Drum or Jack?

We gambled with the weather this afternoon when I planned to meet Jeff Sousa and his father-in-law Skip down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. After raining all last night, it looked very threatening when we headed out and up the Nassau River to make our first stop off some exposed oysters on an outgoing tide.

 The duo were pitching jigs and live shrimp to the bank, up current, and it didn't take long for Jeff to "knock the skunk off" when he hooked up and landed a Seatrout that was right at "keeper" size (all fish caught today were released). Then shortly after that he had a strong bite, a hookup, and the big fish made a dash for deeper water...and it began
to rain...and the fight was on!
Jeff played it patiently and eventually landed a hard fighting Jack Crevalle.  Then Skip followed that up by catching a high flying Ladyfish.  We hit a large marsh run-out but had no real bites and with the wind beginning to kick us around pretty good, we made the run down to Broward Island to get out of the SE wind.

The move paid off - it was like fishing on a pond and with the tide just having a couple of more hours to hit bottom, I thought for sure that we were in the right spot. Nope. Both Jeff and Skip were making excellent casts, working the bank slowly, and we fished a good 100 yards or so, but to no avail. Not a single "real" bite.  So back out into the wind we went, and down to Seymore's Pointe where we set up with the bow into the wind and stern at some dock pilings which made for some easy casting...and luckily the fish were there! Both Jeff and Skip traded hookups, catching some hard fighting Jack Crevalle, then landing some keeper sized Black "puppy" Drum, then more Jacks, then more Drum.

We almost forgot the wind and bad weather until we pulled up and started in and saw a huge thundercloud to the south! But we buzzed back to the ramp and made it just in time before the rain started, so we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida