Day 4 and 5
Finally found some fish to be caught. While dining a restaurant at Port Canveral, a fisherman made a comment on how many snook were piled underneath the dock of the restaurant. I thought we were too far north for snook, but a teenager at the tackle shop confirmed a monster snook break-off he had the day before.
It felt awkward floating a small plastic Jon boat around Yachts, barges and Carnival Cruise ships, but we stayed close to the launch site and fished the pile-ons and docks.
First night, right off the bat, I lost an ENORMOUS snook...atleast 40 inches. He made four giant water-thrashing head shaking leaps before he gill raked the severed 40lb leader.
The next night, I took a plunge at the boat ramp pushing my jon boat away from a $70K boat....
It killed my cellphone and flashlight, and made for a shaky start....but we trolled around to the structures and finally got into a few fish...barely scatching the surface of what the water held. Mangrove snapper, grunts, snook and redfish saved our trip's fishing success.
Security was tight near the AirForce property and docked boats. The police kept checking by as the wind pushed us close to the bank, so we finally packed up and left.
In the lamplight, you could see swarms of snook, several over 3 ft long--others probably over 50 inches!!!!
With a bigger boat and an anchor line, I'll return one day to catch one of those 20 to 40 lb fish that I saw.
The 11 hour drive home had me imagining the day we could return, armed with a more appropriate vessel to fish the Jetty, which the locals confirmed was absolutely loaded with fish. The good thing about Port Canaveral, is that the tidal flow is not nearly as powerful as Fort Pierce.
The draw back is the numerous large ships which creates a navigation challenge.
Crystal's first baby redfish and snook:
A decent sized snook...but still a baby compared tot he ones we spotted:
Now back to the grind. Life's busy again, but East TN is revealing a few other mean fish of it's own. Stripers and trout will tide me over until the next Florida getaway.
Travis