Dog Gone It, We Caught a Bunch of Fish!

The "pre-Georgia Florida Football Fishing Week" continued today when I again fished with Bob Blalock and his brother-in-law Tommy and his wife Martha. We met up at the north end ramp but this time we made the long run out Bell River with plans to fish some docks. Although the wind had lessened somewhat from yesterday, it was still blowing, but here at the docks it was like fishing on a pond!

The anglers started off tossing jigs and live shrimp (whooeee, we had some shrimp) to the dock pilings on the very last of an outgoing tide and it didn't take long before they were getting some bites.
All three anglers put some hungry Seatrout in the boat and we ended up with a handful of them. Then the "baitstealers" took over so we decided to run over to the Jolley River.

We made a brief stop at the MOA, still tossing jigs, and here Bob picked up a keeper sized Seatrout. After bouncing around the corner and setting up alongside some still exposed oysters, I switched the trio to float rigs and live shrimp. That's when all heck broke loose. Redfish, Redfish, Redfish, Redfish, Redfish. Small but feisty and fun to catch. Then Tommy had a hookup and when that drag began to rip we knew he had a good fish.  It was a long and crazy battle where we had to deal with some lines getting tangled, but it all
worked out and with some patience on Tommy's part, he landed a nice 24" Slot Redfish.

Martha had caught Trout in the Bell and here she was matching the guys catch fish for fish with Redfish. She added 3-4 Black "puppy" Drum to here catch, a couple of Mangrove Snapper, then she too had a strong bite and, FISH ON! She played it perfectly and after a good battle, landed a nice Slot Redfish. Then it was Bob's turn. BOOM! Big fish On! This fish was ripping drag and digging deep but Bob kept the pressure on. After a long and patient fight, Bob put an Oversized 28.5" Redfish in the boat. After pictures it swam off in a blink.

We caught fish until we ran  out of bait! Now that's a good problem to have. We still had about thirty minutes to fish so we made one last stop behind Tiger Island and rigged up with soft plastic Egret Baits and fished the same runouts that had produced Flounder yesterday. Boom! Bob pulled a 17" Flounder out of the spot then Boom! Tommy reeled in a 19" Flounder. Bob was using a white with chartreuse tail minnow and Bob was using a chartreuse and brown minnow.

It was a beautiful day and a great day to be catching fish here at Amelia Island, Florida