Monday, February 3, 2020

Chamber of Commerce Day Oversized Redfish...and Trout, Trout, Trout!

The wind finally died down and even though it was a tad bit cool this morning, the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky when I met Kevin and Bridgette Chambley down at the south end ramp. We headed up the Nassau River and made a run straight to some docks with plans to fish the last few hours of an incoming tide.  These two anglers were making excellent casts to the base of the pilings at that first stop but we had zero luck with the fish bite.

We moved down a dock, then down to another, and finally found a good handful of feisty
Redfish. Both Brittney and Kevin hooked up and reeled in a couple apiece. The same at the next dock, this time Brittney was pitching up into a boat slip and pulled out a couple of Reds, then at the next dock she found a wayward Flounder, unusual for this time of year -keeper sized but small so we tossed it back.

Our next stop was around at some rocks at Seymore's Pointe, drifting float rigs with live shrimp but we didn't have a nibble. We then ran down to just south of Pumkin Hill, switched back to the jigs and shrimp, had no luck, and continued on down to Broward Island. We fished the "honey hole" to no avail, then dropped back and began to pickup Seatrout. The first one was of keeper size, but from then on they were all just under 15".  We had fun catching those then as the tide began to slack, we moved down the way and set up just as it turned and, BOOM! Big fish on!

Kevin was on the rod and this fish was ripping drag - finally a big fish!  Kevin took his time, played it patiently, worked it around the trolling motor, let it run, then worked it slowly to the net - a big oversized 30.75" Redfish - big enough to move Kevin into first place in the Angler's Mark 2020 Bragging Rights Tournament -Redfish Category. (scroll down the right side of this report for standings)

We had no more Reds after that, but Bridgette and Kevin soon found that they could fish their jigs and shrimp slowly on the bottom and pick up keeper sized Trout at 25' deep. We added seven more keeper Trout, threw back a good handful of smaller ones, then counted it a "Chamber of Commerce" great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.

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