Sunshine And The Fish Bite

We wrapped up the year today with another cold one! But we had very little wind and with layers, it was nice...once the sun came out! I had met Allen and Lavern Webb up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park boat ramp and after the quick safety orientation, we eased north and west to the outside of Tiger with plans to fish float rigs and live shrimp on the first of an outgoing tide. Crazy how just a month changes things...we had no real bites although the conditions were perfect for at least Seatrout. I'm guessing the water is now way too
cool for shallow water fishing.

Even though I dislike fishing the logs on a high tide, we were right there so we bounced around and began fishing jigs and shrimp deep, guestimating where the logs were. We got hung a few times on submerged branches, but it wasn't too bad. We'd had cloudy skies from sun up until about 9am but when the clouds dispersed the sun was warming and.....the fish began to bite. The two anglers began to hookup and catch Redfish, one after the other. Most were just a tad bit too short, but eventually Allen put a keeper sized Slot fish in the boat. We had at least two more that probably were legal but the were so close we didn't want to chance it.

We fished up and down the bank, camping out at Tiger Island and each time we moved we'd pickup a fish. most were Redfish but Laverne found a hungry Seatrout and we also had one small Black "puippy" Drum -an Amelia Island, Backcountry Slam of Redfish, Seatrout and Sheepshead. It probably had more to do with the tide getting down, but we all commented on how the fish began to bite once the sun came out. We weren't complaining and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.