Last Saturday I left my house at 5am and headed forty minutes south to Edgewater to fish Mosquito Lagoon. I picked up my buddy John Sizemore at his house and headed to the local boat ramp. After launching the boat we headed south to fish the clinkers. We picked up a couple of trout on 7m mirrolures but it was redfish we were really after so we decided to head north to fish the flats that were not far from where we launched.
In this area it’s pretty easy to wind up in very shallow water real quick if you don’t know where you are going. That’s what happened to us so we had to backtrack and start over. We finally reached our destination and found the area loaded with bait and a lone kayaker that was fishing the shoreline. Although the water was crystal clear the sight fishing was limited because of clouds and a slight chop on the water. We headed to more open water and I got up on the platform to pole the grassflat while John began blind casting a Capt. Mikes gold spoon. Within five minutes we had a 6 lb red in the boat.
Poling further into the flat we spooked several other reds and John cast to a lone red that we spotted but it took off when the spoon was dragged across it’s back. It didn’t take long before John had another red on but this one was much smaller than the first. Heading out of the flats we came upon a point and spooked several more reds. We fished this spot for a few minutes and were rewarded with another red. We fished the rest of the way and wound up losing a couple more fish.
If you have never fished the Lagoon you should put it on your list of places to fish. There are extensive grass flats that hold lots of reds and big trout. When the conditions are right it is also a great place to sightfish.
There are a couple of reasons I like to use a gold spoon when fishing the flats. One reason is because you can cover a lot of water with it. You can also cast it fairly easy into a wind because of its weight. The trick here is to use more of a sidearm cast rather than an overhand one. It keeps the spoon at a lower trajectory that keeps it from getting caught up in the wind. The best reason of all to use the spoon is that it is not often that a redfish will pass one up. Give one a try the next time your on the flats.


Photo: John Sizemore sports a 6 lb red that was caught in Mosquito Lagoon using a gold spoon.