Kayak Fishing – St. John’s River

Happy Monday Spacefish!

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. This week I am going to talk about my recent trip to the fish on a new stretch of the St. John’s River. I will go ahead and be upfront and honest before I get into anything else. It was not a great trip in terms of number of fish caught, or quality of fish that were caught, but I am writing anyway because if you have the chance to go fish in this area you absolutely should! I may have struggled on this day, but my goodness was it a beautiful fishery, and an enjoyable experience.

Where I Launched

I launched from Kelly Park East, located at 2504-2526 N Banana River Dr, Merritt Island, FL 32952. There are two different Kelly Park’s, the “east” variety is the one you want, the other one has a boat ramp, but Kelly Park East is the place you want to launch non-motorized craft from.

I launched out of Mullet Lake Park located at 2368 Mullet Lake Park Rd, Geneva, FL 32732. There are several other ways to access the St. John’s River in this area; there is a place close to the Jolly Gator Fish Camp that is just south of Lake Harney, as well as Cameron Wright Park on the northern tip of Lake Jesup just south of Lake Monroe.

General Info on the St. John’s River

So I have to say that the St. John’s River has always intrigued me. It is a huge river, a little over 300 miles with a lot of history. It is one of the few rivers in the world that flows north, with its headwaters in the marshy wetlands of Indian River County, and emptying out into the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville. The river was called “Welaka” by Native Americans which translates to River or Lakes, which is extremely accurate with the river forming into natural lakes, many of which are accessible from the Space Coast such as Hellen Blazes, Sawgrass, Washington, Winder, Puzzle, Harney, Jesup, and Monroe.

The river’s nomenclature has changed hands with ebbtides of historical events, becoming the Rio de Corrientes (River of Currents) to early Spanish seamen, Riviere de Mai (River of May) by the French who set up a short lived colony, Fort Caroline in North Florida before St. Augustine was founded. After brutally routing the French, the Spanish reclaimed control of Florida and renamed the river again to Rio de San Mateo (St. Matthew) due to the fact that the Catholic Feast day for St. Matthew was the day after they took back control of their New World territory. Eventually they would settle upon the Rio de San Juan, and throughout the next couple hundreds of years Florida would change hands between Spain, Great Britain, Spain (again) and eventually to the United States and hence here we have one of America’s and the world’s greatest rivers in our own backyard that we officially call the St. John’s River.

Fishing Breakdown

Ok, so now that I have quite possibly left you bored out of your mind with historical information that you may or may not have ever cared to learn, I reckon I owe you a little information on the actual fishing trip. Like I mentioned before, it was a slow day. I think there could have been some factors at play. The water levels were up, when the St. John’s experiences high levels of water, the river expands in the areas between lakes into it’s marshy floodplains, which means the fish scatter, the higher content of water also means stronger current.

Now prior to saddling myself up in the Old Town TopWater 120 PDL this would have meant a really tough outing on a river, but I was able to maneuver and position myself with relative ease despite the stronger flow of water. The issue that was presented however was that with being my first time here, under tougher conditions I was having a hard time figuring out a pattern…And by having a hard time, I mean I pretty much was not able to. I caught one Bass under a bit of overhanging cover, I skipped a Bitter’s Skip Shad in Native Shiner back in there and he hit it on the fall. Possibly one of the smallest Bass I’ve ever caught, but hey, small Bass matter on a slow day! (haha – I am laughing at myself here).

I followed the flow of the river from Mullet Lake Park down close to where the river forks. At this point you can go right to Lake Monroe, or left and you are right there in the norther part of Lake Jesup. I am 3 hours into an afternoon where all I have to show for it is one small (and I mean really small) Bass to show for my efforts. So I turn around and putting my legs to work hump it back against the current back towards Mullet Lake. About ⅔ of the way back I enter into a lily pad field that I had made a note to come back through, enter in and hunker down fishing the area slowly and methodically with a senko style worm until I was able to produce something. I hung on the back of the field of pads and fished a Fish, or Die Ramrod in Philadelphia (Junebug Red) on a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG Worm Hook – weightless and weedless. Whenever I am out somewhere new I pretty much have two basic strategies to employ. Cover water by moving around and throwing cast and retrieve baits like a swimbait, a speed worm, or a fluke style soft plastic jerk bait, or pick the fishiest looking areas painfully slow with a bread and butter Bass bait.

Bread and butter worked (somewhat), I was able to catch 2 more Bass (slightly bigger than the lone ranger of the trip down river) on the backside of this padfield, and after being on the water for a little over 4 hours, decided to go ahead and get back to the launch spot and call it a day.

Bird of the Day – Bald Eagle

Yes, the fishing was slow. But I got to see Alligators, turtles, feral hogs, and lots of cool birds, with the highlight being a Bald Eagle that I looked up and saw flying over the middle of the river, this majestic creature flew over me, and landed at the top of a nearby tree. I ended up seeing one more, further down the river, or it could have been the same one covering ground scouting a meal. It’s hard to have a Bald Eagle sighting and not enjoy your afternoon on the water.

The most exciting catch on this bait was a nice sized Black Drum, I saw him cruising alow the mangroves and I cast this up ahead of him and gave it jerks and let the bait dart erratically, and while these guys are usually bottom feeders I think the action to him looked like a panicked Shrimp, and he watched it fall and went and nabbed it. This was no means a big ugly monster like people catch around the bridges, but put up a hell of a fight on light spin tackle. Even though I threw this bait on a jighead I still fished it the same way I would any twitch or jerk bait. I let it settle and gave it that classic jerk-jerk-pause cadence.

Conclusion

Three pedestrian sized Bass in 4 ½ hours on the water, in other circumstances I wouldn’t write a report about that. But for me fishing isn’t always about the results – sometimes it is about the experience. I am in love with the process, the adventure and the exploration of new areas, the scenery & wildlife, the sunrises & sunsets. The wild natural beauty of Florida is a gift that I am not sure we really deserve sometimes, but that is no matter. The St. John’s River is here within grasp of the Space Coast, and its beauty is both timeless and fragile. It is not what it once was to the Timuca, the French, the Spanish, or the American pioneers that tamed America’s southern frontier; but it is still wild and beautiful in certain stretches, and easily accessible to those with a kayak.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead. A special thank you to our official paddle partner – Kayaks by Bo. Go check them out if you are in the market for a new kayak or paddleboard, they also have all of the YakAttack accessories you need to take your kayak fishing experience to the next level. Thanks for reading ya’ll! Until next time!