Sunshine and Rocky

We squeezed in a morning fishing trip before the storms hit here at Amelia Island today. I had met Chris and Jessica Cafarelli and their two kids Bryce and Grace, down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. The tide was high and still coming in so we made the long run (15 minutes) up to Pumpkin Hill to fish with float rigs and live shrimp along the flooding marsh grass. The "demo" cast picked up a Seatrout!  Chris and Jessica were fishing while the kids tended to the bait and we had a good flurry of fish catching. Although no fish were kept today, they landed a few Seatrout that could have went in the box, along with a solitary Weakfish that was kinda cool to see.  Jessica tangled with two hard fighting Jack Crevalle and won both battles then Chris had strong bite up on a flooded mud flat and, BOOM! Big Fish On. It was a battle. But Chris was up to the task even though the fish took him from starboard side stern to port side, then up to the bow and back. He kept the pressure on and eventually landed a big Oversized Redfish that measured in at 29.5", boy what a fish!
He followed that up with a big Bonnethead Shark catch.

We eased around the corner and fished a grassy island and here Jessica boated the first Mangrove Snapper of the day, Chris worked a Redfish from around the island, then he battled another Bonnethead to the net for release.  I think it was about this time that Bryce and Grace began to name their "pet" bait - I had broken out some mud minnows - one was Sunshine and one was Rocky - and the fish catching began to fall off - I mean what fish wants to eat Sunshine?

Our next stop was back at Seymore's Pointe where we picked up a couple of Mangroves, one of which was of keeper size.  Our final stop was down at Spanish Drop and after landing one more Seatrout and a feisty Redfish, we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.