Inshore Kayak Fishing – High Percentage Areas

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I have two pieces of news to share that make me very happy…Number 1, my wife and I got a chance to fish together this weekend, she killed it! She caught a Trout that was so nice she officially replaced me on the header of this report, so you are spared from my ugly mug this week! Praise the Lord, am I right? Secondly, and maybe even more excitement inducing….my first inshore topwater fish of 2024 was caught on Friday evening, March 1st (my birthday – Happy Birthday to me!) at 6:41 PM. Hallelujah, a Trout on Topwater – winter is over!

Now this week, I am doing a slight shift in focus, and instead of focusign on a particular launch spot, focusing on choosing high percentage areas to go inshore fishing. I have mentioned this before, but when going out in a kayak if you pick a bad spot, you’re kind of screwed due to lack of expedient travel, so when I pick places inshore I am always thinking of places where I can have a variety of desirable depth contours as well as points of structure based on the trends of that season.

The past two weekends I have written I have gone out on Saturday to try new inshore spots, and while neither trip were a “skunking” they weren’t very good in terms of catching good numbers of targetted inshore species, so I did not write about them. After two underwhelming inshore trips the pressure was really on, as I got a chance to take my wife out. With us having two boys, ages 3 & 4, she doesn’t get to fish with me as often as either one of us would like, so when she does, the pressure is on yours truly to make sure she is catching fish.

So I factored in the current warming trend, I started thinking in terms of spring time patterns, but I also knew we were coming off the heels of several weeks of chilly weather and high winds. So with that information in hand, what did I look for – the main thing was looking for spots to fish where there was structure, but most importantly depth changes, I was looking for areas of shallow water (where fish could warm up and sun themselves), but I also knew that coming out of this period of prolonged low temps, it needed to be close to deeper water.

High Percentage Areas – How to Find

I wrote a report a while back, about the free resources I use to gameplan – I used to use US Fishermaps – which is still a good resource, but over the past few weeks I have been using the Salt Strong Smart Tides App – mainly due to the easy to pull up, and use depth/contour lines feature, but also for the GPS feature that allows me to look at other areas and plot courses as well as giving me exact distances for these movements, when you factor those things in with up to the minute weather, and wind – this app is literally a one stop shop for all of the resources I used from several different free websites. Even when I am Bass fishing, I use Smart Tides for all of the reasons I would use it inshore – if you want to find areas with that magic depth for Bass while on the water, and you don’t have a depth finder – then I highly advise you to check out Smart Tides.

So I have this great app, I need to find areas with deeper water, that are also close to flats and areas of shallow water, so where did we fish?

Launch Spots

We ended up taking two mini trips for 3-4 hours each on Friday afternoon evening, and on Saturday afternoon/evening. Friday was a mini trip on the Banana River at Cocoa Beach, launching out of Ramp Road Park – Ramp Road Park, 401 Ramp Rd, Cocoa Beach, FL 32931. Saturday was off the Wabasso Causeway fishing the area between Marsh Island and the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, we launched from the north side of the causeway, from Wabasso Causeway Park – 1820 Wabasso Beach Rd, Vero Beach, FL 32963.

Below are a few areas that were highly productive in terms of catching Trout in numbers, which after two trips that were on the “blah” side, was good for confidence building. The first picture is an area just south of the Minutemen Causeway – I posted a video on my instagram page @spacefish_kayakangler of myself catching a Trout in this area, but in the area there are channel markers about 7-10 yards off the mangrove shoreline, so I know that if I get a cast right there on the mangroves it’s in roughly one foot of water, but if I stay behind the channel marker that bait will be retrieved through about a 7-8 foot depth change. Using the app I mentioned earlier, the areas where the lines are bunched tight denotes a steep drop off, versus spaced out lines, which denotes a more gradual decline of depth.

The next area pictured, is also in the same area of Cocoa Beach – but closer to Ramp Road PArk – I zipped through this area on my way out, but fished it on my way back in. The area in which there is an arrow pointed is where a shallow flat merges with the boat channel, so that is one of those areas where the fish have access to the shallow flat to warm themselves and chase bait in low light conditions, but they can also easily shift back into the channel to sit on the bottom and withstand cold snaps and intense summer heat in that deeper water. The area I circled was an area where the boat channel swings and you can follow it, or exit left into a shallo flat, this area was the last area I fished from roughly 6-645 on Friday evening and this is where I got a few fish on topwater for the first time all year, the fish were very active here chasing bait.

What Worked Well

Ultimately, I am a big believer in where to fish – not what to fish. So that is why I saved the “what worked well” part for after the where we fished areas. But as far as what worked well, for Snook all of them were caught by me on the Salt Strong Mulligan (4 inch paddletail) in Lebronze on a 4/0, ⅛ oz Mission Fishin’ Screwlock Hook. On the Banana River I caught one small Snook, and several small Trout on the Clarity Lures (based in Cocoa, FL) 3 inch paddle tail in Silver Mullet on a 3/0, 1/16 oz Mission Fishin’ Screwlock Hook – I also caught several Trout on a Fish, or Die Gadsen in Pine Tree Schilling (Root Beer/Gold), on a ⅛ oz Z-Man Gold Trout Eye Jighead. My wife caught all of her fish on live shrimp, rigged under a Cajun Thunder Popping Cork, with 15 inches of 30 pound leader to a 1/0 circle hook

Is Winter Really Over?

I am not sure if winter is over or not, but I finally had some good topwater action Friday and Saturday evenings as the sun was going down – I fished a new bait, the Yak Tribe Topwater in their “Old Faithful” color – which is a golden, bronze type color. I did not change the hooks out yet, as I just took it out of the box, but they boast the use of BKK Saltwater grade treble’s – which I am no fan of trebles, but it got the job done. No fish were mangled, no netting was caught, no body parts were impaled, and no fish came unbuttoned. None of the fish caught were monsters, 3 “smedium” sized Trout, and a Jack in two evenings, but man – did that first Topwater Trout of 2024 feel special!

Conclusion

So this past weekend my wife and I got to fish together, two great areas were fished; Banana River/Cocoa Beach, and Indian River/Vero Beach, and a good number of fish were caught. Nothing crazy, no “Mount This” type trophy fish, but man did it just feel good to be out on the water in warmer weather, with tight lines. It may not have been a banner weekend, but it just “felt good” and it feels like were taking a turn in terms of weather trends towards a really good time of the year for fishing. I hope you enjoyed reading this report, thank you for taking the time to do so! Thank you Kayaks By Bo, for being our Paddle Partner on our weekly adventures – make sure to drop in to their store in Titusville and check them out!

I hope everyone has a fantastic weeke ahead! Stay safe, be happy, catch fish, and most importantly – enjoy your time out on the water! Until next time!