Playing The Edges

After a couple of days of nasty weather we had a gorgeous day greet us this morning! Sunshine, clear skies and only a slight breeze and right about 50 degrees when I left the Dee Dee Bartels Park dock with Bob and CJ Bengston.  We flipped a coin - Tiger Logs or Lanceford Docks?  Then we headed over to Tiger Island and began fishing with jigs and live shrimp on the very first of the incoming tide. Both anglers were making excellent casts to the bank and letting their bait slide down the river bottom. We eased along teh bank and Bob had a brief hookup and the drag ripped and, fish off! Ouch. But he went back and minutes later it paid off with a hookup and Fish On! Bob played it perfectly and soon landed a big 26 1/2" "Tournament Sized" Redfish, right on the upper "edge" of being legal.

We continued down the bank and Bob added another Slot Redfish, this one with 7 spots  and legal at 18 1/2", just over the bottom "edge" of the Slot -he was playing the edges! As we worked back up the island both he and JC caught and landed a couple of "feisty" Reds, then it was CJ's turn to fight a big one! She had a good bite, set the hook then played it patiently to the boat and net. The fish measured at 23" - a  nice Redfish (all but one of these Slot Redfish were released).

After a run around to Lanceford Creek we fished some dock pilings where Bob outsmarted a feisty Sheepshead, then we fished Soap Creek with float rigs and picked up a handfull of hungry Seatrout. After fishing Bell River briefly, we made the run thru Horsehead, toured Cumberland Island and saw some wild horses, then the Fort, then headed in, counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.