We Beat the Wind

The fishing's been pretty good the last couple of days but the forecast for today called for winds up to 14mph, and I think they were accurate. But father and son team Lester and Jason Johnson were up to the task so we met up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park boat ramp and headed over to Bell River to fish a flooded oyster bar with float rigs and live shrimp. The fish didn't cooperate! We had no real bites. But the tide had started out so we ran through Tiger and around to the outside of Tiger Island and set up where tow creeks poured out. This did the trick!

Jason got hot quick, catching a
handful of Seatrout and a feisty Redfish or two. Lester hooked up and everyone was on the board! We ran back through Tiger, over to Bell and down the Bell River out to fish some docks. The anglers switched to jigs and shrimp and fished them on the bottom on the outgoing tide. We picked up some hungry Trout on the bottom then Jason tangled with a big Stingray!

When the bite slowed we worked around to the Jolley River and set up along some marsh grass as the tide went out. Things got hot! Both anglers were catching feisty Redfish, with a handful of them right at 17 3/4", just under sized, then Lester hooked up and when his drag began to rip we knew that this was a keeper fish! He played it perfectly and soon landed a nice 21" Slot sized Redfish.  The wind was kicking our butts but the fish were biting so we made do!

Our final stop was back around at Tiger Island, fishing the logs with jigs. I think Jason's first cast produced a Redfish. We had a couple of more Reds, a small Black "puppy" Drum, then Lester had a strange bite. The fish stayed down at the bottom, and I was guessing big Flounder but then all of a sudden it took off...we thought shark...but no, out of the water came a high flying Tarpon! It threw the hook but boy that was cool. Later Jason had another strange bite and his turned out to be a nice 19" Flounder. We added one more keeper sized Flounder then called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.