April is such a great month on our calendar as temperatures rise, rains come, trees leaf, flowers bloom, cobia migrate, mullet flood flats, breeder trout invade sandy potholes, redfish roam the shallows, snook return to their summer haunts and tarpon begin to roll. Indeed, it is a great time to be a fishing fanatic along the central east coast of Florida.
Our first early April fishing report is provided by Capt. Roland as he took the three Ryans boys on a short sunny Saturday adventure. Michael, Daniel, and Joey joined Roland along the Indian River side of Melbourne Beach to hunt redfish, snook and trout. Using live finger mullet the threesome had a blast hooking and landing fish. Pictured below are Daniel and his trout, camera-shy Joey with his redfish (held by his brother) and Michael holding a jack crevalle.
Colton and Karen Graham, a mother and son duo from Washington, spent two days using the long rod while casting flies to a variety of species. Capt. Peter, our fly-fishing aficionado, guided the Grahams in Titusville on one day and the Grant/Sebastian area the next. Pictured are Karen holding our first tarpon of the spring and Colton with an alligator gar.
Charles Coleman and his friend Anna, both from the United Kingdom, had a blast on the Indian River near Titusville with Capt. Rocky last week. The official record of the charter finds Anna with the first fish of the day (it was her first fish ever) and Charles with the most, biggest and last fish. Best fish among the half dozen caught were a fine 37 inch, 18 lb. redfish and the huge gator trout in the picture which weighed about nine pounds.
Another charter of mine last week was Tim and Lawrence Horn on the Banana River for a half-day trip. The day started with a springtime-like calm but ended with strong winter winds. The change in conditions confused fish and fisherman alike. However we did have a number of hits along with two big trout and one large redfish caught.
Our final report concerns a day and night adventure of Capt. Roland and the Rinkus men, Mike, Michael and . The day portion of the adventure took place on the Indian River south of Melbourne while the night portion found them deep in the bush hunting wild boar. Redfish and trout were caught while fishing (pictures below) and deer, turkey, gator, and hog stalked while hunting. Since only hogs are in season, the other wild game appeared merely to taunt the outdoorsmen.