Foggy Morning Fish Catching Bonanaza

The radio announcer was warning about the fog as I trailered my boat to the Dee Dee Bartels Park boat ramp this morning and sure enough, when I launched, there was fog causing a tad bit of visibility issues. But my navigation lights and stern light were working and when Jim Barron, his son David, and grandsons Wyatt and Walker walked up we were ready to get out on the mirror like water and get some fishing in!

It was a short jump over to Tiger Island and with a high and incoming tide, we found some flooded oysters to toss live shrimp under floats to. In short order Wyatt had a hookup and landed a feisty Redfish. Then it was almost bedlam! All anglers were hooking up! Walker had a big one on - you could tell when it ripped drag and boiled up out by the marsh grass - it was going to do it's best not to come to the boat. But Walker worked it patiently and after a good battle, landed a nice 24" Slot Redfish. Both David and his dad Jim were putting fish in the boat then it was Wyatt's turn to
fight the big fish. These Reds were fat and had some "shoulders", but Wyatt played it perfectly and he too landed a 24" Slot fish. We worked up and down the bait, sometimes having "double" hookups, and caught a good umpteen Redfish.

When the bite finally slowed we made the run through Tiger and around to Bell and set up at a grassy point as the tide began to change.Walker and Wyatt found a hot spot for hungry Seatrout and landed a good handful of them. We came back to the outside of Tiger and now the tide was really moving out. I think we landed one or two Seatrout then we made one final run, and a good final run it was!

Whenever I catch fish at a certain spot I always ask myself, "why here?"  Well, we had fairly deep water, flooded oysters up near the bank, a large creek flowing out, and a back eddy happening. We got into some more Redfish and it was every angler for themselves! We put 8-10 Slot Redfish in the boat, another good handful of small ones, a few Trout, and a small Black "puppy" Drum. Then Wyatt wrapped things up when he hooked, fought, and landed the biggest fish of the day, a 27.5" Oversized Redfish! Now that's the way to wrap up another great day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.