Good Cast Nets Big Fish

 With a 50% chance of rain forecast for today my guests and I had decided to take the chance and get out fishing today.  I met Paul Clark and his fishing buddy Steve up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park early and headed over to Tiger Island to fish the logs on a tide that had been coming in for about an hour.  Although we didn't tear them up, we did catch a couple of hungry Seatrout and a few feisty Redfish, a couple of which were right under the Slot size. We were fishing with jigs and live shrimp and minnows - the bait stealers are still here, so we gradually gravitated to the minnows more and more. 

After making the run up to the Jolley River, we eased in and fished the "bank", sticking with the jigs, but had no real bites. We then ran further up the river, just past Snook Creek, and switched to float rigs and minnows. We slowly worked the oysters as the tide came in and just when Steve had a made a perfect cast up near the oysters we both saw his float ease under - Steve took up his slack and lifted the rod firmly to let the circle set and, Fish On! We could tell that this fish was big 

because the drag was ripping and the fish was heading south! But Steve kept the pressure on and slowly worked it to the waiting net - a fish that turned out to be a 25.5" upper Slot Redfish, boy what a fish!

We came  back around to Tiger, ran thru the marsh, and over to Bell River where we set up on a point of grass with the tide flooding over a big oyster bar. We weren't getting any bites but after one of our minnows drifted into a small pocket, BOOM! Big Fish On!  Unfortunately the fish ran across the bar, around the corner, and is still going! We drifted some marsh after that and Paul hooked up and landed a nice Seatrout. 

Our last stops were over in Lanceford Creek fishing a real high tide. We hit a couple of spots with no real bites then called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.