baby black drum

It being windy this weekend, I decided against going out in a boat and opted instead to try something I’ve been meaning to for a bit: surf fishing. I left the house while it was still dark and got to Cape Canaveral about 6:30, loaded up the beach cart and hit the beach. Boy, were the winds relentless.

I set up my pompano rig with Native Salt Bait’s clams, gave it a toss in the surf and waited for the pompano to fill my coolers. That was the plan, anyway. After trying a handful of spots along the beach, all I was able to produce was a puppy black drum (pic above).

There were fisherman on either side of me and they weren’t doing so hot either. At about 11 am, I packed it up and went to the port to buy/catch bait; on the way to fish some of the bridges. There were only 8 trailers in the whole lot. Must be the winds keeping people out, I thought.

Now armed with live shrimp, pilchards, and mud minnows I headed to the south side of 528 to be a bit protected from the winds. Luckily there wasn’t anyone else on the side of the bridge I chose and I was able to set up my spread… The pompano rig cast into the channel, a rig with a mud minnow by the mangroves, and a shrimp with a weight in my hand. The pompano and mud minnow rig I let be in my cart while I went up down the pylons, casting it up-current close to the bases, with the shrimp.

After another couple of hours of not much action, except for a bluefish that found a mud minnow, I decided to pack it up and head for home. Sometimes the bites on, sometimes it isn’t. Saturday was one of the isn’ts… for me anyway.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.