Thursday, July 21, 2016

Which Redfish Was Bigger?

I gambled this morning. I had about a dozen mud minnows left over from yesterday but I had a couple of fresh crabs and they've been making excellent bait for my minnow trap, so I skipped the bait shop and got down to the Big Talbot Island Park boat ramp early enough to launch and toss out my trap. In day's past I've been catching dozens of minnows within minutes but wouldn't you know it, I was only able to catch 1 MINNOW before my guests, Darrell Evans and his two sons Grant and Will, showed up! OUCH!  We
ran up the Nassau River anyway, tossed out the trap at a small runout, then began to fish an oyster outcrop with the bait that we had. Darrell came to fish this morning and before we knew it, he had boated a feisty Redfish, a keeper sized Flounder (all fish were released today) and a hungry Seatrout to garner his very own Amelia Island Back Country Slam, within the first hour of fishing! The boys we fishing earnestly with jigs but just weren't getting the bites so when Grant asked if he could use a float rig, I knew it couldn't hurt. And it was a good call on Grant's part because within
minutes he had his float disappear and he had a good fight on his hands. After a good battle he landed a nice keeper sized 18" Seatrout.  Will switched to a float rig and he too put a keeper sized Trout in the boat. We ran back to check our minnow trap and, no luck! But there was a ton of finger mullet milling around and with one cast we had enough bait to fish for two days! We ran up to Christopher Creek and fished the shore line, switching back to jigs tipped with the finger mullet and began to catch fish. Darrell picked up a couple of small but feisty Redfish then Grant had a good bite and, FISH ON! This was a big fish! Grant kept the pressure on and kept it away from some dock pilings and as the fish dug deep, Grant worked it patiently to the surface, and eventually landed a nice Slot sized 21" Redfish. Just a short while later, we had another big bite. Will was on the rod and he battled it valiantly. This fish was a big one but Will was up to the task after a good fight, he landed another 21" Red, boy what a fish! We worked our way out of Christopher then ran up to Seymore's Pointe to fish some docks, had no luck, then finished up over at the mouth of Jackstaff where Will wrapped things up with a ferocious battle with a large Jack Crevalle. With that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.

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