I fished this afternoon with the Ahrens family, Brian and Jenifer and their young son Henry, and they also brought along Jenifer's grandfather Richard. We left the City marina and headed up to Jolley river to fish an outgoing tide with the oysters already exposed. I set up outside a large creek runout and the anglers began to toss out float rigs with mud minnows or shrimp. They almost immediately began to get bites but they turned out to be small saltwater Perch and then they picked up a couple of Croake and a couple of hungry Seatrout. For a while there the breeze died down to nothing and it almost felt like August again! We made a run back to Jolley "bank" and fished it with jigs and minnows and shrimp. We thought we had a good shot a couple of times at a Bonnethead Shark but it just wouldn't eat what we were offering. Then, at a marsh runout, Brian hooked up and landed a nice keeper sized Flounder. Shortly after that we had a another bite and young Henry fought the fish. He did an excellent job of reeling it in and landed another nice Flounder, just a tad bit bigger than his dads! But Brian wasn't finished yet and pulled another Flounder out of the same spot! After catching a Stingray we made a run around to Tiger "pirate" Island and fished the downed logs. Things heated up hear. Henry caught a nice feisty Redfish to garner the anglers an Amelia Island Back Country Slam of Seatrout, Flounder and Redfish. Henry followed that up with another keeper Flounder then Great Grand Dad Richard got in on the action. And boy did he! He had a strong hookup and this one bent his rod double, FISH ON! He played the big fish patiently and as it dove deep and tried to go under the boat he applied some gently pressure and brought it back out. The big fish made a couple of drag ripping runs but it was no match for Richard. He brought the fish to the surface and we netted a big 24" Slot Redfish! Boy what a fish! We continued to fish the area and Brian landed a couple more feisty Redfish.
And with that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing Amelia Island waters!
2 comments:
What a wonderful day we had Captain Piper! Thank you so much for all you did to make it a fun, educational, enjoyable experience for all of us! I am amazed at how much Henry learned… he can't wait to go again. And Bryan and Grandpa were perfectly content all day. Thank you also for cleaning all of the fish we caught… we had a delicious feast on our last night at Amelia Island. We will definitely do this on our next visit to Amelia Island, but in the meantime, we will enjoy these memories of a truly special day!
Pappo, another Grandfather. Looking forward to the day when I might be able to join in on the fun. What a wonderful experience for all involved. Memories are things that can never be forgotten until we lose that opportunity when age takes us over. Hopefully I will be able to make some of those memories in the future. Thanks for sharing Captain Piper.
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