New River
Posted September 24th, 2003 @ 10:38pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Went to New River today. Launched at high tide (8am), returned in the middle of the incoming tide. Yeah, that's a bit backwards as far as travel goes, but oh well - exercise is good for ya right?
Paddled up New River to that S bend and the fork. Talked to a groundskeeper on the famous (and colorful) house on the corner who said that the past few days the water was simply being shredded by tarpon and jacks around 4. Given that it was 9am, that news didn't excite me too much.
I paddled around, going pretty far up each branch, having a few strikes (small feeder fish, I believe, nothing that put a serious hit on anything). Around 2:30 I wade fished near the S-Bend and at 3:30 I pulled in a very small jack. I was using jerked jigs (white, white/red, white/silver, copper/white), a long silver/black crankbait, and a topwater (Zara Spook). There were lots of finger mullet, some reaching about 6-7 inches, but no real bait busts and certainly no rolling tarpon or anything. I left around 5:00. The area's tough to fish with all of the (very big) boat traffic, tour sea buses, etc.
The weather wasn't the greatest (it got overcast and thundered a bit), so maybe that kept the fish from coming in today. I don't know. I trolled on the way back and caught some sea grass (snags are very exciting to people in tour sea buses, who think you've got a huge fish on).
I returned to find that I had a $24 ticket for parking in an area designated as "for trailer parking." There was no other place to park besides those marked "Reserved" (for the apartment complex across the street?) and "Police Parking Only." I paid my $0.50/hour ($5), so I'm a bit peeved. Where else should I park? I looked - saw nothing.