Wednesday, I fished Mosquito Lagoon with Alan and Lucas Kill from Missouri. After netting a few mullet for bait, we found a school of large redfish. Alan struck first with a fish in the 30 pound range.
Lucas quickly followed with fish of his own. Father and son then combined for a double hookup. Despite the fish running in opposite directions, they were able to land both fish.
We left the fish biting and moved on to another location. We found a second school of big fish which were not as cooperative as the first. Unable to convince them to eat live or cut mullet, we decided to do some trout fishing. Lucas made a perfect cast with his baby bass jerk bait to the first fish we spotted in a shallow sand hole. We watched the fish inhale the worm and it was brought aboard for a quick photo and then released. We saw more trout and reds throughout the day in 1-2 feet of water. As the afternoon storms began to get near, we moved to some deeper water near the ramp where father and son both landed several more trout on a cajun thunder and DOA shrimp combo.
Thursday, I had the pleasure of guiding Rich Giguere of Connecticut for a day of fly fishing the Mosquito Lagoon. The wind was not our friend and the big fish we hoped to get a shot at did not show. Rich jumped one tarpon about ten pounds and landed a smaller one on small black minnow patterns.
We tried for some redfish as the sun came up but cloudy water and choppy conditions made it difficult to spot the fish before they saw us. A true fly fisherman, Rich stuck with the long rod but did not land another fish.
Friday, Capt. Joe Hebert from the west coast of Florida and I went to Mosquito Lagoon for a day of fun fishing. Thick clouds and high winds at daybreak were not the conditions we had hoped for. We saw only one school of redfish all day that was being fished by several other boats. We elected to find some other fish and moved on to some areas that have been very productive the past few weeks. The fish, however, were nowhere to be found. Before we were chased off the water by storms, we each landed a few small trout on Capt. Joe's soft plastics. Not one red was caught all day. As we both know all to well, however, fishing does not always involve catching. I did receive a well deserved ribbing from Capt. Joe, however, for failing to put him on the tons of redfish I had promised on my home waters.
