Kayak Fishing: Horseshoes & Hand-Grenades in Melbourne

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I was a little squeezed for time this weekend, my football team won again Friday – we’re currently 7-2, and having already defeated Holy Trinity we have our last regular season game this week, and with a win will lock up a district title and home field advantage for the round of 16 playoff game. On top of that, I also chaperoned the Melbourne Central Catholic homecoming dance…so before I could blink this weekend I woke up on Sunday with lesson plans to knock out, film on our next opponent to break down, and a fishing report to write – but all that could wait until I actually got on the water and caught a few fish first! So here we go!

Launch Spot

I was feeling salty, wanted to do some inshore fishing this weekend, wanted to go up somewhere north, was looking into some Banana River spots, but due to a tight schedule, decided to stay close to home and launched from the First Street Boat Ramp in Downtown Melbourne. The ramp is still (mostly) closed, one lane is open, but obviously with the kayak all I need is a strip of a bank and I’m in there like swimwear.

Fishing Report

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades – I thought about that quote a lot when I was on the water Sunday – because I was so close to having an epic day – instead I had a day that could be described as “pretty good”.

I got out to a late start, Ideally I would have been out at day break, started the day with topwater, but I was pretty exhausted and slept in to catch up on some much needed rest, and hit the water around 10:30 am. I started with a swimbait (paddle tail) and pretty much stayed on that all day.

I started with a Fish, or Die Minutemen in the Swamp Fox color. I had it rigged on a ⅛ oz Gold Z-Man Trout Eye jighead. I was able to pick up a few schoolie Trout this way, as I worked my way from First Ramp park due south along the shoreline until I was forced to follow it westward as it turned up towards that big condo building.

Once I turned the corner and started heading towards Crane Creek I changed up and put the same bait on a Mission Fishin’ ⅛ oz Screw Lock hook and started attacking the shoreline which is notorious for being very rocky, I fished it low and slow and the the swimbait roll over some of the rocks without being snagged. The dolphins were out wreaking havoc! The seem to be pretty bad in this area, but there were a few small Snook hanging out along these rocks, and luckily the water along this shoreline is pretty shallow. At this point in the day I’d caught about a dozen small Trout, and 6 small Snook. I spent roughly an hour fishing around docks and the bridge in the Crane Creek marina, I hooked up with a quality Snook under the dock close to the highway 1 bridge on the North side of the Marina, but I got so excited I set the hook too fast and didn’t get her buttoned up as much as I would have liked and had her come off the hook.

At this point I had been fishing for about 2 ½ hours and felt like that bigger Snook wasn’t in the cards, so I spent the last hour fishing a Gulp! Shrimp hoping I could catch a Redfish, I’ve always had more success with Redfish on shrimp lures than moving baits, so I was hoping I could catch at least a smaller Rat Red just to complete the slam, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t catch 2 Mangrove Snappers, and 2 Black Drum (SMH) – I’ve caught 5 Black Drum in the past year, 2 were yesterday when trying to catch a Redfish…it just be that way sometimes!

I caught these 4 non-targeted species on the shoreline just south of Crane Creek, I went down a little south of Scurrah’s Landing, before paddling back to the point that juts out under the big condo, where I made a few more casts and caught another small Snook, and went back into the little cove just east of that point and caught one more small Trout. It was just that kind of day.

Nothing to complain about! I was able to get out and fish, the weather was fantastic! It was warm, but not hot, and the fish were biting. I just couldn’t catch that bigger Trout or Snook, and couldn’t buy a Redfish. But alas, the Lagoon will be there next weekend and we will saddle up and ride again.

Conclusion – Where Should I Fish Next?

I might not have had a killer day, but this is a really good time to get out and fish, the weather feels great, and you can get out in the middle of the day and not feel like you’re in a deep fryer, plus the fish seems to be more active and moving around. This area of Melbourne has always been good to me, and the First Street Ramp is a good place to launch from.

I know this report was a little shorter than usual, but I wasn’t able to fish as long as I usually would, but I will be able to fish more in the coming weeks, so I am looking forward to hopefully being able to fish more and write in more detail.

So in the past few weeks I’ve gotten a few emails from people that are heading this way on vacation and wanting to pick my brain about fishing spots. If there is a place that anyone would like me to go out and fish that you are looking to go on vacation and would like some preliminary scouting work please feel free to reach out – knoxrobinson1604@gmail.com I have been able to fish a lot of places in the local area, and I am always looking for new places, new challenges, new experiences so if there is a place you’d like to see a future kayak fishing report on, I am all ears and would love to play any requests.

I hope everyone has an awesome week ahead, enjoy the fall weather, get out and spend some time on the water. Be happy, be safe, and catch ’em good! Until next time!