Big Fish Rally

I fished this morning with the Prophater family, Kristen and Zach and their kids Wilder and Sawyer, meeting them down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. The tide had been coming in for a couple of hours so when we made our way up the Nassau River, we fished with float rigs and live shrimp to the bank. Zach struck right off when he hooked up and landed a keeper sized Seatrout, then Wilder followed that up with a hungry Flounder.  Sawyer decided to go to a jig and shrimp on the bottom and it paid off with a couple of Catfish catches, one of which was pretty big!

We moved further up the Nassau and here Wilder put another Catfish in the boat and Sawyer added a keeper sized Whiting (all fish caught today were released). We then made our way on up to Seymore's Pointe and fished a marshy pointe. Kristen got hot, landing a couple of Mangrove Snapper, one of which was fairly large, then she tangled with high flying Ladyfish and brought it to the boat. Wilder had gone to the jig and shrimp, pitching back to some dock pilings, and here he caught two feisty Black "puppy" Drum.

Our next stop was down at Pumpkin Hill. We had caught a good handful of fish all morning long and as the team fished their floats up near the bank I was thinking that things "looked right" and, BOOM! Kristen's float had disappeared and when she tightened up on the line, the drag began to rip,and, Fish On!  This was a big fish! The fish boiled up near the bank a couple of times in shallow water but Kristen kept the pressure on and we worked it out to deeper water where the battle ensued. Although the fish ran deep a number of times it was no match for Kristen as she applied the pressure and slowly worked it to the net for landing. The fish measured right at 31.5", way oversized, but a great fish for a family picture.

We were about to wrap things up when Kristen was drifting her float across some submerged oysters and again, BOOM!  It wasn't quite as big and I was calling "smaller Redfish". Kristen handed the rod off to Sawyer who brought it to the boat, a BIG 23.25" Seatrout, boy what a fish. And with that ,we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.