Cold Hands Hot Fishing

I got to fish again with Bill Lavery and his buddy Joe today, meeting at the Atlantic Seafood dock, a convenient short walk from the Hampton Inn and Suites 50 yards away. It was still somewhat "cool" with the temperatures in the low 40's but we were all bundled up so we ran north to fish Tiger Island with the tide still low but coming in. Both anglers were fishing the jigs and live shrimp and within minutes we were in the fish! Bill hooked up and landed a nice 23" Slot Redfish then both he and Joe were putting
fish in the boat. And they kept getting bigger!  They had a couple of 24" fish, a 25" and 26" fish, lost a few big ones, then Bill fought a nice oversized 28.5" Red to the boat. This kicks off our Anglers Mark 2016 Bragging Rights Tournament with Bill in first place! We worked the bank thoroughly, catching Slot Reds and a good handful of undersized ones, and we also picked up a handful of Seatrout with two of them being of "keeper" size.  Most of the Reds were sent back to get even bigger but we kept count and totaled 9 Slot Reds, 1 oversized Red, and then the handful of smaller Redfish and the Seatrout. The only issue we had was keeping our hands warm!  We fished some flooded oyster beds after that and had zero bites but we all agreed that it was a great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island.

Cold Day But Nice Day

We had the coldest day of fishing in a long time with temperatures in the high 30's when I launched down at the Big Talbot Island Park boat ramp. But George Isaacson and his wife Margaret were not fazed, being "Mainers", and they were bundled and ready to go fishing. The sun was shining and there was only a slight breeze so when we hit our first spot we warmed up nicely. Margaret was tossing a jig and live shrimp back to some dock pilings and George was throwing a float rig with shrimp over some flooded oysters and it was George that "knocked the skunk off" when he landed a nice
hungry Seatrout. Then Margaret got in on the action and picked up a couple of Trout down deep. I think George followed that up with another Seatrout before we left and ran through Horsehead to fish some still flooded marsh grass. Both anglers were tossing the jigs and although they had a few bites there were no takers. We went back through Horsehead and down to Twin Creeks, fished the float rig up close and the jig out deep and again, no real bites. Our next stop was down at Broward Island and although the tide was still fairly high down there we got some fish. We had a good hookup and Margaret worked the fish in patiently. After a good battle she landed a beautiful feisty Redfish. Shortly after that George repeated the catch and he too put a Red in the boat. We worked the bank thoroughly and the two anglers picked up another Trout or two then George wrapped it up with one more Redfish making it another great day to be fishing Amelia Island waters.

Started With Trout Ended With Reds

David Thomas was in  town this week for business and they decided to take in some Amelia Island fishing before they started their work. I met David and his associate and friend Tom down at the City marina and we started our day mid morning with a high and outgoing tide. We had headed up to Eagans Creek to get out of the wind and this really helped but the two anglers had no real bites on their float rigs baited with live shrimp. We hit some dock pilings as the tide got down and it took a while but they began to pick up
some hungry Seatrout and then they really got the hang of it and hooked up regularly. Some of the Trout were of keeper size to 17" but we threw them all back to be caught another day. Then they had some stronger hookups and the fish fights ensued, FISH ON! The trick was to keep these big fish out of the dock pilings and I think it was a tie - David and Tom boated four Slot sized Reds to 24.5" and I think four other big Reds found their way into the pilings and broke themselves off.  There were a number of smaller "feisty" Reds caught. They also picked up two Black "puppy" Drum to round out their Amelia Island Back Country Slam of Seatrout, Red Drum and Black Drum. We ventured out into the wind to fish Tiger Island and even they we got buffeted around pretty good, they landed another small Redfish and one of the bigger Seatrout of the day, caught way down deep. With that, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing Amelia Island waters.