03-19-2002, 07:23 PM
Capt. Rob Blake’s fishing report from Florida’s Mosquito Lagoon and Upper Indian River-updated March 19, 2002.<br><br>It's less than a month before the 2nd Annual Mercury Redbone @ Large Fishing Tournament in Mosquito Lagoon. I know my anglers, Scott Jacobson and John Brazelton of Redington Fly Rods are gearing up for a good time. Anyone interested in participating in the Redbone Tournament, or to simply get more information, should contact Diane Kudrick at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (407) 896-1113. The tournament will be held out of JBs Fish Camp on April 12, 13, and 14th and all proceeds go to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Catch the Cure!<br><br>My local Maverick dealer tells me that my new Maverick Mirage HPX will be delivered this Friday in Titusville, so I have only a short time to break things in before the big tourney. <br><br>Spring is here! Soon the waters of the Mosquito Lagoon will fill to levels we haven't seen a quite a while, allowing the reds and spotted seatrout to venture into the backwaters in search of food. Expect schooling fish to be feeding aggressively at daybreak and beyond. Fly anglers should be pleased with first light conditions-lots of tails in the air! I haven't seen any black drum on the flats in a couple of weeks, a sign that warmer conditions are on the way. <br><br>Fishing has been spectacular this past week! My girlfriend and I spent the weekend out on the water with our dog and got into some monster redfish. After stalking these fish for around 15 minutes, she hooked up to an incredibly fat 51" redfish that bent her rod for over 30 minutes. The big female redfish weighed in at 42 pounds. The secret to her success on this day was precision casting. Slick calm conditions usually means extremely spooky fish, but she made the cast she needed to make…and it paid off. What a behemoth! This fish made her early morning catches of 12-13 pound fish seem trivial.<br><br>Pictures of her big redfish can be seen at:<br><br>http://www.cruisebrevard.com/fishreports/reports.cfm?ID=599&Captain=9<br><br>On Monday, I took repeat client Mike Carlson, of Melbourne, out on Mosquito Lagoon in hopes of a repeat performance on the big redfish. We started out on some slot redfish just to warm up, but were soon surprised to catch an 18-pound red before we even went looking for the big boys. Maybe it was a signal to go…so we did, and off we went to look for the giants.<br><br>After a slow 45 minutes of poling around and hunting for the big fish, we found them. Mike skillfully tossed a giant live shrimp into the fray and the fish charged it. The first one missed, but the second inhaled the bait and the fight was on. About 25 minutes later, we had a 30-pound redfish in the boat and one very happy angler.<br><br>A weak cold front is scheduled to move through on Thursday evening, but I wouldn't expect any adverse effects. Expect a quick return to warmer weather. Enjoy the weekend, it's going to be a gorgeous one temperature wise, however we'll have a bit more wind than we've had the past week.<br><br><br>Capt. Rob Blake<br>www.redfishonfly.com<br>1-866-RED-DRUM Toll Free<br>1-321-633-0923 local<br>1-321-544-5041 cell<br><br><br><br><br><br>Contact Capt. Rob at 1-866-RED-DRUM <br>or 321-633-0923 or 321-544-5041 (cell).