Fish galore in the Tomoka Basin

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

Last week, I decided to fish a place I haven’t fished in a while: the Tomoka Basin.

I set out from the Highbridge boat ramp just before dawn to catch the early bite. I got into the basin and began to fly-cast up toward the bank. After working along the bank for about an hour without success, I motored toward a different area. What I found was a complete joy to me — snook, and plenty of them.

I came upon a creek mouth where the fish were blasting bait out of the water and, on my first cast, I landed a 15-inch snook. On my second through sixth casts, I had the same results. I thought to myself, This is going to be a wonderful day.

As I was catching these smaller fish, every so often I saw a big one bust bait. I put down the fly rod and picked up a spinning rod equipped with a 17MR Mirrolure and cast to a spot where a larger fish was chasing bait. After the lure hit the water, I let it set for a couple of seconds, and then started to work the lure. On the second twitch, it got slammed, and the fish started pulling line off the reel. I knew when that happened that I had a good-sized snook on the line. After putting on a few good jumps, I boated the fish, photographed and measured it (26 inches) and then released it.

When I finally left the Tomoka Basin, my total fish for the day was 15 snook, three trout, two flounder and a redfish. By the way, the flounder were also caught on the Mirrolure and they were 14 inches and 19 inches, respectively.

I returned to the same spot two days later and landed another six snook. The day after that, I returned once again, but found the fish not to be as cooperative as they were the day before. I was, however, able to land four more snook and a redfish.

After that second day of fishing, I was running back to the boat ramp up the Intracoastal Waterway when, out of nowhere, about 25 feet in front of my boat, a tarpon weighing about 150 pounds skyrocketed out of the water.

With no time to react, I thought the fish was going to land in my boat. Luckily for me, the big fish reentered the water about 5 feet in front of my boat.

I stopped the boat to catch my breath and ponder what would have happened if it did land in the boat.

Who says fishing is not a dangerous sport?