Reporting from the surf in Melbourne Beach… A nice pompano made the weekend, hopefully more are to come…

It was cold and windy, but with largely a dominate west wind, the surf remained very fishable all week. I had a few limited opportunities to get out there and took them, and the bite was pretty active.

On account of the painfully cold and windy conditions forecasted for the week ahead, I was willing to roll the dice yesterday on an afternoon surf fishing sesh in Melby beach. I expected to freeze my ass off, and 100% did, but nothing could have prepared me for the armada of Spice Harvesting Machines from the movie #DUNE that were running up and down the beach all day.

If everybody used a rain barrel, it could go a LONG way in reducing the harm of run-off and nutrients to the lagoon. Get a barrel, people!

It was beautiful weather at the beach since Xmas but what looked like prime time pompano fishing days ultimately fell pretty flat.

Surf fishing was simply as good as it gets this past week in Melbourne Beach. Spread out over three days, we caught it all. One trip produced a full cooler of bull whiting. Caught some really nice sized pompano, and released a number of little ones, too.

We are going to have beautiful weather right up to Thanksgiving. The wind will be out of the SE until the next cold front arrives on Thursday, that’s when the wind will switch out of the N.

It cost Blue Origin an estimated cool $28 MILLION to *almost* send Katie Perry to space. Apparently there’s droves of billionaire assholes lining up to pay $400,000 to make the same commercial trip, but it would break the bank to also responsibly store and/or dispose of the associated industrial waste. This is no joke. Blue Origin has applied for a NPDES permit to discharge 500,000 gallons of industrial waste, PER DAY, into OUR Lagoon, so the world’s richest assholes can extend the playground of the elite to the upper atmosphere and pretend to be astronauts.

The weeds and water were clear for the first time in a month or so in Melbourne Beach, so it I finally got some surf fishing in. Conditions were great and the bite was pretty good, too. Ended up bringing home a half dozen whiting for dinner!

I’ve lived in the Melbourne area for nearly 30 years, and I’ve lived almost everywhere here — Downtown, Melbourne Beach, Indialantic, Eau Gallie, etc., — not Palm Bay, though, and I never will. It’s always been gross, and somehow it manages to just keeps getting grosser. I don’t even like stepping foot in Palm Bay — let alone smelling the city’s collective poo pile — and now I gotta somehow figure out how to enjoy recreating in it. I just… can’t.

This 39.6 pounder hit the scales at Port Canaveral and took home first place Wahoo in the Central Florida Shootout.

This 46 pounder hit the scales at Port Canaveral and took home first place Grouper in the Central Florida Shootout.

A few nice fish caught with Capt. Alex Hughey, weighed at Port Canaveral for the Central Florida Shootout.

Friend of Spacefish, John Durkee, got himself some red snapper on opening weekend of the 2018 season.

Fired Up Charters has a big day offshore out of Port Canaveral!

Kyle McConnie got a few mangrove snappers in the surf at Magellan in Satellite Beach.

Jess caught this pinfish in the Banana River Lagoon — perfect bait for a hungry snook!

Matt admires the spotted seatrout he caught in the Banana River Lagoon.

I went offshore this past Friday with pro bass angler, Lionel Botha, who is also founder and chief product designer of Halo Fishing…

Another big fish caught on Capt. Brent Mead’s fishing trip to the Bahamas!