Starting the New Year Off Right

 

I had my first trip of 2025 this morning with Dennis Fritz and his son Douglas and grandson Ethan - we met down at Sawpit Creek boat ramp and boy what a pretty day it was, albeit a tad bit chilly! But all of us were layered up and we made a quick run up the Nassau to fish some dock pilings as Seymore's Ponte on a tide that had been coming in for about 2 hours. All three anglers were making good casts to the pilings, letting their jig and shrimp drop to the bottom and kept their lines tight - doing everything right - but we had not a single taker. Ouch. 

We then made our way down to Broward Island. The tide had now been coming in about three hours, the current was running a little bit faster than I like it, but these anglers were not to be deterred. I think Ethan was "laying back" because he let his dad and grandfather put a handful of fish in the boat before he started catching. Douglas accumulated a Slam - catching a Seatrout, Redfish, and Sheepshead while Dennis put a nice Slot Red in the boat. We fished a couple of spots along the island before we moved on. 

After running way up the Nassau River we eased into a small Creek and began to work the bank and here
Ethan decided to join the fun. He was making excellent casts and it paid off when he hooked up and landed a good handful of feisty Redfish then he added nice Slot Red to his catch. Both Douglas and Dennis caught handfuls of Reds and each had another Slot or two (I counted 6 Slot Reds caught total). Douglas also caught a small Sheepshead to round out an Amelia Island Back Country Grande Slam. 

We ended the day back at Pumpkin Hill drifting floats -Douglas caught a couple of Seatrout and Dennis added one more Redfish to the catch total. The sun was shining bright, the skies were clear, it had warmed up, so as we headed back to the ramp we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.