One Handed Catch

The weather pattern is holding all week...beautiful mornings, no clouds, and a slight breeze. Then by 10am, it's getting pretty hot! I met Greg Adams and his son Chris, along with their friend Kent down at the Big Talbot Island Park boat ramp and we ran up the Nassau River to Seymore's Pointe to catch a high and just outgoing tide. We fished float rigs with mud minnows in hopes of getting some keeper sized Mangrove Snapper. The fish were there and all three anglers put some of the sneaky critters in the boat, but they didn't have much size to them. We ran back down Nassau and
found a bump out in the marsh grass and switched to jigs and minnows.  There a few nibbles here and there then Chris had a strange bite, one that just hung on until it got to the surface, then he made short work of landing a nice keeper sized Flounder. The three angles picked up a small handful of short but feisty Redfish here and there, landed a couple of small Flounder, then we ran back to some docks at Seymore's. Kent had his "Slot Arm" working and we picked up a couple of more Reds and a Flounder. Then, after we had set up in a tight squeeze between two docks, Greg had cast up under some pilings and while he was fishing, turned to hand his sunglasses to Chris and, BOOM! FISH ON! And a one handed hook up!  This was a big fish and it was trying it's best to stay up in the pilings. The boat was squeezed in between the docks and I was having a terrible time trying to get out to deeper water and keep the fish away from the pilings, but Greg gambled and applied some serious pressure and...we were out!  But as I was getting out the fish decided to do the same and it went under the boat with me pushing the boat right over the top of it! All we could do was hope the braid and fluorocarbon leader held as Greg leaned out and tried to keep the fish off the keel. It was a good battle. Greg did an outstanding job and luckily the tackle held and he eventually landed a fat 25" Slot Redfish. Boy what a mad scramble! We fished the docks for a while, hit Broward Island, made one more stop at some now exposed oysters, then headed in, counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island water.