Kayak Fishing Report: Fox Lake (Titusville)

Happy Sunday SpaceFish,

I hope everyone had an awesome week. I got out on Saturday and fished a place I have never been before, Fox Lake in Titusville. I live in Melbourne between exits 182 and 183 on I-95, so I’m situated about halfway between this lake and Stick Marsh/Headwaters, one of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to do more fishing in the northern parts of Brevard County/Space Coast, and also to find more great places to kayak Bass fish beyond the Stick Marsh/Headwaters.

I know that this time of year, there are a lot of people from the northeast, and midwest that are booking Florida Bass fishing vacations, they’re flying into Orlando and thanking the Lord above for the warm (but not summer time hot) weather, and they’re probably fishing Lake Toho, Headwaters, Stick Marsh, and maybe if they have more time they fish Lake Kissimmee, or maybe even drive down to the Big O. But for us residents of the Space Coast, there are a lot of great fishing opportunities beyond the headliners, and that is something I want to explore this year. So here goes Fox Lake!

Where to Launch: I launched from the kayak launch right there beside the boat ramp at Fox Lake Park, 4400 Fox Lake Rd, Titusville, FL 32796. This is a huge park, that is operated by Brevard County, this would be a really great place to fish if you were limited to fishing from shore without the means to get on the water because there is a ton of shoreline access! I saw a lot of people that parked their vehicles right there along the shore of the lake and set up shop and were fishing, I am sure you could also do the same to launch a kayak or canoe. As far as lakes go it is not huge, but the boat ramp/kayak launch are located in the southwest corner of the lake, and there is shoreline access offered on park grounds for the entire southern border of the lake. So if you wanted to launch your kayak or canoe on the southeast part of the lake it is probably do-able, but one nice thing about the kayak launch is it is close to the bathrooms/pavilion area so if you did want to have access to those things, you could unload you vessel and gear at the launch and then go park and use the facilities before or after getting on the water.

How It Went For Me:
Ok, so it wasn’t a great day, but it wasn’t bad – it was pretty good. I caught 10 fish, and missed another 5 or 6 that I had hooked, and had a couple other non-committal strikes. For fishing at a new lake, I think it went pretty well. None of the 10 I caught were very big, I had a chance for a 3-4 pounder that was hooked in a set of lily pads, but I lost him AFTER I got him out of all the vegetation, which was just maddening. He went for one last jump and head shake right by the kayak and threw the hook out, I already had net in hand, those are the worst! So that being said, had I landed that fish I would have felt really good about how it went, but that’s how it goes sometimes!

While this is certainly not anything to brag about in the size category, I thought this fish was really cool looking in how dark it was. I know that Largemouth Bass are known as Black Bass, but this the blackest, Black Bass I have ever caught.

What Worked For Me/What Didn’t:
So this could double as a “where to fish” section as well – because it wasn’t “what” worked so much as “where” it worked. Which, without trying to get too theoretical or philosophical here, I think where trumps what 90% of the time a person is fishing – and that’s not just Bass fishing, but inshore fishing as well. But I digress, I had success with Speed Worms and Senkos, and all 10 fish, as well as every one of the ones I hooked and lost, were caught in offshore patches of lily pads. I did burn up the banks pretty good and even flipped into heavy vegetation/cover in some spots closer to the shorelines and came up blank, minus one thump that didn’t even result in a hookup. But I wanted to make sure I covered it, and once I had done that, I moved to offshore patches of lily pads, and even some small islands, from this point on things really heated up, I caught all of the fish on the Bitter’s Vibe in a Blueberry Blue Tail color, a Zoom Vibe in Junebug Red, and a Bass Pro Shop brand Junebug Stik-O (which I bought last weekend in a bulk bag of 30 for 10 bucks, great deal!) I was actually fishing with this early on, and was landing it on lily pads, and slipping it off, and was getting bit on the fall, if it hit the bottom without getting a bite I would reel it back, and try again. But I thought this was slow and tedious and wanted to fish all of the patches of lily pads on the south end of the lake, and went with the speed worm profile Texas Rigged with a ⅛ and 3/16 oz tungsten, pegged with a bobber stopper. I would cast into holes or paths in which I could retrieve it back cleanly and slow roll it back. This definitely seemed to be the ticket and I caught 8 of the 10 fishing this way.

As far as color selection goes, I went with dark profiles, the water was very stained and tannic, and it was an overcast day to boot, but no matter the sky conditions that water was dark, I’m talking Publix sweet tea color. The bass I caught were very dark as well, one of them was jet black! I will post a picture of it, it was pretty cool looking.

Conclusion:
I really enjoyed my time exploring Fox Lake, this will definitely be a lake I go back to, I think it’s very kayak friendly, it’s big enough to explore over multiple trips but not so big that you feel like a needle in a haystack. The kayak launch spot was cool and convenient to be able to load and unload quickly and efficiently and it’s located just a few miles off the interstate. I thought the lake had a lot of great features that make it fun to fish, and I feel like I only scratched the surface of what this lake has.

I hope everyone has a great week ahead, it looks like next weekend’s conditions could be cold and windy, but hopefully we all have a chance to go out and catch some fish. Until next time!