Sunday, April 26, 2015

Big Sheepshead Claims Bragging Rights

For the second time in two days the top spot in the Bragging Rights has been claimed! I started out fishing with Bob and Anne Owensby who brought along Anne's brother David and his wife Emily for an Amelia Island light tackle fishing trip today. We met down at the Big Talbot Island Park boat ramp and ran up the Amelia River to fish the flooded oyster beds of Jackstaff. Emily claimed the first fish, a hard fighting Jack Crevalle, then she put another in the boat too. Then David felt a fish bumping his bait
softly - he waited patiently, and then set the hook on a nice keeper sized Flounder (but all fish caught today were released). Bob got on the board when he boated a Stingray that wanted to hug the bottom. After that, we had no real bites for about 40 minutes! The wind had picked up a bit so we ran around to some docks at Seymore's Pointe and it made for some real nice conditions. The anglers weren't getting any real bites, though, until Emily had a strong hookup, and, FISH ON! She played the fish calmly and even though it wanted to run under the boat, she pulled it out and after a good battle, landed 
a huge 22.5" Sheepshead to capture first place in the Anglers Mark 2015 Bragging Rights Tournament - Sheepshead Category (scroll down the right side of this report to see standings). Boy what a fish! We fished the docks for a while and Bob picked up a couple of Redfish and then Emily had one, too. They already had an "Amelia Island Back Country Slam" of Flounder, Sheepshead, and Redfish, but when we moved over to Bubblegum Reef, David made it a "Grande Slam" when he put a couple of keeper sized Seatrout in the boat. Bob landed  a couple of more Sheepshead, one that was a very nice keeper size, then we headed in, counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida!

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