As I sit down to write this report, a quick review of this weekend's weather reveals a monsoonal flow of moisture working its way into the Florida from the Gulf of Mexico. Starting tomorrow, (Friday) through Sunday, 8 to 10 inches of rain is predicted. Currently, the summertime doldrums exist producing excellent fishing conditions both inshore in the lagoons and offshore in the Atlantic, but it's hard to predict how 8 inches of rain will affect the fishing, so all I can say is if you go fishing this weekend, be safe on the water and keep an eye on the radar.

In the north Indian River and Mosquito Lagoons, fishing has been excellent with the early morning sea trout bite being the best, followed by some fairly good redfish action. In addition, the predawn bioluminescence has created an added level of adventure to our trips. The hot bait for sea trout this past week was the LiveTarget Scaled Sardine Twitchbait fished in around 18-inches of water. For redfish, our best action accrued in the shallow flats where site casting with a DOA 5.5 jerk bait rigged weedles resulted in some quality fish.

Offshore as predicted, the cold water upwelling has settled in chilling inshore waters as low as 70 degrees. These cold conditions have disrupted normal fishing patterns, so it's anyone's guess on where the fish will be. The key in this case is to keep moving in search of the warmest water you can find and also look for concentrations of bait. This past week, the most exciting bite has been good numbers of hard pulling bonita schooling up just outside of Port Canaveral.

The fishing should remain good despite the massive amounts of rain and thunderstorms predicted, so keep a close eye on the weather and go fishing.



Mark and Bobby share a Lagoon moment together once again.



This past week I have the pleasure of fishing with Mark (left) and Bobby on the north Indian River Lagoon. Both live locally here in Central Florida and had fished together on the IRL over 20 years ago. Both anglers talked about how tough the fishing had gotten before the Net Ban, and both were highly impressed on how good the sea trout bite has gotten. I could clearly see that my charter carried both of them back to their youthful days on the lagoon, as it carried me back as well. Life is always good on the lagoon.

As always, if you have questions on need more information, please contact me.

Good luck and good fishing,

Captain Tom Van Horn