From Football to Fishing

Peter Pray from the Atlanta area was in town to see FSU and Bobby Bowden's great game and extended his visit to get in some Amelia Island fishing. Although the air temperature was in the mid 30's, he and I both were dressed warmly and with the sun shining, we left the dock around 10am. It was a high tide, just starting out and we had a wind blowing 15-20mph, so we headed to Lanceford Creek for some protection. Peter warmed up and was tossing a jig/grub to the dock pilings as we trolled by. With no real bites, we pulled up and tried another dock system, but anglers had staked it out (and were pulling in trout left and right), so we moved on. We fished some run outs along the intercoastal, motored down to "Poteat cut" and anchored at a run out, spending a short time sharing some tasty Publix sandwiches that Peter had brought, then we moved on to Jackstaff, switching to a buctail jig tipped with mud minnows. The wind was really cranking now and my trolling motor was straining against the wind and current. We attempted to fish the rocks at Seymour's Pointe but the anchor continued to pull, so we trolled the docks. With bites few and far between we pulled up and ran back up the intercoastal, stopping at Rayonier's warehouse. After only a few casts of his jig/grub, Peter had a couple of good bites on the bottom, then UMPH, the fight was on! Peter played the fish like a pro and eventually boated a nice, fat 20" Trout. We also picked up a nice 18" Redfish from up in the pilings on one of the bucktail jigs tipped with a shrimp. This was some fairly tough fishing, but Peter stuck with it and prevailed. Other than the wind, it was a beautiful day to be out on the water.