The Stern Of The Boat

Even though the weather forecast was calling for 70% chance of rain by mid morning today, we went fishing anyway - and I'm glad we did because we didn't have a drop of rain the entire trip! I met Gregg and Dannie Fitgerald and their dad Guy up at the north end boat ramp and after making a short run to the outside of Tiger we began fishing with jigs and live shrimp at a nice marsh run out on an outgoing tide. Only minutes later, Guy, fishing from the stern,  hooked up and put a good tasting Whiting in the boat.

We eased around the corner and fished Jolley "bank" and shortly Dannie's float slowly went

under. She lifted the rod and hooked up and soon reeled in a  small Flounder.  Then Guy hooked up with a nice fish that was pulling some drag and, Fish OFF! Ouch. But he was not to be deterred. Just a minute later he had another hookup and caught a nice keeper sized Trout. Then,  as we eased along the bank, I heard a drag being ripped and when I looked back I could tell that Guy had a big fish on. He played it perfectly  and even though the fish got back in the current he eventually landed a nice 24" Redfish, boy what a nice fish!  Dannie added a high flying Ladyfish to the catch then we moved on up the Jolley, fished Snook Creek and did battle with a Bonnethead Shark, then made a stop at the MOA.

It was Gregg's first cast to the oysters and he said as his jig came down the bottom, BOOM! A fish  hit it . Gregg worked it to the boat and landed a nice 18" Seatrout. Gregg landed one more hungry Trout there before we moved on.  Our next stop was around at some docks at Bell's River but we had no luck there. After making the run back towards Fernandina, we made a stop at a huge pointe of oysters and here Gregg wrapped things up with one more keeper sized Trout.  Although the fishing wasn't "on fire", this trio of anglers ended up with a nice catch of fish so we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.