We Thought The First One Was Big

Finally! A beautiful morning! After a couple of days of nasty weather, this morning was picture perfect when I met Eric Brooks up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park boat ramp. It was right at high tide when we left the dock and headed over to the outside of Tiger with some float rigs and live shrimp. We made our first stop at some flooded oysters and worked the grass line in hopes for a cruising Redfish or hungry Trout. Not a nibble. We crossed over the creek and fished another marsh line thoroughly, tossing up current and
letting the bait drift naturally along the bank and again, no bites.

We began to make a run through Tiger and even though the tide was still really high, we made a pit stop at the logs thinking we could give them a brief shot. I pin pointed Eric where to cast and he did so perfectly..."left of the stump"! It didn't take long and BOOM! Big fish on!  Eric must have been living right because he was way up amongst the roots but he worked the big fish out, kept the pressure on, and landed a nice 25" Slot Redfish! Now that's the way to knock the skunk off the boat!

After getting some pictures he went back to the same spot and again, it didn't take long, Bigger fish on! This one ripped drag just like the first one but it was determined not to come to the boat. But Eric was up to the challenge and after a good battle landed an oversized 27.5" Red. Now that's a nice fish. We released it after getting some pictures and it swam lazily to the bottom. This fish eased Eric into third place in the 2018 Anglers Mark Bragging Rights Tournament-Redfish Category (scroll down the right side of this report for standings).

We caught a handful more of Reds but most were in the 17" size range and then we added a nice 16" Seatrout. When things slowed we ran over to Lanceford, fished some dock pilings, and Eric picked up one more feisty Redfish.  Our final stop was up Bell River where we found we could toss our jig and live shrimp up current, let it go to the bottom, and then just keep the slack out of it and wait for the tap, tap, tap - set the hook and bring another Trout to the boat. It was a beautiful day and we wrapped it up catching Speckled (and sometimes Spotted) Seatrout and counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida