Jolley Good Fishing at Amelia Island.

I'd have to day that the week ended above average with today's catch being the best of the week. I had met Rick Guyer and his two grandsons Riley and Tim up at the Dee Dee Bartels boat ramp early this morning and boy was the river calm - it was like glass! We headed north and towards St. Mary's, makin gone stop on the outside of Tiger Island.

Two anglers were tossing jigs and mud minnows while a third drifted a float and minnow. Just when I thought we would be

skunked at our first spot, Riley hooked up with his jig and quickly reeled in a rather large Flounder. Skunk off the boat! Whoohee!

We bounced around to Jolley River, found a nice shoreline and began to work along it with Float rigs. Riley again had a hookup, his float disappeared and he easily landed a nice keeper sized Seatrout. Then Rick got on the board. He said his float disappeared with a vengeance and then his drag began to sing, FISH ON!  I was real impressed how patiently Rick worked the big fish and after a good battle it paid off - he landed a nice 22" Slot sized Redfish. As we finished that drift we hit a mouth of a small marsh run out and all three anglers put small but feisty Redfish in the boat.

Our next stop was further up the Jolley - we fished another bank and by this time the oysters were exposed with the dropping tide. We had a mix of float rigs and jigs working. Again, just as I thought we might be skunked at this spot Tim had a good bite and again, BIG FISH ON!  He fought the fish valiantly, working the fish up with his rod and reeling down as he took in line. The fish went from starboard to port and back then got back in the current. But Tim was up to the task and eventually landed a big 24" Slot Redfish. Nice fish!

We bounced around to the MOA, picked a small Trout, then Rick made a pinpoint cast to some skittish bait and BOOM! Fish on. I was guessing Redfish the way it was ripping drag but as it got close to the boat we saw it was a big Trout. After netting we measured it to be 20"+.  We made one more adjustment across the river and Riley wrapped things up with the biggest Flounder of the day, and with that, we called it, another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.