Big Trout and Bigger Shark

I fished this morning with Steve Moore and his friends and workmates Brent and Eston, meeting them down at the City boat ramp this morning. We ran north and made our first stop outside of Tiger Island, tossing live shrimp under floats to some flooded oysters on the last of an incoming tide. Right off, the anglers were getting bites but they were small "baitstealers". But they kept at it and picked up a handful of small but hungry Seatrout. We ran through Tiger and over to Bell and again set up off some flooded
oysters. After picking up one or two small Trout Brent had a different kind of bite which he hooked up and landed - a nice keeper sized Flounder. He went back to the same area and in a short while had a much stronger bite. This was the biggest fish we'd had all day and Brent played it perfectly and soon landed a 21.5" Seatrout and boy was it fat! This fish moved Brent into 3rd place in the Anglers Mark 2015 Bragging Rights Tournament-Trout Category (scroll down right side of this report for standings)  We made a pit stop to pick up more live shrimp then headed up to the Jolley River and fished a grass line. It took a while but they found a couple of multi-spotted Redfish (giving them and Amelia Island Back Country Slam) and a trout or two. When Eston switched to a jig and shrimp it wasn't long before his rod bent over and the drag began to sing, FISH ON! He played the big fish patiently and a after a long battle landed a 3'+ Bonnethead Shark. We moved back down the river, fished some oysters that were now exposed, picked up another Redfish, then Brent did battle with another large Bonnethead. He also put a high flying Ladyfish in the boat and Steve added a keeper sized Whiting. After fishing one more bank in the Jolley, we ran around to fish some docks at Bell River. Although the sun was up and the bite had died, Steve persevered and picked up a hard fighting Black "puppy" Drum to round out a "Grande" Slam and wrap up another great day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.