Digging Them Out of The Grass

I fished early this morning with Sharla and Bruce Newkirk, meeting at the Atlantic Seafood dock and heading north to the Jolley River to fish an incoming tide.  We had an arsenal of weapons - topwater lures, float rigs and mud minnows, jigs and plastic grubs and jigs and minnows!  We fished Jolley "bank" the whole stretch and even though there were fishing busting bait up near the grass we had no real bites other than a few spits at our top water lures, but Bruce did pick up a small hungry Bluefish.  We made a run back around an Gator Spoon and made some excellent casts but the fish didn't see it.  Then we began to see tails at the bow of the boat and at the stern!  Sharla got in on the action and both anglers were casting to tailing fish. But no takers!  We decided to back out and check the previous flat and as we sat there we could hear huge fish slurping in the distance and when we looked way out, about 75 yards away, we could see Big Redfish with their back out of the water! Sharla spotted another creeklet on the other side so we eased around the marsh with the trolling motor and up into the flat.  Sure enough, there were big fish still there.  Bruce made pinpoint cast with the spoon and BOOM! FISH ON!  He played the Slot Redfish perfectly and worked it to the boat and I almost had him with the net. Almost! The big fish made a run, rounded the bow and headed for thicker grass and deep water and BAP!  FISH OFF!  Oh man that hurt!   But Bruce was not to be denied!  We continued to see big Reds slurping bait and when a huge tail came into range, Bruce placed another gold Gator Spoon just off to the side of this fish and as he slowly reeled it in, BOOM! BIG FISH ON!  He played the fish perfectly, applying some gentle pressure as it made some strong runs, but it was no match for Bruce and his tackle. After a good battle the fish was subdued and we netted a nice oversized 28 1/2" Redfish!  After a couple of pictures we released the fish back in the deeper creek and it swam away to be caught another day.  We checked out one more flat then called it a day, another great one to be fishing Amelia Island waters!
through Tiger Basin to fish the Bell River with the float rigs and minnows and in no time the two anglers landed fish.  First Bruce put a hungry Seatrout in the boat then Sharla had a hookup that seemed bigger.  She played the fish perfectly and landed a nice keeper sized Seatrout.  She then followed that up with a feisty Redfish.  We fished the area for a while with high hopes but the bite had stopped as quickly as it began.  We ran back to Tiger Basin and with the marsh grass flooding, began to look for "tailing" Redfish.  Our first three flats produced nothing but on the fourth we could see a Redfish wallowing around even as we pulled up to the flat!  But in my excitement I got the boat too close and it was gone!  We eased up into a creeklet in the marsh and found another flooded flat and quickly spotted another tail!  Bruce was ready with a spinning rod and gold