Redfish Along The Oyster Beds

Boy what a beautiful morning we had today - cool, hardly a breeze, and just a little fog to start the day. As I launched The Anglers Mark there were two shrimp boats anchored out from the Dee Dee Bartels boat ramp.  The sun was just coming up and the boats had their lights on and were a peaceful sight.  I met Charlie McClain at 7:30am and we headed up to the Jolley River, taking it slow at times, because of the fog.  We started a troll against the new incoming tide and the oyster beds were fully exposed.  Our first pass of a 100 yard stretch didn't produce a bite, but I knew there had to be fish here so we hit the "jackrabbit" button on my new Minn Kota I-Pilot and ran downstream to make another pass.  We'd made it about half way up the bank when we began to get strong hookups with hard hitting Redfish.  We picked up a few rat reds and put a couple of small Slot Reds in the boat when all of sudden Charlie's rod bent and drag ripped - FISH ON!  He played the big Red perfectly and worked it from stern to bow and back to stern, with the big fish ripping line as it tried to shake the hook.  Eventually, Charlie wore the fish out and we soon netted a nice 24" Slot Redfish.  We picked up a few more smaller Reds, then made our way down the river, now tossing live shrimp under floats, and picked up a few hungry Seatrout.  We ended our catching by sight fishing for Redfish laying up in the  shallows.  With the sun to our backs we could see the Reds laying in wait for baitfish to swim by and we were able to get one of them to eat our shrimp on a jig.  After one more stop, we headed in, counting it as another great day to be out on Amelia Island waters!