Lucky Shirt, Big Red, and Almost a Shark

The breeze had picked up today, which wasn't such a bad thing, and coupled with some overcast skies, it was somewhat pleasant to be fishing the back waters of Amelia Island. I had met David and Nance Skroko up at the north end ramp early this morning and we headed up and over to the outside of Tiger to catch the very first of an outgoing tide. We had both live shrimp and mud minnows and we deployed them both on float rigs, up near some sparse grass. After losing our shrimp a couple of times to "baitstealers" David

had a strong bite and his drag began to rip as the line came off the reel, FISH ON!  And in the first 20 minutes of the trip!  David played the big fish patiently as it made run after run and after a good battle landed a nice 22" Slot Redfish.

We fished that area, bounced across a creek and fished the opposite side, then ran further up the north/east side of Tiger to fish a large outflow with jigs. No bites. We ran around to the Jolley River,

fished some still flooded oysters with float rigs but didn't get anything for 100 yards until David found a fat but hungry Seatrout.

Our next stop was further up the Jolley and we now were fishing exposed oysters. David was tossing the float rig but Nancy was throwing jig/shrimp combo. We had very few bites until, BAM! Something took Nancy's bait and ran with it. SHARK ON! The reel was screaming and Nancy kept the rod up and the pressure on and

just as I was thinking turn the boat and give chase, BAP! Fish off.
Boy what a fish!

We made one more stop around the corner, again fishing some exposed oysters and wouldn't you know, David's lucky fishing shirt paid off.  He hooked up, played, and landed another Slot Redfish. Then Nancy put two Black "puppy" Drum in the boat. And just as we were about to leave we had another strong bite. BIG FISH ON! Nancy was on the rod and she fought it and fought it through the multiple times that it made it's deep runs. But she was  up to the task and after an extended battle, landed an oversized 27.75" Redfish. Now that's a nice fish!  With that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.