I grew up on Merritt Island, and fished the Lagoon for years. I almost hate to try and help, as it has changed so much in the 10 years since I last fished there. Don't want to give you any bad advice . Many places we could fish are now paddle only, and I suspect a bunch are completely off limits due to the close proximity to the Space Center. We used to fish NASA causeway on the Banana River, south side of it, with foot long mullet on slider rigs and catch 30-40 pound Bull Reds almost every trip. The guards on the causeway would watch as the fish pulled us all over the river. You would toss the bait up onto the sand bars at the edge of a drop off, and just let them free line. There was no mistaking when a Red would take it. Like you said for Snook, they will hang around pilings and docks, they like structure, and we used to tear them up with a Trout Tout type jig head with a plastic tail. I found the Red head and white tail seems most productive. Bounce them slowly off the bottom, Reds and Trout will take these also. In the winter we almost always fished deeper water, and either used live shrimp under a cork bobber, and just free-line them. If we were after bigger Gator Trout, we would use live Yellow Tails we catch. When cold the Trout will congregate in many of the dead and canals where the water is deeper. Another good place is around oyster beds, fish the drop offs, and also if you can locate and Islands, just below water level that are coquina rock. The drop offs around these usually hold fish this time of year. Another way we used to fish was the flats, early in the morning using top water plugs and sight fishing to tailing fish. Almost exclusively we would use a plug called a Zara Spook, Trout and Reds loved knocking these things in the air.
If I was down there now and had the time , I suspect you have a cast net and can get some finger mullet. I would anchor my boat along the edge of Haul Over canal , and use a slip sinker to free line those mullet out into the canal. You'll get some snags on the coquina rocks, but I am sure the big Bull Reds still cruise it like when we fished it. You won't get any in the slot limit, but they are fun to catch and release. And at night the shrimp should start running also I imagine. I have some friends down in Mims that fish it weekly, I'll ask them what's going on and see if they have any pointers on where to go and what's biting also and get back to you. Good luck and hope this helps a little. Albert
