped to fish a pot hole in deeper water on the way back but it was dead also. Boy, was I disappointed. I had been reading all kind of great reports of large schools of redfish on the flats. My brother had given me a report from his friend who had fished a school with 200 reds in it on a flat on the west side of the lagoon just a few days earlier.

The must be some fish there somewhere but they were not anywhere we were. We did see some boats ganged up on a few different flats on the way down that were probably on fish but I wanted to find my own.

I did manage to catch one decent flounder on a live finger mullet on a small sandy flat off the edge of the main channel back up past the launch.

At that point it was after noon. I waived over some pelicans and fed them the rest of our bait and called it a day.

What a disappointment. I was really looking forward the streatching my line on a few reds or maybe a trout or two. I'll get back in the saddle here in a little and find some fish somewhere.

Good Luck,
Larry S.