Sebastian Inlet Report

05-09-14 FRIDAY: TGIF! 

This morning winds are blowing out of the South-Southeast at 14 mph and gusting to 17. There is a moderate chop on the water, but no NOAA advisories at this time, 9:00 a.m. We have a decent forecast for the weekend, calling for possible morning showers, but mostly sunny days. 

Fishing has been slow on the jetties. Some anglers have having good luck fishing the Indian River, like our photo on Monday of Jack Graham of Sebastian and his 30" Trout and yesterday's photo of Judy Arrison of Lake Ariel, PA with a nice Mangrove Snapper and Black Drum. Some have taken to the beaches where Whiting have filled the bill, but again, nothing in the numbers we like to see. There are lots of mullet in the water and they should start attracting some of the fish we love! Oversized Reds and elusive Snook have given some anglers hope, but we've not seen any Snook in the slot lately. 

Our first photo today was taken a while back, but it's a day that U.S. Army Sargent Luciano Reboucas will never forget. Sgt. Reboucas is an Orlando native and every time he gets a chance to come home, he ensures a trip to the inlet is on his schedule. Luciano usually takes multiple rods, but that day was just about hanging out with his kids, Lucas and Lunna, so he only took one rod. He purchased a dozen shrimp and much to his surprise, the south jetty only had two anglers on it who were packing up to leave. When he had the jetty to himself, he threw out a live shrimp which immediately got hung up on the rocks. He reset everything and threw in the second shrimp. No more than two minutes later, he gets slammed by the huge 42" C/R Red in our first photo! In the meantime, Luciano is asking himself, "are all the knots tied correctly?", "why didn't I use 30 lb. test?" he said the time seemed like slow motion with all the thoughts running through his head! The big bull Red put up one heck of a fight; Luciano had no net so he asked some passersby to hold his fishing pole while he got into the water to bring the Red in to release it. He said he will never forget the look in his children's eyes when they saw their Dad bring in that monster! The fish was as big as his daughter, who couldn't understand why they couldn't take it home and let Grandma cook it for them!! Luciano explained why and they released it unharmed to fight another day. What a great story and a great catch! Way to go Sargent Reboucas!