New Smyrna Beach Area - Indian River Lagoon - Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report

December 19, 2021

Closing out a great 2021! Blessed to have had a record year fishing with people from across the United States. We spent lots of days fishing around New Smyrna Beach, Ponce Inlet, and the northern half of Mosquito Lagoon for snook and big redfish. Snook fishing was the best ever in the upper reaches of Mosquito Lagoon. We caught great numbers of snook in the 34-38” range mixing days up around big 40” bull redfish action. Still god numbers of black drum and speckled trout in Mosquito Lagoon area. Redfish numbers seem to have improved a little as well with more smaller redfish in the shallows. In addition to those, we caught tarpon, flounder, jack crevalle, bluefish, snapper, and sharks! As we conținue on in post covid19 world, just grateful to be living my best life, healthy, and with a thriving and growing business.

Of special Note…the next few months are some of the busiest months of the year. Don’t wait till last minute to schedule. My calendar will again be packed full with folks here for holiday travel, winter vacations, or spring breaks. January, February and March are already quickly filling so don’t wait!

Splitting time between both the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon this winter. Each has good water clarity for sight casting. Redfish, black drum, speckled trout, snook, juvenile tarpon…all have been more active around different ends of the cold fronts. Which that’s the way it’ll play out until April as we adapt where we fish and what we target around the passing cold fronts.

Sight casting redfish in the Lagoon area has been good since Halloween. Water clarity is pretty great around the cold fronts which puts us on the shallow flats working the push pole with lures and live bait. Seeing more smaller redfish on the flats in Mosquito Lagoon than in few years past, hopefully that continues and we see some good schooling action as the water levels drop. January through March tends to be the best shallow water redfish action of the year. Still some groups of big 40 inch redfish hanging around. Winding it down on those till later in the spring though unless the conditions warrant it.

Snook are schooling up in the deeper sections of the Mosquito Lagoon and New Smyrna Beach for the colder temps then spreading out when it gets warmer. Definitely not finding the numbers like we saw last year by this time in waters closer to Ponce Inlet, but we’ve had no cold weather for a couple weeks to force them to school up. So we’ll see how it improves over the coming month or two. The snook we are finding are being ultra picky when we are sight casting them. So only a few each days has been the average. We should have quality snook fishing from now way out through May with many of those days seeing 20-30 caught per day.

Catching smaller speckled trout in the sloughs in Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River Lagoon on the warming patterns. Finding bigger trout over 5 pounds laid up in the shallows when it has been cold. Will be the pattern for the next month or so until the water levels drop. Same theme for the black drum in the same areas. Bigger ones showing up when it’s cold and smaller ones roaming the rest of the time. Haven’t had some cold temps in a few weeks, but some coming in the future forecast. Couple isolated pockets of small tarpon around in December, which tends to be the case with the warmer temps. They aren’t terribly active but do find some days where they wanna bite but lots of others that most days won’t touch a thing.

January, and February are filling up quickly. Have about 15 days left open in each. March and April are super busy. Don’t wait till last minute to make spring break plans or you’ll mis out. I take last second scheduling if time permits. Text me or call me at 386-212-4931 or even send me an email to secure a date. Read my fishing charter page to view the top reasons why you should book your trip with me today. I look forward to fishing with you soon…