Wade Fishing in the Banana River

Happy Monday Spacefish!

This week I am switching gears a little bit…DISCLAIMER no kayak was used in this report. Today I am going to talk about my most recent outing with my kids. Last February, I wrote a report about fishing with my kids when they were 3, and 2 (read it here)… 14 months later we have graduated to wade fishing in the lagoons. Let’s dive in!

Where We Fished

So on this outing, we fished at Kelly Park East in Merritt Island, which is located on the western shoreline of the Banana River Lagoon – 2504-2526 N Banana River Dr, Merritt Island, FL 32952 – this is a great spot for wade fishing with kids! The shoreline features a nice sandy beach that is located along a nice shallow flat, which means you can get out into knee deep water 15-20 yards out. We “made camp” on the north end of the park’s beach just behind the first mangrove bush, there were several other families on the main beach, so we made our camp a little further north to get out of everyone’s way.

What We Fished With

I fished with live shrimp under a popping cork. I used a 7 foot spinning combo with 10 pound braid, I had about 12 inches of 20 pound fluorocarbon under the cork, and used a 1/0 Circle Hook. I hooked the shrimp just under the horn. In hindsight I should have gotten one of those “trolling” bait buckets and tied it to my belt, I could have saved a lot of time and energy by being able to take the shrimp with us as we waded along the shoreline. In the picture above, that shows where we fished, we walked back and forth along the red line closest to the shore, and I made casts roughly to where the line drawn further out was, with most of the hook ups occurring between the lines. As the water dropped off a little deeper there were schools of bait that were out in that area, and smaller Trout were schooled up out there around the bait. In the 3 hours we fished, we caught 6 schoolie Trout, and 1 small Redfish. I would bomb the cork/shrimp combo as far out as I could and “pop” it every 4 or 5 seconds and then reel in the slack.

So while I worked the live shrimp rig, my kids both fished a “Baby Bass” weedless fluke on their Kid Kaster Combo’s. They’ve now hit an age where the old hook-less plugs no longer suffice, they have to have hooks on their set ups, my oldest son also likes to be able to switch between topwater and in his words “a jig” – I knew it was a mistake to have him watch fishing shows with me (lol). A jig to him is anything that goes under the water, so he now has two combos that we take everywhere, one that goes under the water, and one rigged with a hollow body frog.

Since we were wading on this trip I was able to convince him that he just needed one rod, so he stuck with his fluke, little brother just wants the same lure brother has, so he fished a fluke too. They’re both pretty proficient at this point in their casting and retrieval skills so I just let them cast and crank to their hearts content while I fish, which is nice. They can cast 10-15 yards depending on the wind, but they both speed crank back in – short cast, fast retrieves don’t result in many bites, but that doesn’t seem to bother them yet as long as ole Dad can catch fish to keep them entertained.

Other Forms of Entertainment

So on this particular trip we were at Kelly Park for roughly 3 ½ hours. I fished the entire time, the boys “fished” about half of that time, but they stayed in the water with me the entire time. Everytime we’d catch a fish, or need to get a new shrimp we’d head back in to our base camp, sometimes they’d choose to leave their rods there and go back out to play in the water. One of the big forms of entertainment was finding crabs in the water, at one point in time I had seven hermit crabs in my pocket until we were able to come back in. Once we’d come in the crabs were put in the bucket with the shrimp. The live shrimp and bait bucket also served as a big source of entertainment as well, we really liked sticking our hands in there, taking shrimp out and putting them back, rinse and repeat.

All told we probably spent a good 3 hours in the water, our last shrimp caught a small Redfish, all of the Trout we caught I released pretty quickly into the water, with the teeth and slime factored in, I didn’t want the kids messing with the Trout, but I brought the Redfish back to our base camp wanting to get a picture of the kids holding it, I let Rix hold it and while I scrambled to get my phone from the bag, he threw it back into the water, I wish I would have been able to record the whole interaction, because as soon as he released it, it hit him that it was wimming away and he panicked and tried to get it back by running into the water and trying to grab it with his bare hands. Pictured below is his vain attempt to get it back, but that fish was gone like a thief in the night.

Closing Time

Once that fished was released, I brought the boys over to the bucket to show them there were no more shrimp so it was time to go home. At this point the crocodile tears started flowing, they could have stayed out there for 3 more hours. It took several moments of consoling, refuting their counter offers to stay “5 more minutes,” we went through all 5 stages of grief, and when we lastly landed upon acceptance that the fishing was over and it was time to go home (I may or may not have told them they were going to come close the park, lock the gate, and then we would not be able to go home that night to get them to accept that it was time to leave) we got the dozen or so hermit crabs that were in the bucket out and put them back into the Banana River, and we went back to the truck to towel off, and put on dry clothes for the journey home.

I am now asked to go fishing every day, and whether we got out for an hour on a school night, or for 3 hours on a weekend afternoon, they always want 5 more minutes, 3 more casts, one more casts, 2 more minutes, when there are no more deals to be made, there are tears, there is denial, there is grief – but for Dad, it fills me with pride and joy to see how much they love being outdoors, on the water, in the water, and how much they love fishing, but also how much they enjoy the time we get to spend together.

Parenthood is a journey, much like fishing – in many ways they go hand in hand. Fishing is therapeutic for me, it helps me to deal with and understand life… it teaches patience, critical thinking, it teaches us to try our best and to accept the outcomes whatever they may be. I have found that in fishing, in parenthood, and life in general there are things I can control, there are things I cannot control, and the only thing I can really do is do the best I can to control what I control and react to the things I cannot in the most positive way possible. I just hope that as my boys grow up, fishing can be the same teacher for them, that it has been for me.

Thank you all for taking the time to read, I’d like to thank Kayaks By Bo, for being our official Paddle Partner (even though we did not use paddles this week). If you are in the market for a new kayak, for accessories for your kayak – then check out Kayaks By Bo, located along US Highway 1 in Titusville!

I hope you all have a fantastic week…Stay safe, be happy, catch fish, and have a blessed Easter weekend! Until next time!