Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Making the best with Fiddler Crabs

 The last thing I expected when walked in to the bait store this afternoon was for them to be (temporarily) out of live Shrimp AND Mud minnows. Oh lordy!  But they did have some fiddler crabs so I purchased a pint and a few packages of artificial baits and headed out to Goffinsville Park thinking we may be in for a long afternoon of fishing. I met William and Dara Blalock and their friends Brian and Janet Roach and we headed over to Broward Island to fish a tide that had been coming in for about an hour and half.


 I did have have some left over mud minnows so we used them and the crabs and it didn't take long before Janet "knocked the
skunk off" when she hooked up and landed a feisty Redfish. And just minutes later Dara had tossed back to a large drainage, had a bump, set the hook, and landed a keeper sized Flounder. 



We fished that area pretty good and caught a good handful of fish with William adding a keeper sized Seatrout to the box. The fiddler crabs were getting fish - Reds, a small Sheepshead, and even a Seatrout hit 'em.  We then ran way up the Nassau and dipped into a creek and fished the bank, alternating between the minnows and crabs and both caught fish. They added another keeper Flounder, another keeper Trout, and three small Slot Redfish to their catch. 


The wind had picked up as we came back down the river and fished Seymore's Pointe with float rigs, which produced nothing. But in behind the land mass, we were out of the wind and  it was pleasant fishing so we decided to work the docks with those crabs and it paid off. They caught Trout, a couple of feisty Redfish, then Brian topped things off with a good bite, and better fight, and he eventually landed the biggest Red of the day, a nice 23" Slot fish. We had made do with what we had and we had a nice box of fish so as we headed back we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida. 

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