Fishing Before the Blow

I met David Gaines, his son-in-law David and his grandson Braham up at the north end boat ramp this morning under overcast skies. One of my 5 "tips" to catching more fish here at Amelia Island is to have a plan ready the night before you fish - and we had a plan. The wind was blowing 8-9 but forecasted to pick up to 15-20 by noon so we made our first run over to the mouth of Bell River, put out a heavy rig in hopes of catching a shark, then tossed jigs and live shrimp to the exposed oyster banks on the last of an outgoing tide.
In short order young Braham put a Seatrout in the boat, then another one of keeper size (all fish caught today were either released or donated to a Veteran who's a neighbor of mine). Before you knew it, Braham had another hookup and landed a feisty Black "puppy' Drum. The adults picked up a couple of fish on their own then we pulled anchor and ran up the Bell to fish some docks. We were sheltered from the wind and  here Graham was drifting a Slip Float out the stern and found a nice keeper sized Whiting. The two David's each caught a Trout or two on the jigs. Our next stop was around at the MOA in the Jolley and again, a few more Trout on the jigs. The wind was picking up so we ran around to make our final stop behind Tiger and sure enough, the wind was blocked. We found that the Trout were holding out deep and the three anglers landed a good handful with a few of them of keeper size up to 18". To wraps things up, the trio had a good bite and, FISH ON! Graham was on the rod and he fought the big fish valiantly and despite the unwanted coaching from we three adults, he landed a nice 24" Slot sized Redfish, boy what a fish! When we came around the corner heading back to the ramp the wind had reached it's 20mph prediction and the river was kicking up, but with some good catches for the day, we counted it as another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.