Y ou did not hear it from me but the brown winter shrimp are large and in charge in South Brevard County. This is the time of year where walking the planks (standing on piers & bridges) is trending in the Melbourne area. The popular Eau Gallie Bridge (US 192), Mather’s Bridge, Pineda Causeway and the Bennet Causeway (SR 528 ) are producing some ginormous shrimp in June. Let me caution you, many bridge shrimpers quit early in the night out of frustration just to find out the gates opened up at o’ crack tweet producing a full pull of mammoth size shrimp. A bridge full pull is a very rare accomplishment. When do you go to the bridges?
You go when there is a good South or North wind 5-15 mph to encourage the crickets to move into the light fields. You can chase them from the bridges or by trapping off the sea walls all summer long even when the water temperature approaches 90 degrees. Haulover Canal is producing June full pulls during ideal conditions as well as desirable size blue crab. But this is going to wind down with rising water temps, smaller shrimp sizes and/or significant blood loss from your body from hungry skeeters. For Haulover junkies, there is still life in the brown shrimp season. No chaos or congestion this time of year on that real estate. The good news is we are catching some summer daytime white shrimp at night at Haulover Canal. There is high hopes the summer white shrimp will make a strong appearance after a failed run in Volusia and Flagler Counties in 2012.
We have “eyes” on the Halifax river and have spotted a small flotilla in the channel in S. Daytona. We doubt they got together to play cards. That leaves only one reason why they are out there. Could this be the start of the white summer run in S. Daytona? This is the point where Florida does a horrible job of trying to hide the secret the white shrimp are in the Big Tree area. Oops, did CAM magazine just let the cat out of the bag? These delicate crickets are taken in the day time via a cast net in the navigation channel using a depth finder to ID the cluster (troops) walking on the river bottom. The Academy plans to hold a cast net tournament in July, go to (LeeNoga.com) and monitor the announcements on the forums. Follow the reports and track the migration so you can get the most shrimp on your adventures. Scalloping season is here! If you have room in your wallet, I highly recommend this addiction too. We got the Intel.
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