Spent most of yesterday fishing the Indian River west of Hutchinson Island. Hadn't been there in six or seven weeks. I had made an attempt to fish there last week but had a minor traffic accident on the drive north and never managed to get the kayak in the water. The trip yesterday went more smoothly.
Arrived a little before eleven at high tide. I trolled the Mirrodine along the mangrove shoreline on Blind Creek. A snook darted out from behind one of the mangroves and snatched my lure after I'd only been out there a few minutes.
An hour later I'd had no more action and switched to a fly rod and cast various flies toward the mangroves where Blind Creek narrows before emptying into the Indian River. At one point a snook I'd estimate at between 25 and 30 inches cruised down the center of Blind Creek. I saw it coming and tried to toss my fly in its path but I was probably a bit late.
Nothing else was interested in the flies I was casting either, so once I got out beyond the mouth of Blind Creek I went back to spinning tackle for a while. I tried drifting a DOA shrimp under a float across the flat at the mouth of Blind Creek. It got pretty windy out there. I was seeing a lot of surface action. I assumed it was mullet but thought I'd try a popper on my fly rod for a bit, just in case other fish were mixed in with the mullet. I've heard that trout sometimes will show on the surface. Not long after I switched to the fly rod, something boiled up on my popper but missed it. Then something struck and the fight was on. It jumped several times. It looked to be 15 to 20 inches and silvery. A small tarpon? By the time I got it close to my kayak, a few minutes later, I had figured out it was a ladyfish. I've caught them before but they were about half the size of this one and hadn't given much of a fight.
By the time I released the ladyfish, I had drifted close to one of the arms that stick out from the mouth of Blind Creek. There was a commotion beneath some mangroves overhanging the water. I saw a bubble line and as I got closer noticed that it was a plume of water draining out from a culvert further back in the mangroves. I worked my popper around the edges of this plume and could see shapes swimming around in it. Something rather chunky--a redfish?--came up and smacked the popper. But as often happens when I see a fish a moment before it attacks a fly, I struck back too soon and ripped the hook from its mouth. I hung around there a few minutes, trying to interest whatever else might be back there in my popper. Around this time I noticed a pair of dolphins cruising about fifty yards offshore. I figured that was it for this spot and decided to move back into Blind Creek.
The tide was moving out by then and I thought I might find more fish hanging around the various culverts along the shoreline of Blind Creek, as water from the mosquito control ponds emptied out of them. However, none of the culverts showed much of an outflow. I worked the shorelines with the Mirrodine again back to where I'd launched my kayak earlier. I arrived there around four o'clock and I wasn't quite ready to call it a day. There's a tide pond on the east side of A1A that might hold fish. I spent about half an hour there. I switched back to a popper for a few minutes and just before I passed under the A1A bridge on my way back to the launch point, something boiled up on it. Another ladyfish?
All in all, not a bad day. I've heard ladyfish are fun to catch. I'd be happy to tangle with them all day if the bigger ones are like the one I caught yesterday. Too bad I didn't recognize what I was seeing sooner than I did. Well, next time.
Here's some video I shot of the trip:
http://youtu.be/-MwH2TwL6w0
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