Your August 2023🦈 Mosquito Lagoon & Indian River Fishing Forecasting Report
Published: Tue, 08/01/23
| Newsletter Issue # 169 Fishing Forecast | August 1, 2023 | ||
Mosquito Lagoon & Indian River Fishing |
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 Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Fishing We have been experiencing the "Dog Days of August" early for the past couple of weeks with air temperatures in our area hanging around the mid 90 degree mark. This means that if you plan to catch any fish, you need to have your line in the water before dawn. The predawn early morning hours up until about 9:00 am is when you will find the best shallow water sight fishing opportunities for spotted sea trout, redfish, and snook in the lagoon system. Use topwater baits like the Chug Bug, Zara Spook, BadonkADonk, SkitterWalk, XPS Slim Dog, or any lure that resembles a finger mullet to target the bait pods milling around the spoil islands, sharp drop offs, shorelines with sandy edges, and mangrove shorelines. To increase your hookup ratio, smear some Pro-Cure on your lures.  Inshore, the speckled sea trout is the most popular species in our area right now. The hot weather has pushed the sea trout way deep this past week in both the Indian River and the Mosquito Lagoon. You can find them around the grassy areas on the flats up until about mid morning. Then you have to fish deeper in the 4 to 7 foot depths to catch them. The drop-offs, channel edges, and spoil islands in all three lagoons this past week have been really good in areas where you can find baitfish and where the water temperatures are below 88 or 89 degrees F. Saltwater Assassin 4" Sea Shads, Vapor Shads, the new P&V, and other soft baits in the Houdini, Watermelon with red flake, and Mamas 14K have been producing the best strikes either on a jig head or under a float. Fly fishermen using Clouser Minnows and patterns that resemble a shrimp or crab in the 1 1/2 to 2 inch range, regardless of color, have also been doing really well on the sea trout. Beaded head flies that have a little jigging action to them fished along the drop-offs have been working really well. Most of the trout right now are smaller, averaging in the 12 to 20 inch range, but larger fish are possible especially during the morning hours and at dusk using topwater baits. The snook bite in our area continues to be amazing. It seems like the snook are eating all the time. In the river, target them along the docks, overhanging mangrove trees, drop-offs near the flats, and along the spoil islands where you can find glass minnows. When you can find glass minnow and finger mullet mixed together, you will definitely find snook.  Out along the beaches, you can find them among the pods of greenies, pilchards, pogies, and the pods of mullet right in the surf break that are just beginning to move up north through our region. Lipped diving plugs work well on these fish. Snook are still around the inlets in good numbers and can be caught using R&R Flair Hawks or Assassin Artemis Shads. Anglers have been catching trophy size snook around the bridges and other deep water structure in the Ponce Inlet area. Around Port Canaveral, the snook have been holding around the bridge pilings and sea walls inside the port and along the jetties. Live baits, jumbo live shrimp, soft paddletail baits, flair jigs, and lipped diving plugs all work well in these areas, especially after dark when the bite really takes off. The best time to catch them around the pilings and inside the jetties is on the nighttime outgoing tides. Snook in our area have been running 25 to 35 inches with a few larger fish in the mix. Right now for some unknown reason, good numbers of tripletail have moved into the river system. You can find them around anything floating on the surface. Palm branches, floating boards, sticks, grass lines, channel markers, deeper docks, and even crab trap floats are all great places to target. Freelining a live shrimp to tripletail is the easiest way to catch them. Although most of the tripiletail are not legal size, a good number are within the legal harvest limit, with a few reaching up to 12 pounds. In the New Smyrna Beach area, Ponce Inlet down into Mosquito Lagoon, and the northern section of the Indian River; the bite for bull redfish is getting better by the day. Most successful anglers have been using cut mullet, live pinfish, croaker, crab, and cut ladyfish on fish finder rigs to catch them. The deep water flats directly across the river from the Scotsmoor shallow water boat launch continues to be a good area to target oversize redfish, black drum, tarpon, and ladyfish with live or fresh cut baits.
As the fish start forming up into spawning schools, the bite for bull reds is expected to get even better and should continue into September. Some years their spawning activity continues all the way into November. Smaller schools of slot redfish under 30 inches are around in pretty decent numbers throughout the shallow waters of Mosquito Lagoon. Most recently anglers have been catching them sight casting with live baits and fly tackle. The shallow flats in the southernmost section of the Mosquito Lagoon around Pelican Island and the Wale tail have been home to several large schools. For several days late last week, you could see them tailing from the southernmost section of Bio Lab road within easy casting distance. Fly rodders wading the area were having a blast casting crab and shrimp patterns to the tailing fish.  August is generally when tarpon become most abundant in the Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River, and the Banana River. The tarpon bite has been good in the lagoon system for fish up to 100 pounds or more. The tarpon have been following the pods of baitfish up and down the deeper waters in the ICW channels from New Smyrna Beach down into the Mosquito Lagoon and into sections of the Indian River. Fish the deeper edges of the ICW, the south bridge at New Smyrna, Haulover Canal betweem the Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River, and any of the dredge holes around the causeways. Some of the pilings in the Pineada, Coco Beach, and Melbourne areas are also holding some decent schools of tarpon. Most of the time you will find tarpon in the 10 to 15 foot depths and down to 20 feet in the deeper dredge holes. The deeper flats of the Mosquito Lagoon and northern Indian River, the north and south side of the NASA Causeway, the power lines right outside of the Port Malibar area, and the area from the Indian Mound Fish Camp north to Dick's Cut up in the Oak Hill and Edgewater areas are also good places to target tarpon this month. Fishing a live pigfish, pilchard, croaker, or mullet under an R&R float is a great way to target rolling tarpon, especially during the middle of the day. Later in the day, artificial baits are more effective. Most of these fish are running between 50 to 100 pounds. Juvenile tarpon and ladyfish of all sizes can be found in the backwaters and are great action on 7 wt to 9 wt fly tackle. Deceivers, Tarpon Bunny type flies, and anything that resembles a small baitfish or crab will hook them. The Vistas in the Canaveral National Seashore along the road heading to Playalinda Beach, the mangrove shorelines along the southernmost portion of the Mosquito Lagoon, the weedy flats along East Gator Creek road, and farther south, the deep flats along the Pineda Causeway leading into Patrick SFB can also be productive areas to look for tarpon during the summer months. They can be spotted almost any time of the day rolling in the residential canals, the mouths of the feeder creeks, around the bridge pilings, and the dredge holes.
Offshore and Nearshore Fishing
We are fortunate that the king mackerel bite in our area is good the year round. Slow trolling with live pogies, mullet, greenies, or pilchards on the 70 to 90 foot reefs and wrecks anywhere from Sebastian all the way up to Ponce Inlet typically yields good numbers of king mackerel, especially this time of the year. Right now it's smoker season on the Space Coast. During the summer months around the new or full moons, the larger smoker kings in the 25 to 40 plus pound range move in closer to the beach and can be caught in less than 10 feet of water, especially when the bait fish are in tight to the shoreline. The inlet tide lies, the Canaveral sipping channel, and bait pods in less than 40 feet of water are great places to troll your live bait for kingfish this time of the year. Anglers targeting the larger kings have been slow trolling ribbonfish right in the prop wash or on a downrigger over bait pods, near reef structures, or along the drop-offs coming in and out of the channels and along the tidelines.  During this time of the year, cold water upwellings often move into our region and push the fish inshore; so if the fish aren't on the deeper reefs, move closer inshore. Better yet, with the current price of fuel, check the inshore spots first before you run out deeper to save some fuel. During the summer months out of Port Canaveral, always try for kingfish in the midway depths between 20 and 45 feet, as well as the 80 to 90 foot reefs farther out. The average king mackerel for our area is around 15 to 25 pounds, but we have a lot of fish pushing 30 to 35 pounds. Smokers over 40 pounds are not uncommon this time of the year and we can expect to see a lot more of them coming in as we get into the full moon this month. When slow trolling live baits this month, keep an eye out for Cobia, especially if we get a cold water upwelling. The cooler water could push a cobia up into your spread. The wrecks and reefs in the 60 to 90 foot depths out of Port Canaveral are holding some smaller size cobia. Targeting Pelican Flats and the 8A out of Port Canaveral, the 9 and 12 mile reefs out of Ponce Inlet, and the Pines and High Bar out of Sebastian is a good bet for cobia this month. Mangrove snapper are schooling up for their spawn right now in all the same areas where you catch king mackerel. The Party Grounds, East 11, and Site 12 out of Ponce; Chris Benson in between Ponce and Canaveral, 8A and Pelican Flats as you get closer to Canaveral, and the High Bar and Pines out of Sebastian are all good places to target Mangrove Snapper.  Chumming with bits of sardines or herring and then floating a bait back into the chum is typically the best way to catch the bigger mangroves in these areas. Getting the bigger fish to come off the bottom into the water column keeps you from getting broken off in the structure. Most of the mangrove snapper have been running in the 3 to 5 pound range but 10 pounders are possible every day of the week right now. The inshore the shark bite is still on fire in our near coastal waters. Spinner sharks, hammer heads, sharpnose, black tips, bulls, nurse, and fine tooth sharks are all being caught on inshore rigs even if you aren't targeting them. Even in the lagoons you can find bull sharks hanging around the schools of tarpon and the baitfish pods. Good numbers of tarpon are running along our beaches right now feeding on mullet, croakers, pigfish, pogies and just about anything they come across. For the next few weeks you will have an opportunity to catch big tarpon anywhere inside of the 50 foot depths in our area. Slow trolling or drifting a live bait on an R&R float through the bait pods first thing in the morning close to the surf break can hook you up with a 150 pound class tarpon this month. Farther offshore in deeper water, you can find the tarpon hanging around the bait pods. For the next few weeks in our area, anglers will have an opportunity to catch a big tarpon anywhere inside of the 50 foot depths. Although snook are out of season right now, they are always on the menu for catch and release. A good way to locate them is to drop a live bait down to the bottom on a slip sinker or a knocker rig. A lot of guys use a jig head with a pilchard hooked through the top of the mouth to catch snook around the rocks. This method gives the angler more control of the bait. Most of the snook being caught right now are running in the 30 to 40 inch category, and there are a lot of them out there. At Port Canaveral, the snook have been hanging inside the Port along the bridge pilings and the corners or the sea walls. In the daytime, the key to catching them is to use live baits like croakers, pogies, or jumbo shrimp. The fish have had almost every lure known to man tossed at them and will seldom hit during daylight hours. At night when fishing around the inlets and bridge pilings, lipped diving plugs and hair jigs work almost as good as live baits. Surf Fishing  During the summer months, whiting is the main species targeted by surf fishermen along Space Coast beaches.When summer temperatures heat up, so does the surf bite. Whiting, croakers, lookdowns, juvenile black drum, snook, and a variety of sharks become targets of surf fishermen. When the bait pods start to show up tight against the sand; snook, tarpon, bluefish, mackerel, and sharks will follow. A lot of anglers in our region like to use light tackle 7 1/2 foot "river rods" with knocker rigs or sliding sinker rigs to fish for whiting in the near shore troughs. Sand fleas are the best bait for pompano and whiting, but fishbites, fish gum, and small live or pieces of peeled fresh dead shrimp also work well. Among the worm rock shorelines at Patrick SFB and the rocky jetty at Port Canaveral, some nice mangrove snappers, snook, and flounder are being caught. Live mullet and fresh cut baits on a fish finder rig have been producing around the bait pods.
There is an elite group of surf fishermen who like targeting big sharks from the surf using stout rods, heavy braid lines, a short piece of wire or a heavy piece of mono leader tied on an 8/0 to 12/0 circle hook, with a live whiting or finger mullet for bait, on an 8000 or larger reel. Big sharks put up a great fight and there are a lot of them out there right
now that you might hook up with whether you want to or not.
Most shark caught from the surf are under 5 feet in length, but Bull Sharks, Nurse Sharks, Black Tips, Bonnetheads, and even some Hammerheads over 6 feet are always a possibility. Don't forget that if you plan to target sharks from land, you must take and complete the free shark permit course through FWC. Haulover Canal
 As the air temperatures continue to soar, the bull redfish bite in Haulover Canal and the channels in the ICW get better by the day. Anglers have been catching and releasing some nice redfish from the banks and from anchored small craft at Haulover using live blue crabs, live pinfish, and croakers for bait. Sliding sinker rigs and knocker rigs fished on the bottom work best. As the redfish form into spawning schools, they travel from the Mosquito Lagoon through the deep waters of Haulover Canal into the northernmost deep water flats of the Indian River to conduct their spawning activity. From late July up until October it pays to target the deeper waters of Haulover Canal, the bridges along the ICW channel, and the deep water flats north of Titusville for bull redfish in the 40 inch plus category.
Contrary to some popular opinion, the best bite at Haulover occurs at the opposite end of the canal that the wind is blowing the current. For some reason, the reds gather up current. Sliding sinker rigs with a large 6/0 or 7/0 VMC circle hook and half of a fresh blue crab is considered by far to be the bait of choice for big redfish, but live Croakers, pinfish, mullet, and large chunks of fresh cut ladyfish also work well. Spiny Lobster
For additional information on harvesting Spiny Lobster Click Here. Till Next Month, Good Fishing & Tight Lines To You All!
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