Hats and Gnats

Paul Coughlin and I fished out of the Sawpit Creek boat ramp this morning - not such a pretty day - but the overcast sky was somewhat welcome to keep the sun off. Imagine that in February! I've been wondering if we aren't in some sort of transition period with the fish bite. Maybe the warming trend has the fish thinking it's spring and time to move out from the shelter of structure. At any rate, it's been a tad bit slow in the "catching" department - my anglers are working hard and catching fish, but we haven't had some of those "banner" days in a couple of weeks. Also, I'm not a superstitious guy, but I decided to change hats this morning in hopes that it would help!  We ran up the Amelia River and dipped into Jackstaff and started fishing a flooded bank with a float rig and live shrimp. With no real bites half way up the creek, we switched to jigs and shrimp, but had no luck on that either. We made the run through Horsehead and around to some docks at Seymore's Pointe. Sure enough, within minutes, Paul had a strong bite. He hooked up and landed a nice feisty Redfish that was just a hair short of the Slot. He had another good bite, this one bigger at the same spot, but he wiley fish tossed the hook. We worked up and down the docks and with no breeze the Sand Gnats found us and tried to carry us off. But we were up to the challenge and fished the docks thoroughly before making the run down to Broward Island. We fished the bank up close and out deep and but had no real bites until we dropped back north to fish the loggier area and BOOM! Paul had a fish on within minutes of the move. We had a nice flurry of fish catches here - feisty Redfish and one Seatrout. Our last stop was back at Bubblegum Reef where we played catch and release with some baitstealers. And with that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.