Redfish Bite on Fire

 Randall Cobb was visiting Amelia Island with his wife and scheduled a light tackle backcountry fishing trip on The Anglers Mark. We left the Atlantic Seafood dock at the Fernandina Harbor Marina and headed up to Tiger Island to fish the outside oyster banks as the tide began to fall. I was somewhat surprised that we had no real bites on our live shrimp under floats, but the afternoon was young so we headed on up in to Tiger Basin. Randall switched to a jig and shrimp combo and began to pitch it to the exposed logs and FISH ON! His drag ripped on the Shimano 1000 reel and the 10lb braid held as Randall fought the 17" Redfish to the net. For the next hour Randall caught Redfish after Redfish, all in the 16"-17" range, just undersized, but fun to catch. We decided to ease on up the bank and then Randall had a really strong hookup and a battle on his hands. He fought the fish expertly and even when the fish got up into the downed logs, Randall held on and eventually the fish came out and once he was subdued, we netted an nice 23" Slot Red! We fished the area more and Randall picked up a keeper sized Sheepshead, some more Rat Reds, and then another strong bite, FISH ON! This time we pointed the trolling motor to deeper water and Randall had all of the water to fight the fish. When it came to the net we found that it was even bigger, a fat 24" Redfish! We eventually move on to Jolley River, hoping to find some Seatrout and we did, catching 10-12 trout, all undersized, but fun to catch, and they rounded out an Amelia Island Slam of Redfish, Sheepshead, and Trout for Randall. We headed in, counting it as another great day to be fishing Amelia Island!