Eco-Fish'n-Crab'n Trip

We still haven't seen cooler temperatures here at Amelia Island yet, but that hasn't adversely affected the fishing! Today I met Craig Feiberg and  his sons Asher and Rory up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park and boat ramp and we had a plan! I had loaded three crab traps and had some dead Mackerel to bait them with and we also had some live mud minnows and shrimp - so we were ready to go!

We ran over to Tiger Island and set out the traps then turned around and made our way up to the Jolley River to set up just off some
expose oyster beds. There was a fairly stiff wind blowing away from us so it made for perfect casting and drift of our float rigs. Wouldn't you know it, first cast, BOOM! Fish on! Young Asher worked it in and landed an feisty Refish! From then on we were getting hookups. Both Craig and Rory reeled in Reds then Cory caught and landed a hard fighting Black "puppy" Drum.  We fished that bank for a good 45 minutes until the bait stealers took over.

Our next stop was back at a Cumberland Island beach. I eased the

Anglers Mark up close to shore and we tossed out the anchor and waded ashore! The Feiberg boys did some beach combing and came back with a great bucket of shells!

The wind was kicking so we ran back to Tiger Island and the shelter  and behind it and set up with jigs and shrimp and minnows, fishing the bottom. We had bites on almost every cast but they seemed to be bait stealing Mangrove Snapper.  We decided our best luck would be to check the crab traps. The first trap had no crabs, OUCH! But the

second trap had a nice large Blue Crab. The third trap had a small crab and a fish! It was a fun day to mix things up  -do some crabbing, do some fishing, and do some beach combing and we counted it as another great day to be out on the water here at Amelia Island, Florida.