Hot Spring Fishing

Although the mornings are still cool, it's warming up nicely as the day progresses. Today I met Jeff Dees up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park and we made a quick run over to Eagans Creek to fish some dock pilings with another outgoing tide. Jeff quickly landed a hungry Seatrout then I picked one up out deep. Then Jeff had a strong hookup and BAP! The leader broke. Darn it! But he went back to the same spot and within minutes had another good bite and FISH ON! Jeff expertly worked the fish away from the pilings and after a good battle landed a nice 20" Black "puppy" Drum. Now
that will wake you up! He went back to the same spot and BOOM! Another nice fish on. Another good battle and another 20" Drum in the boat. We picked up a couple of small Trout, then a keeper sized one then moved around to the other side of the dock and immediately picked up a feisty Redfish - there's the Slam! After catching a couple of more Trout we ran around to Bell River and fished some structure. We quickly picked up a small Sheepshead (Grande Slam) and a few Trout on the jigs we had been tossing all morning. But we experimented with a Trout Slip Float rig and got some live shrimp drifting near the bottom and Jeff began to pick up a Trout on almost every pass. And he began to put keeper after keeper in the boat. He reached his limit with the biggest being at 18" and we threw back a good handful of keeper sized fish after that. There was a Bluefish caught somewhere in that stretch.  We made one last stop over at Tiger Island, caught another feisty Redfish, then boom, boom, boom - three small but hard fighting Black Drum to finish off another great day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.