captain neal

Chris SR. and his two sons with there first redfish fishing with captain neal fishing frenzycharter service

Fishing has been up and down as much as my boat has been the last few weeks with the weather. Nice one day and the next day blowing and rough. I have found some nice schools of reds, but getting them to bite is harder than finding them in the first place. Sometimes you can throw everything you have in your tackle box in front of them and they just will not bite. But, it seems that if you have the patience and time to wait them out you will eventually get a bite going and catch a big one. I had Chris and his two sons from Minnesota out and they made it clear they wanted to catch a big red. The weather and the fish were cooperating that day and they all caught some nice oversized reds. Now that Spring has sprung it's time for that great Trout bite to start and I know everyone including me is ready for it. So, good fishing to everyone! Captain Neal Goodrich www.fishingfrenzy.org 386-690-0473

fishing.html The last few weeks of fishing have been up and down as much as the wind has been blowing. One day you tear the trout up and the biggest of them would only be 17 inches. The next trip out you might catch all trout over 20 inches. We still are using pinfish and grunts and starting to use live mullet for bait. The reds have been doing about like the trout. There are some under sized reds 15-16 inches and some big bull reds. One Wednesday my 2 client party landed two keeper reds, one 26 inches and one 24 inches. They had some nice hook ups but did not get to land them. They did land seven nice trout, 18-20 inches. On Thursday the wind was blowing harder, around 15-20 east northeast.That morning when I got started I thought it was going to be a tough day. But I was wrong. It was a great day of fishing. My clients caught 14 redfish. None of them were over sized, but they were in the range of 16-26 inches. Besides the reds they landed two trout. One was 26 inches and the other was 24 inches. With a catch of 15-19 fish it was a great day. I took Katie and Adam from Orlando out Friday. Katie surprised Adam with the trip for his birthday. It was a great day for Adam. He landed three nice reds and lost one by the boat. He also caught four keeper trout. Katie never landed a redfish but she did catch three nice trout. She was okay with that. She kept saying it was Adam's birthday and she didn't want to catch more fish than he did. Wednesday was a cold morning and Marvin and Gail had a hard day. Between the wind, the cold and the water dropping the fish were extremely hard to find. They caught two reds and 2 trout. One of the trout was a five pound gator. That helped make their day. I wish I could have put them on more fish, but they were happy with their day and they were a lot of fun to take out. Some days are harder than other days. the wind, the water temperature, the tide, so many things can change the amount of fish you catch. And some people think if you don't catch a lot of fish the day is too hard. But I'm predjuice. I think every day I can spend on the water, whether it's hot or cold, calm or windy is a great day. Take someone out on the water and if you don't catch anything, remember the time you have with that person. It's still a great day! Captain Neal Goodrich www.fishingfrenzy.org 386-690-0473 fishing.html

The fishing in the Mosquito Lagoon is still good. On one trip with three people this week we caught 9 redfish on one trip and three were oversized (over 27 inches), they also landed 16 keeper trout and one was five pounds. Have you ever noticed when you're out fishing and everything is quiet, your hook is baited and your line is out; you're watching your line for small movements for what seems like 5 minutes at a time and nothing happens. But the minute you look away, bam! a fish strikes. Sometimes it seems like the fish are all down there under the water watching us watch them and telling each other when we're not looking so they can try to grab the bait without being caught. The trout have slowed down some, but the bite is still good. The water has come up some. It had been pretty low and had high concentrations of salinity for a few weeks Most of the flats were dry and the fish had dropped off in the deeper water. But now the water is up high enough that the fish have scattered back over the flats, but if you find the schools of bait fish you will usually catch some good fish. As for the rest of the fish... The reds have mostly been mixed in with the trout. There has been a good bite of large bull reds in the Haulover Canal. There have also been some nice trout caught in the canal with the redfish. A pretty good mix of Mango snapper have been brought in from the canal as well. Some good schools of jacks have been feeding on finger mullet in the lagoon, mostly around five pounders have been landed. There are still some nice tarpon scattered around the lagoon. And some black drum have been landed off the power plants in Port St. John. A lot of the drum are too small to keep, but the ones you can keep are up to 30 pounds each. You can bait them up with shrimp or crabs. Good Fishing To Everyone Captain Neal Goodrich www.fishingfrenzy.org

It's been awhile since my last report... it sure is hard getting up at 4 am, fishing until noon or later, cleaning fish, going back out bait fishing and then coming in and cleaning the boat for the next trip. I've been too tired to do anything else but sleep lately. The speckled trout fishing is still good and the redfish - are here, there and scattered all around the Lagoon. If you can find them and can sneak up on them before they get spooked you will catch some good ones. It just doesn't take much to scare them. On one trip this week with a client and his younger sons, we found a nice bite of trout. On the first cast they caught a nice trout and as soon as we hooked him, a school of 10-15 dolphins came to the boat and ate the trout right off of the line. We caught four more small trout and were able to land them, but as soon as we released them the dolphins swooped in and ate them too. The larger dolphins were swimming around the boat and slapping their tails on the water like they were training the smaller ones. I would never have believed it if I had not seen it, but we caught a forty-inch redfish and release him. He was in good shape, and strong. He started to swim off, but a dolphin grabbed him in it's mouth and while he was swimming off, another dolphin was swimming beside him trying to take him from the first one. I don't think they could eat the redfish but threy sure killed it. I have fished here all of my life and I hve never seen the dolphins try to eat everything you released. Either they are getting smarter or lazyier. We finally had to pull anchor and leave that spot. There are some nice tarpon showing up in the Lagoon as well as some good sized bouy fish (tripletail). Tripletail are some of the best eating fish around. You can find them around bouys or other floating objects. You can sight fish them with a shrimp or a small pigfish. On Saturday morning I had two men, David and his brother Tommy and Tommy's grandson Chris. we had our limit of trout caught at 8:30 in the morning. We found a great bite of fish on our second stip. Sometimes you just get lucky and everything comes together just right.

It's been awhile since my last report... it sure is hard getting up at 4 am, fishing until noon or later, cleaning fish, going back out bait fishing and then coming in and cleaning the boat for the next trip. I've been too tired to do anything else but sleep lately. The speckled trout fishing is still good and the redfish - are here, there and scattered all around the Lagoon. If you can find them and can sneak up on them before they get spooked you will catch some good ones. It just doesn't take much to scare them. On one trip this week with a client and his younger sons, we found a nice bite of trout. On the first cast they caught a nice trout and as soon as we hooked him, a school of 10-15 dolphins came to the boat and ate the trout right off of the line. We caught four more small trout and were able to land them, but as soon as we released them the dolphins swooped in and ate them too. The larger dolphins were swimming around the boat and slapping their tails on the water like they were training the smaller ones. I would never have believed it if I had not seen it, but we caught a forty-inch redfish and released him. He was in good shape, and strong. He started to swim off, but a dolphin grabbed him in it's mouth and while he was swimming off, another dolphin was swimming beside him trying to take him from the first one. I don't think they could eat the redfish but threy sure killed it. I have fished here all of my life and I have never seen the dolphins try to eat everything you released. Either they are getting smarter or lazyier. We finally had to pull anchor and leave that spot. There are some nice tarpon showing up in the Lagoon as well as some good sized bouy fish (tripletail). Tripletail are some of the best eating fish around. You can find them around bouys or other floating objects. You can sight fish them with a shrimp or a small pigfish. On Saturday morning I had two men, David and his brother Tommy and Tommy's grandson Chris. we had our limit of trout caught at 8:30 in the morning. We found a great bite of fish on our second stip. Sometimes you just get lucky and everything comes together just right. Good fishing to everyone

The days have been beautiful early in the morning for fishing and the fish have been just great about biting when you find them. Sometimes you can catch your limit on the first stop, but most of the time you have to search for them. Just keep moving until you find a good bite. I give each stop about 15 minutes of fishing and if the fish are there you will know it by then. If not, just move to another spot. I had a family out one morning this week. I am sorry to say it, but I couldn't find any redfish for them. They did catch 14 keeper trout and some were over 20 inches. It was a good day and the said they had a great time. I know I enjoyed watching them fish together with live bait for the first time. Another trip this week with two men, we spent fishing in the rain. There have been a great many good fishing days lately. And you have to fish them when you can. Those two men caught 10 good trout with three over 20 inches and one 24 inch Redfish. They deserved everyone they caught because we were all soaking wet all day. Just this past Saturday I took a friend of mine and his 7 year old son fishing. My friend used to be a fishing guide and is usually hard to beat. But on this trip I smoked him like a cheap cigar. The reason was, while I was fishing, he was taking care of his son. We went late in the day and we caught 10 nice keeper trout. Out of those fish, four were too big to keep. The 7 year old boy, Eric, caught and landed a 25 inch redfish. It was a hot day, but a great day of fishing. Oh, my friend caught one keeper trout. What a day! Every day fishing is a great day! Captain Neal Goodrich www.fishingfrenzy.org 386-690-0473

The Trout are Still Biting My report will be a little short this time. I've been really busy fishing! When the wind goes North they slow down but, when is backs up to southeast or southwest the trout tear up the bait. On one trip this week with a party of two clients, they caught 34 nice sized trout. all of them 15 to 20 inches. That did not include the shorts. We were back to the dock by 10:30 am with our full quota. Not a bad day. Shoot, it was a great day! There are jacks around too. While catching speckled trout we watched a school of jacks devouring a school of finger mullet. What the jacks didn't get the birds picked up. There are also some bull redfish out there. On a trip this week, after catching our limit of trout we found a school of big reds and decided to play with them for awhile. Chris from Arkansas caught one 36 inches long and his friend Bob caught one 33 inches long. Man oh man! Another great day of fishing!

May 12 If you love catching speckeled trout, you need to go and get in your boat right now. The trout bite has been superb! All of the fish have been nice sized, averaging 18 inches or bigger. Sure there are some smaller ones, but just move off the small bite and you will find the bigger ones. On one trip this week we had our limit caught in 45 minutes. The limit would have been 12 but we only kept 2 for dinner and released all of the rest. It seemed like everywhere we went the trout were bitting. They were hitting live bait the best. The gulp worked pretty good but, the live bait was doing it's thing! Look for a drop off by a flat and anchor far enough off of it so you can cast to the edge. Work the edge of the flat and you can catch some nice fish. Large shrimp work really well if you can keep the little fish off of them. The best bait is pigfish or pinfish. Live mullet have been catching some... but it seems that the mullet does better in the afternoon. Every trip out we have caught more than our limit of trout. There has also been a good bite of redfish in the head of the Lagoon. So jump in your boat and go catch some fish! Good fishing to everyone. Captain Neal Goodrich (386) 690-0473 (386) 345-1006 www.fishingfrenzy.org

Oak Hill Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report (April 23) The wind has been blowing hard... That makes fishing hard too. It's hard to fish where you want to, you have to fish where you can and finding the fish on a windy day is just about a miracle. I got in a couple of good days before Easter and caught some nice trout and a couple of jacks. I saw two big schools of redfish but they just would not bite. We tried gulp, live shrimp and gold spoons without sucess. The trout hit the shrimp and the gulp pretty good. But, here were a lot of small ones, about 10 shorts to a keeper. After Easter I got right back on the trout. They were still biting the gulp and we caught some upper slot-size ones. We went right back to the big schools of reds too and caught some real nice keepers on live shrimp. It's really something to slip up on a redfish and watch him when you cast your bait and it hits right in front of him, he turns to look at it. Kind of like "Hey, what was that." Then he cocks his head and just when you think he doesn't care anything about it, he charges for it and the fight is on! You always imagined that was the way it was... but to actually see it happen produces a feeling you can't describe. Whew! If you get a chance, take someone who hasn't fished out and let them get hooked! Until next time, catch one for me! Captain Neal Goodrich 386-690-0473 386-345-1006 CaptainNeal@fishingfrenzy.org NealCaptain@aol.com www.fishingfrenzy.org

First week in April, Mosquito Lagoon Here it is April already and the fishing is good. The Speckeled Trout have been bitting good and there are some nice sized ones,running 12-23 inches. You can also expect to catch 15-25 shorts each trip out. There are still some 15-17 inch Redfish around and you can expect to catch up to 20 of them each trip. There are some large Reds in the mix as well. Berkley Gulp has been working great on both the reds and trout! Gold spoons have also been good. There is still at least one school of big black drum around the Haulover Canal and the Port St. John power plant. The power plant also has a lot of Jacks and some small Tarpon directly offshore. I had two young men and their dad out earlier this week, and there is nothing like watching an eight-year old catch a 23 inch trout. His eyes lit up and his face turned into a great big smile. He was laughing and yelling to beat the band. It's worth the effort to take a kid fishing. Try it if you have the chance. Let's talk a little about fishing ettiquite; I don't want to step on anyone's toes and far be it from me to start preaching... but I was raised to respect the rights of every fisherman on the water. A little courtesy never hurt anyone and it sure makes for better fishing all around. If you see someone anchored and fishing in one spot give them some room. Don't crowd right in on top of them. Keep enough distance between you so each of you can cast toward each other and not get you lines tangled. Both of you will catch more fish and have a better day. Good fishing to you all! Captain Neal Goodrich www.fishingfrenzy.org CaptainNeal@fishingfrenzy.org 386-690-0473