Fast Start and a Herd of Manatee

There was some concern that the tropical storm passing thru the Gulf may have adversely affected our chances of fishing today, but the forecast only called for overcast skies with a  slight chance of rain. So I met Jeremy Robertson,  his daughter Sissy, and their friend Johnny up at the north end boat ramp and we made a quick run over to the outside of Tiger Island to fish the very first of an outgoing tide with minnows and shrimp under float rigs.. It wasn't long before all three anglers were getting bites. Young Sissy

"knocked the skunk off" when she hooked  up and expertly landed a big keeper sized Flounder. Boy what a fish! Jeremy put a feisty Red in the boat and then a hungry Seatrout.

We worked our way around some sparse grass and as we eased by a big fish engulfed Johnny's large minnow and, FISH ON!  This was a nice fish and it fought "bigger" when it got back in the current. But Johnny kept the pressure on and soon landed a nice Slot sized Redfish. 

We crossed the river and began fishing another bank and immediately spotted a huge herd of Manatee. They were coming out of a creek with the tide and it seemed everywhere we looked there were Manatee. The anglers tried to concentrate on their fishing and they picked up a handful of Jack Crevalle in quick succession. They added another small Trout or two - and still we saw a few Manatee hanging out at the mouth of the creek.

Our next stop was further north west up Tiger where we fished a run out with jigs and minnows but we had no real bites, so we moved on and up to the Jolley River. We had been working the bank for just a few minutes when again, Johnny had a good hookup out the stern of the boat. He reeled it in handily and we netted a fat keeper sized Seatrout to round out the trio's Amelia Island Back Country Slam of Flounder, Redfish and Trout.  Although that stretch of bank looked good, we had no more real bites so we moved on.

When we reached Snook Creek we went back to the float rigs for a while but the oysters were beginning to show so we switched to jigs and picked up a couple of small Reds, Trout, Jack and a Ladyfish.  Our last stop was over at some docks in Bell River and Jeremy wrapped the catching up when he hooked another hungry Seatrout. And with that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.