Manatee Sightings

Today was the second day in a row that we've seen Manatee working the grass edge, and one was down at Sawpit Creek yesterday while today's was up around Tiger Island. I had met Joe Gasper, Adam Blanning and Adam's daughters Eliza and Megan at the City boat ramp with plans to make a run up to Tiger Island to catch the tide still coming in. The anglers were tossing shrimp and mud minnows on jigs to the pockets and even though it was an outstandingly beautiful morning...we had no bites! But we went to the outside of Tiger and switched to float rigs and they began to get fish almost immediately. Eliza was the first to hookup and it was a nice Trout. She worked it patiently to the boat and landed an 18" Seatrout (all fish were released today). Then all the anglers began to get hookups. Megan caught and reeled in a few Trout and Eliza added another couple. Adam had a Trout and also landed a Flounder. Then Joe had a strong hookup and the reel began to sing as line ripped out - this was a big fish! He fought the fish for a good while as it took him all the way around the boat. Joe let the rod do the work and after a good battle, brought to the boat a 4" Bonnethead Shark! We bounced across the river, stayed with the float rigs and Adam spotted a big mass, fins, and a nose -a Manatee working the grass. It's always fun to watch these gentle creatures and it's especially easy to see them in the water with my  Breakline Polarized sunglasses! We ran around to Bell River where Eliza landed a hard fighting Blue Fish and Adam put another Flounder in the boat, this one of keeper size. After one final stop we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.