If you know your way around and brought your lucky rabbit's foot you might be able to find a little school of golden glory! We found these beauties around the bend in a small little hole in the wall up the river. What a thrill for about 45 minutes to an hour! Too bad it doesn't happen every day! WoW!!!

For the last few weeks the Haulover Canal in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge has been the place to be for big Redfish and big Black Drum. There have been several large schools milling around. Night and day. It seems that the best bait to use has been Blue Crabs with Shrimp coming in a distant second. It also seems that the best time was at night with a lot being caught either just after dark or just a couple of hours before daylight. We did have some luck in the mid-morning on shrimp and lucked up on some nice Drum. If you have some large shrimp you could even end up with some Snook. Good luck and good fishing!

The fishing picked up strong the third week in March! Even though the wind roared a little in the morning, it backed off in the afternoon and the sun shone bright. It was especially great for some lucky customers the day I pulled double duty. (It sure was hard on the “Ole Captain”.) It started out slightly cool and a little windy but my four new friends were optimistic and ready to go. After two or three quick stops we got into a good bite of Redfish and we quickly discovered they were mingled in with a swinging load of black drum. We must have released fifty fish. The good folks I had out didn’t want to take home as much as they were catching so we took in four Redfish, two large Black Drum, one Speckled Trout and one Whiting. A great variety for the morning. They needed to get in and wanted to have time to eat at Goodrich Seafood Resturaunt before they went home, so we headed to the dock. I hadn’t had time to finish filleting their fish and my afternoon customers drove up. They watched me finish with the morning’s fish and I sent half the fillets in for the chef to fix for the morning fishermen to enjoy for lunch and put the other half in their cooler before leaving for the after trip. After proper introductions we climbed aboard and took a chance and headed back to the same spot and lucky for us the fish were still there and still ready to bite every time we threw a hook at them. We brought in two good Redfish and seven large Black Drum. But what was great was we threw back twenty-five Black Drum and fifteen Redfish. Now that’s a day for the books! If they just would happen more often.

This fine family has been fishing with me for the past 18 years! They come every year and fish 9 days in a row. We always have a great time! They are fine folks and I make every effort to be sure they take all the fish they can catch home with them. We get up early head out just as the daylight breaks and use fresh live bait to lure the speckle trout to a hearty breakfast. By mid-morning, before it gets too hot we were on our way back in. I get their fish all filleted and bagged and they still have plenty of time to spend on the beach with their families.

Four spry silver-haired country girls gave the captain a run for his money in the middle of the week. The competition was fierce between the four and they lacked one of catching the limit of speckled trout for the boat. The bite was strong and the fish varied in size, some exceeding 20 inches.

The days just keep getting better and better as the summer goes by! Early mornings are bringing lots of trout and oversized redfish and drum when you can find them. A few rain showers are showing up now and then but usually right after we get in.