Starting Out With a Bang at Amelia Island Fishing

Cary Bennett, his dad Stanley and his nephew Dalton drove down early from Blackshear, Georgia to meet me out at Goffinsville Park on a sunny morning. We had just a bit of a breeze but the backwaters were fishable so we headed over to Pumpkin Hill and set up outside of a little cove and the anglers began tossing float rigs and live shrimp on the last of an incoming tide.  We had fished for about 10 minutes when I realized that Stanley's rod was bent and his drag was ripping. Stanley fought the big fish hard to keep it out of the marsh grass as best he could, then when the fish came out

deep we began to chase it, with Stanley reeling up slack as we went with the fish. He played it perfectly and after a good battle landed an Oversized  32" Redfish, big enough to take second place in the 2020 Angler's Mark Bragging Rights Tournament, Redfish Category (scroll down the right side of this report for standings). Boy what a fish.

We had only been fishing for a few minutes when Stanley hooked up again with a big fish. This fish was acting just like the previous

big Red. Stanley battled him out of the shallows then handed it off to his grandson Dalton who took over, fought it valiantly to the surface where we saw it was a big 4' Bonnethead Shark. Dalton wore it out and we lifted it in for pictures then release.

We fished Christopher Creek with jigs and shrimp and minnows but had no bites, then came back out and around to Seymore's Pointe where we tangled with some hungry Mangrove Snapper. Both Dalton and Stanley squeezed out a couple of keepers.  After fishing some dock pilings to no avail, we moved on down to Spanish Drop.

As we worked along the bank, Cary had moved to the bow and was making excellent casts to the bank and getting good drifts with his float rig when, BOOM! Fish On!  Cary played it patiently and after a good battle brought to the net a nice 21" Slot Redfish. We moved up to Twin Creeks and fished thru the outflow. Again, Cary had the hookup and put a keeper Flounder in the boat.  Dalton wrapped things up with another hard fighting Bonnethead catch, then we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.