Bragging Rights Blowout

Chuck Martin had set up a fishing trip this moring and included his longtime friend Ron and his father-in-law Paul.  We met at the Atlantic Seafood dock at 7am and headed up towards Tiger Island to fish some flooded oysters.  The tide was still coming in so I had rigged up 3 rods with topwater lures.  The guys began warming up and getting the rust off, tossing the topwaters to the grass line and a couple of times they had a few rolls at the lures, but no takers.  I was just about to break out the float rigs and wasn't really paying attention when I saw that Paul had a fish on.  A BIG fish on!  His light tackle Shimano Stradic 1000 was ripping with the line going out, but Paul kept the rod up an pressure on.  I pointed the boat out to deeper water and away from the oysters and Paul had a battle on his hands.  He slowly worked the fish in but it made a couple of more runs.  When we finally netted and measured the fish we found that we had a Braggin Rights Tournament busting fish at 30 1/2"!  Wow what a fish!  The anglers eventually did switch to the float rigs and mud minnows and picked up a good mess of Seatrout, a couple of Ladyfish and Needlefish.  Chuck put a nice keeper sized Flounder in the box,  rounding out the groups Amelia Island Back Country Slam. Before we left the area, I switched the guys to a jig rig and trolled along an area where I knew there weren't many oysters.  They caught more Trout then Ron hooked up with something bigger and had a good battle with a nice Slot Redfish, having played it perfectly.  We ran up to the Jolley River and here it was non stop fish catching!  Seatrout after Seatrout after Seatrout - most undersized, but Chuck found a nice 19" keeper sized one and Ron added another.  They mixed in a couple of more feisty Redfish. then we headed in, counting it as another great day to be out on Amelia Island waters!