You Never Know

You never know what's on the end of the line when you catch a fish here in the backwaters of Amelia Island. Today we had a good smorgasbord - Catfish, Jack Crevalle, Ladyfish, Bluefish, Toad Fish, Seatrout...and a Stingray! I had met the Brian Lee family - Brian and Larkin and Justin and Katie  - down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. We ran up the river, dipped in to Jackstaff and started fishing up current with jigs and live shrimp. It didn't take long before we began to get some bites, and big ones they were! The
first couple broke us off then Justin landed a Catfish to "knock the skunk off". Larkin followed that up with a hard fighting Jack Crevalle and Brain tangled with and boated a high flying Ladyfish - the "poor man's Tarpon".

We eased over to another creek and within minutes Justin and expertly landed a Bonnethead, then Brian hooked up, his drag ripped, and Big Fish On!  Brian played him perfectly and patiently and after a good battle that took us down the creek, landed a big 4'+ Bonnethead. Now that was a battle!


After running thru Horsehead we made a stop at some docks at Seymore's Point and here young Katie's fishing rod got hot!  She hooked up and worked in on her own a nice Stingray then she battled a nice Jack Crevalle. Brian added a rather big Bluefish to the catch. After that we ran down to Pumpkin Hill and fished some flooding marsh grass with float rigs. Justin picked up a Blue of his own and Katie added a Ladyfish to her catch count (a "poor girls Tarpon"), and Justin landed one more Ladyfish. Then finally, Katie

put the only Seatrout of the day in the boat.

By this time the tide had gotten up, the sun was out, and the fish had quit biting, but as we headed in, we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.