The last week ahs been a busy one for the fishing guides of Native Sons. We continue to have family charters along with our normal charters of intense, high-performance anglers. The first three fishing summaries in the report this week were guided and written by Capt. Peter Deeks, Jr. while the last week belong to Capt. Roland “the Grizz’ Jones.
Matt and his son Caleb were down visiting their good friend Jake, and decided to take advantage of our great fishing. This trip was a “Fun” trip in that our objective was to just go pull on a bunch of fish! We started the morning off tarpon fishing the creeks, and were unable to get a hook to stay in their bony mouths. But we were able to keep the hook in 20 jack crevalle up to 15lbs, 5 foot gar, and a nice gator trout. We fished the Melbourne area with live finger mullet.
On this trip, I had a great family that loved to fish. The special occasion that brought this family over from Orlando was for Mason’s Birthday. I have to say that Mason is one of the best anglers (especially for his age) I have ever had the opportunity to have on my boat! We fished in the Indian River near Titusville on this trip. The key to getting bites was to fish the large schools of mullet that were in sand spots near floating grass. We had some exciting bites on the live mullet – which was key to capturing the redfish’s interest. Pictured is Mason helping his sister out with her 1st redfish.
The thought of fishing for sharks and tarpon within the calm waters of the Indian River brought Chuck and his son Mason back on my boat a couple of days later. We fished in the Melbourne/Sebastian area with live mullet and 8 inch pogies. This was a typical day of creek fishing in that we had a blast catching many different species of hard pulling fish…and primarily sight fishing! By the end of the morning, Mason’s arms were just about worn out from the 20lb jacks, 6 foot gar, and 5 foot bull sharks. Giant schools of 10 – 20lb jacks were daisy chaining on the surface of the water, dozens of sharks were finning up in down the creeks, countless tarpon were rolling, and groups of “big-boy” gar were sunning on the surface…and all were hungry and slamming our baits off of the surface. There’s not much more exciting than 20lb jacks fighting over your bait 10 feet from the boat and throwing water all over the place…except for maybe a 5 foot bull shark jumping out of the water equally as close to the boat trying to throw your hook!
Capt. Roland guided Bryant Johnson of Melbourne and Ted Lang and T.J. Broom of Sarasota on a half-day charter in the Melbourne Beach segment of the Indian River last week. The trio did very well with a total of 13 fish consisting of trout and bluefish. The fish ranged in size from 18 to 30 inches with the two biggest trout tipping the scales at 7.5 lbs and 8.5 lbs. Pictured below are Ted with his monster and Bryant holding another trout.
Our final installment in this fishing report features Bob Sharp from Mobile, Alabama and his two friends, John and Leif, from Orlando, Florida. Fishing under bright blue skies and strong SW winds, this crew caught redfish and trout. The crystal clear water amazed the three as they were able see and catch fish casually cruising by Capt. Roland’s boat. Pictured .are Leif with an 8 lb. trout and John with a hefty speckled trout.
