February Redfish at Amelia Island

Margaret Kiely and her son Will were visiting Amelia Island and her parents, local photographers Libby and Clyde Wilkes this past Presidents Day weekend.   I've had the pleasure of fishing with young Will a few times and it was great to see this fine angler again.  When I named my business The Anglers Mark, it was anglers like Will that I had in mind!  It's a little more difficult to see it in older anglers who've got mortgages, jobs, kids, and bills weighing on them, but my young anglers who have "the Mark",  step on the boat with nothing but fishing passion.  They're in to fishing and are going to cast from the minute they step on the boat until we pull back in to the marina.   I had received an eMail from the adults that they may need to cancel the fishing trip due to the extreme cold that was forecast.  The first thing I thought was, "I bet Will hasn't weighed in with his opinion yet!"  Sure enough, we decided to make a go of the fishing trip and planned to meet at 7:30am yesterday morning at the Atlantic Seafood down at the City marina.  As I was heading to my boat I noticed the temperature outside was a balmy 27 degrees!   We were bundled up as we pulled out of the marina but with only a short run to the docks of Lanceford Creek, we made it without our ears freezing off.  I dropped the Minnkota I-Pilot trolling motor, set the anchor feature and the anglers tossed out jigs and live shrimp on the last of an outgoing tide.  It didn't take long for Will to yell, "FISH ON!" and have a fight on his hands.  He played the fish perfectly and landed a nice slot Redfish!  With Libby taking pictures, Margaret got in on the action fishing deep with the jig and shrimp and pulled in a hungry Seatrout.  From then on it was fish after fish after fish.  Most were fiesty Redfish but they did add another Slot Red and a few more Seatrout with Will hooking up and landing a nice 19" Trout that puts him in first place of my Bragging Rights Tournament (scroll down right side of Report).  We eventually made a move to behind Tiger Island and picked up another keeper Seatrout and then Will hooked up with a wiley Sheepshead to round out his Amelia Island back country Slam!  With that, we called it day, another great one to be out on Amelia Island waters!