Pushing Thru On a Cold and Dreary Day

 

Although the late night winds died to nothing we were greeted with a cold, foggy and altogether dreary day when I met Jesse and Taylor Patrick up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park this morning. The newlyweds were eager to get out on our Amelia Island waters and we did just that by making our first run up to the Jolly River with plans to fish float rigs along the marsh grass with live shrimp as bait. These two anglers were getting excellent drifts but we had no takers, not even a nibble on a high and incoming tide. 

We moved up the river and did the same thing and we did have one Seatrout hook up which was brought to the boat. We moved in to Snook Creek and tried some jigs with shrimp but had  no luck so we moved on. Our next stop was around in Bell's River where we continued to fish with the jigs, tossed up near the bank and fished real slow. After about the third dock we struck pay dirt.. The fish were biting very softly but we had a hookup, Fish On! Taylor worked it to the boat and landed a nice Slot sized 19" NO SPOT Redfish - a Tournament winner for sure!

Then Jesse had a strong hookup. He played it patiently as it dug deep, but Jesse kept the pressure on and soon landed a keeper sized Black "puppy" Drum (all fish caught today were released). Then back to Taylor - she had her jig hang on a oyster but when she pulled it off, BAM! Another hookup!  She expertly fought to the boat another nice Redfish.  Before we left Jesse hooked and landed a Sheepshead.

Our next stop was down the Bells River, back towards town, and back fishing the float rigs (to no avail). We made a stop at Tiger Island and picked up Whiting off the bottom before we hit one more spot with the float rigs. We could feel the rain coming so we pulled up and called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.