The morning was still gray when I put in at the Canaveral National Seashore Wildlife Management Headquarters and went straight into the shallow flats of the Mosquito Lagoon.
Porpoises were feeding in the channel and various water birds lined the shallows looking for breakfast. A few insects were doing the same, so I was thankful for a light breeze.
As I paddled back into the flats - it was so shallow that the kayak bottom was dragging on the grass. The larger trout and redfish were showing their tails as they cruised around trying not to disturb large mullet until it was too late.
My pre-dawn visit to the Thirty-Eight Live Bait shop had resulted in a long wait and no mullet. With the lack of mullet schooling along the edges where I could throw my cast-net - I had to resort to pinfish for bait.
The stealth of the kayak was working well as the fish were very close and undisturbed. However, that is were the "working well" part stopped.
A couple of very large fish took my bait and would start to leave Florida with it, but at the slightest resistance they let go. After trying that routine with live fish, cut fish and a DOA shrimp lure - I decided to see if the fish on the ocean side would cooperate any better.
About 9:30 a.m. I went over to parking lot 3 and met my Dad and son. Launching from the beach is a tricky thing. I have a long way to go before perfecting the art, but I managed to survive a couple waves coming completely over the kayak without capsizing.
For the next two hours I trolled up and down the beach - first with a gold spoon. It was already hot and the tide was low. I only saw a couple people catch fish from the beach. At least I think they caught them as their size made it difficult to tell whether or not they were bait or caught.
After only getting a couple sharp tugs on the spoon and no hook-ups, I put on a large Bomber minnow. By now it had warmed up from just "hot" to VERY hot. Dipping my feet off either side of the kayak helped, but had to be done with care on account of the jellyfish plague.
It wasn't long after paddling through some top-water action with the Bomber swimming behind that the whole kayak gave a good jerk and the pole did some significant bowing.
Suddenly - the air temperature was just right and the jellyfish didn't matter.
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