Variety Pack Fishing: Kayak Fishing the Eau Gallie River

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I hope everyone is doing well, and has survived this wacky week of weather we just endured. I have to say that I am very fortunate that this year the weather was cooperative to my Christmas Break schedule! Over the past few years we have had nasty cold snaps during the break – which for me & my occupation as a teacher, kind of sucked to be honest. This year however, the weather in the week after Christmas was really good, and it allowed me to fish a lot.

So let me start by saying this report comes from a fishing outing between Christmas Day, and New Years Day when the weather was warm, and humid for this time of year. That being said, I do think the high level of activity that will be detailed had a lot to do with that. However that being said, the reason I have been hitting the Eau Gallie River so heavily lately is because of its wind protection, deeper waters and muddy bottoms which are three key components of good winter inshore fishing. So even though we have gone through an arctic blast since then, this is still a prime place to fish, because I believe that fish push into the EGR so that they can withstand these cold snaps.

Launch Spot & Areas Fished

For this trip, I launched from Ballard Park I fished the “Trout Basin” in the area just behind Ballard on my way back in at dusk, but the main focus/my game plan was to explore the main stretch of the river, all the way back to the spillway. My plan was that if I had caught at least 2 of the slam species by then I wanted to throw in a Largemouth Bass to go with it, and on this trip, I had landed a few Snook, as well as a Redfish on my way down the river. On the way back up to Ballard I caught 2 Jacks, and ended up with a nice Trout right at sundown close to Ballard Park. I will go into more specific detail on where each of the species of fish were caught as I go on with the report.

Snook

On this trip I caught several Snook, most of them were on the smaller size range, nothing above 20 inches. I caught 2 under docks along the north shoreline of the basin between the highway 1 bridge and the railroad tracks. I caught another 3 or 4 small dinks in the mangroves between the Harbour apartments and the Spillway. I fished the spillway briefly and did not catch any there, though that is usually a reliable spot for Snook. All of the Snook were caught on an NLBN K-Tail in OverKast, rigged on a 2/0 BKK Screw Lock Hook.

Snook are pretty abundant in the Eau Gallie River. Pretty much anywhere there is water in the EGR or Elbow Creek there could be a Snook. This is a great place to target Snook year round, and a great place to go catch them in volume. I have caught some good sized ones here over the years, but for me, it is usually more of a quantity Snook fishery. It is a great place to scale down the tackle and have fun catching a good number of smaller Snook. A 15-20 inch Snook can be great fun to catch on ultra-lite tackle, and it is a great way to fish in the months where the weather presents challenges and you just want to go get tight lines.

Also I will talk more about this in the future, but one trick I have been employing lately is to go with a longer standard of 14 pound Fluoro, I don’t even use leader, I just use the mainline version, which is thinner in diameter than leader material, I attach a shorter strand, a “bite tippet” of 25 or 30 pound fluoro leader. I have been experimenting with tippets of 4-6 inches, and 10-12 inches to see what works better. I want to keep experimenting with this before I go into more detail. But I have seen an increase in catch rate over the past 3 trips using this method.

Redfish

So on this trip, I only caught one Redfish. It was cool for a couple reasons. Number one, it was a decent sized one, not a Bull Red by any means, but good enough size to be a fun catch under a dock. Secondly, I don’t catch many of these guys in the EGR, but when I do it is always in the colder months of the year. Lastly, I was pumped to catch it, because I felt confident I could catch a Trout on my way out, and complete the inshore slam. Inshore slams are always cool, but they are especially gratifying in the winter when the action is typically slower. I caught this Red under one of the last docks in the basin mentioned above, I caught it on the same NLBN K-Tail set up, I talked about earlier with Snook.

Largemouth Bass

After fishing throughout a glorious overcast period from mid-day through early afternoon, the sun started to make a few appearances here and there, but the temperature was steadily dropping, I wanted to spend more time fishing for Bass over the dam, but I started to feel the temp dropping with the setting sun, so I ended up only fishing back there for 45 minutes to an hour. I ended up catching 4 smaller Bass. I lost 2 bigger ones by the boat due to head shakes corresponding with me loosening the tension in attempts to get them over the side. I was standing up and trying to land without the net, I was being lazy. I should have sat back down, grabbed the net, and landed them. I would have had a better picture to put below, but alas, I have nothing but dinks to show.

The same setup I was using with the NLBN I used for Bass, but I did get rid of the bite tippet and tied the 2/0 BKK to the 14 pound fluoro. I replaced the NLBN for a Fish, or Die Warbird in Shellshock – which is their new Bluegill color pattern. It generated a high number of bites in a short span of time on this trip. But that has always been part of the fishing back here, these Bass receive significantly less pressure from anglers than many Bass do in other places that we fish.

As far as where to fish back here, you can go pretty far back, all the way to Croton road if you wish. I stayed within a hundred yards or so of the spillway, I fished for about 20 minutes on the north shore between the dam, and the highway 1 bridge, then I crossed the bridge and fished the shore on the south side between the bridge and the first houses. I caught several in one spot skipping my baits under the overhanging cover of a big oak tree.

Jack Crevalle

After getting back on the salty side of the spillway, I retied a bite tippet and went back to targeting Snook. Due to needing to make it back to the Trout basin before it got completely dark, I was in hurry up-no huddle tempo. Which meant I only casted if I saw legit predatory activity, as it would happen, I saw some bait being chased on the last mangrove before hitting the docks & seawalls on the north shore of the river, I was still west of the railroad tracks, but they were within sight distance at this spot. I thought it was initially a Snook blasting bait, but I casted near the frey with a Krome Ave NLBN on the 2/0 BKK hook. I immediately got thumped by a nice sized River Jack, not a true Yellow Submarine, but a fun catch nonetheless. I indeed up fishing this area for a few more minutes, and caught another Jack from blind casting.

Speckled Trout

After the Jacks, I was on a mad dash to get to the Trout Basin, I started for those overhanging trees mixed with mangroves right behind Ballard, I ended up catching a nice Trout to complete the slam. I grabbed another rod, rigged with a Fish or Die Minutemen in the Rootbeer/Gold color, which I thought might play better in the low light conditions. I had it on an Owner 3/0, ⅛ oz twistlock hook. I skipped it under overhanging tree cover and got thumped. I thought it wasd a Snook at first, but it was a nice little Trout.

I made a cool video about how I use the shoreline structure and my kayak as a buffer to release fish with Dolphins present. The Dolphin presence in the EGR is very high and they are all over the place, they will grab a released fish in a heartbeat.

Wildlife in the Urban Jungle

One thing that I think is really cool about the Eau Gallie River is that it is a healthy fishery in the middle of a high density population area. During the colder months, I have really come to rely on the marine life that we share the river with to help me find productive areas within the spot.

Manatees can be a blessing and a curse, what is nice about manatees is that they will show you where the warm water is. They need to keep their bodies warm, so where there are manatees there are likely to be Snook in the winter. The curse of the manatee is that they are big, fat obnoxious nuisances while targeting Snook., They will lay up in the muddy water and they won’t move, I have been knocked out of my kayak by a freaked out manatee on the EGR before, and it is not fun. So my advice is to follow the manatees to the warm spots, but keep your head on a swivel so you don’t get capsized by one.

Dolphins are also a blessing/curse animal. They can show you where the fish are, especially large congregations of mullet. But they can also spook the targeted fish into a bad case of lockjaw. When Dolphins are near, the fish will stay holed up in the structure, so if you choose to fish around dolphins be ready to skip deep back into the holes where the fish will stay hidden. And if you do pull one out, be ready to pedal/paddle back into the docks or mangroves and release the fish so that it may survive.

Pelicans are all over the place, fish the areas and docks where they seem to congregate. But also be careful the ones near Ballard Park will definitely try to steal your fish. They can be really obnoxious too.

Conclusion

What a fun trip! It’s hard to beat a 5 species day when the 5 species are Snook, Redfish, Sea Trout, Largemouth, and Jack Crevalle. The Eau Gallie River really is a gem of a winter time fishery, and a great place for Tarpon in the summer. If you haven’t fished this place yet, then give it a go! It can be hit or miss, but that’s pretty much fishing no matter where you go.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this report. Stay warm, be happy, and go catch some fish this week, until next time!