Banana River Lagoon

Captain Jim Ross

Kids love action and ladyfish provide plenty of that.
The Banana River Lagoon continues to show improvement in water clarity and numbers of fish. Little rain fall over the winter months has kept residential lawn fertilizer runoff to a minimum. This in turn is keeping our lagoon waters in much better shape overall than they were one year ago, when hundreds of thousands of fish were killed due to an over-abundance of fertilizer washing into the lagoon by rain water runoff. Speckled trout, black drum and redfish catches are becoming more of a normal occurrence in the shallows in recent months. As long as we can continue on a path of reducing fertilizer and other toxins from entering this body of water, we will surely see more and more fish activity here. Speckled trout are hitting soft plastic jerk baits and sea shad tailed jigs near mangroves and docks of the 1000 Islands and Satellite Beach canals and flats. Small top water plugs like the Rapala Skitterwalk are also very effective on these fish. Redfish will hit these same lures but alive shrimp or cut piece of mullet or ladyfish is usually more effective. Black drum will hit dark colored flies like the Clouser minnow in purple or black, and live shrimp is hard to top when these fish are hanging around bridge pilings near causeways that cross the lagoon. Ladyfish and jack should be found around glass minnow pods in the 4 to 8 foot depths in the center of the lagoons. Look for birds working over the tops of these schools to give away their location.

Captain Jim Ross
W-321-636-3728
Book your fishing trip at
FinelineFishingCharters.com Catch a Memory Outdoors Radio show host-Live shows Saturday mornings from
7:00 to 9:00 am on
1510 am, 99.9 fm and 100.7 fm