Trip Saving Mangrove Snapper

We fished out of the South end today...there's not a lot of boat traffic and it was convenient for Shan Venable and his friends Bobby and Kirby to meet me there. We left the ramp and ran north up the Nassau River and with the tide just starting in, made our first stop at Bubblegum Reef. When Bobby had a strong hookup right off the bat, I was thinking, "allright! Here we go!"  He played the big fish patiently and after a good battle landed a....huge Catfish! It was a big one! Then he tangled with a Ladyfish and put a small Sea
Bass in the boat. We bounced over to some docks, fished the pilings briefly, then ran down to Broward Island. The anglers picked up a couple of small Redfish and "quick released" a Flounder at boat side. Although we had a few fish caught, it wasn't one of those days where the fish were just jumping in the boat, so we made our way back to the docks at Seymore's Pointe and set up with some float rigs. And here things got hot! The trio quickly began to put one nice Mangrove Snapper after the other in the boat. And most were 14"-15" in length, so some nice fish for our back waters. They had the catching down pat and after about an hour we limited out and moved on. Our next and final stop was over at the mouth of Jackstaff, tossing float rigs to the now flooded marsh grass. After fishing a good stretch Kirby had made a good cast to a sparse grassy area. I saw his float bob a couple of times then it slowly went under. Kirby quickly took in his slack, lifted the rod and firmly set the hook and, FISH ON! He fought the fish expertly to the boat and landed a nice 20" Slot Redfish to wrap up another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.