Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I had a business meeting scheduled in Orlando so George Wachsmuth and I scheduled a guided trip with Captain Tom Van Horn (http://www.irl-fishing.com/) to fish on his 17' skiff. The idea was to sight fish for speckled trout and redfish. This was going to be a hunt and cast game and we were looking forward to it.....that is until Capt. Tom called me on Monday night and said that it was going to blow 15-20 knots in the morning and would get worse in the afternoon. He gave us a chance to cancel the trip but we decided that we would rather go fishing that have to work!

We met at the dock at 8 AM and it was windy and rough (especially in a 17’ skiff). Here is a picture of the conditions with the Kennedy Space Center in the background.



Captain Tom was able to find a few areas that were out of the wind and we actually managed to see a few reds and specs. Here is George with the 1st fish of the day……



…..I know, kinda puny but the skunk was off. You can see with this picture that the wind was about to take our guide’s hat off but it was OK to fish as long as we stayed close to the western shore (wind was coming from the NW). I did say we were in Florida, right? Check out the cold weather gear!



But the fish were not cooperating and were rather spooky when we came up on them. We really did not see many and only had a few good shots….which we missed on. I was skunked out until I caught this puffer (blowfish)…..




…..however, the captain and my fishing buddy refused to count it as a real fish! Go figure!! I ended up catching another one to take the fish lead….in my mind.

Towards the end, we went across the lagoon to the east side and fished in this very fishy area…..



…..I had a nice hit but was not able to land whatever was lurking in the water. We were now past our time because the Captain was very focused on getting putting us on our targeted species. We finally had to call it when the winds picked up to Gale Force and we hauled buns across the lagoon…while getting soaking wet.

Regardless of the conditions, I would do it again and hire the same captain. He was good and worked hard to try to make something out of an impossible situation. Chalk up another great experience on the water.

Ernie