Some tips on fishing Indian River Inlet

During the past few days of very rough weather on the open water of the ocean and bay, several people decided to fish the Indian River Inlet. From the reports I read on social media, some of them fished there for the first time and lost a lot of tackle in the process. Losing tackle is a given if you are going to fish the inlet, but you can reduce your losses if you use the correct tackle for the situation and fish smart.

First, let’s talk about the tackle. If you are going to fish for blues and striped bass with metal lures or bucktails, you just need a good spinning outfit that can hold 12-pound mono or 20-pound braid. I prefer the braid because it is thinner than the mono and has less stretch, so it sinks faster and transmits the lightest strikes. Since you will be fishing around rocks and other rough stuff, you will need a shock leader tied on ahead of the running line. I use 30-pound fluorocarbon tied with an Albright knot. My son Ric uses the slim beauty knot. The length of the shock leader varies by individual. Some will run the shock leader two or three times around the reel. Others will just have a shock leader about 6 inches long. 

Blues, shad and other schooling fish are easy to spot. They will be feeding under diving birds. Do not be fooled by the terns under the inlet bridge. They are always there and do not indicate any fish. You want to see black-backed and laughing gulls squawking and diving and flying around with baitfish in their mouths.

My favorite location for this action is just west of the inlet bridge on the north side, close to the parking lot and the restrooms. When you reach a certain age, those last two become very important.

When the fish are there, so are the fishermen. You can join in, but be careful not to make a mess of things.

If there is an open spot along the rail, take it. But before you make the first cast, check out what the other anglers are using. They should be using the same sort of lures or rigs. Most will have small metal lures or shad darts behind 1-to 2-ounce torpedo sinkers. When shad are the target, I will use a 1- to 2-ounce metal lure with a shad dart trailer. When the blues are in, I take off the shad dart and just fish the metal lure.

Watch how and where the other anglers cast. Try to put your lure in a spot that won’t get tangled with any others. Watch how the current flows. Check out the way it moves your line and lure. Use all this information to make the best cast you can.

If you are lucky, and some moron doesn’t show up and cast across everybody’s line, you shouldn’t lose any lures casting to breaking fish. Trying to catch tog and sheepshead out of the rocks is where you will donate some hardware to the bottom.

First of all, don’t put a lot of hardware on the end of your line. A few years ago, I was walking along the sidewalk toward the inlet bridge when I came across an obviously new angler. He had a brand-new wire top-bottom rig with a shiny pyramid sinker. I told him if he cast that out into the inlet, he would never see it again. He did and he didn’t.

I tie all my bottom rigs for the inlet myself. I use 30-pound mono leader with a perfection loop in one end and a surgeon’s loop in the middle and on the bottom. The sinker goes on the bottom loop, the hook goes on the middle loop and the running line is clipped to the top loop. The clip is the only hardware on the rig. The bank sinker must be heavy enough to stay in one place.

When bottom fishing, I do not cast. I drop the line directly off the tip of my surf rod. I use a 12-foot surf rod, and I used to fish from a flat rock, but now I fish from the sidewalk. I can’t say I have any one location that is better for bottom fishing than another. Recently, I have been fishing where the sidewalk from the south side parking lot joins the sidewalk along the south side of the inlet. I seem to do as well there as the other anglers I can see on the north side and up as far as the bridge on the south side.

Baits are always going to have to do with crabs. Green crabs, white leggers, blue crabs, fiddler crabs and sand fleas.