Thanksgiving Eve Fishing at Amelia Island

With rain and wind forecast for this morning, Joe Ekhaml and I decided to postpone our scheduled fishing fishing trip to later this afternoon, after the front moved through, and it turned out to be a good call. I met Joe and his adult children, Jake, Joey and Kelsey down at the Big Talbot Island Park boat ramp at noon and we could see the skies clearing off to the north west.  Although the wind was still blowing 13mph, we launched and headed up the Amelia River and into Jackstaff to fish the first of a very high and outgoing tide. I set up the anglers with float rigs and they baited up with live shrimp
and mud minnows and began to toss up to the marsh grass. We eased along the shoreline and after a pretty good while Kelsey finally had a hookup and boated a small Seatrout. But that was it for that particular area. We dropped back to another grassline and again fished it thoroughly but again, no real bites. We made a run through Jackstaff to the Nassau River side and fished Twin Creeks, this time with both float rigs and jigs, and again, no real bites! OUCH! But this crew were anglers, both optimistic and persistent and at our next stop they began to get good hookups. First Kelsey had her float disappear and after a good battle, landed a feisty Redfish. She may have landed one or two more then we all noticed that something was nudging Joe's bait and his float began to ease up current! Joe patiently let the fish take it and when the float went under he reeled in his slack and lifted his rod tip firmly, FISH ON!  And it was a big one!  The big fish made a run up the grass line then back and then boiled up- a big Redfish - but Joe kept the pressure on, letting it fight his bent rod. After a good battle, Joe landed a nice 25" Slot Redfish!  We continued to fish the area and had good action with Joey putting a nice Red in the boat and both Joe and Kelsey keeping up the pace with fish of their own. We made stop at Bubblegum Reef where Kelsey caught another Red then we made a run to Broward Island.  The wind was still kicking and the current was running pretty hard but the anglers worked tree lined shoreline with jigs on the bottom. The first area produce no fish but the second was on fire for a good while. All four anglers caught fish with Jake landing the only keeper Seatrout of the day and he also put a few Reds in the boat.  Joey had a strong hookup and we knew right off that this was a big fish. He played the fish patiently and perfectly as it fought out deeper and into the current. We both saw the big Redfish a couple of times but it was not to be. After what seemed like a 10 minute battle, the hooked pulled, and FISH OFF! But Joey was not to be deterred and later had another strong hookup and soon landed another Slot 20" Redfish.  It was a good way to wrap up another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island!