Big Fish and A Whole Bunch of Edibles

 We fished down south again today when I met Steve Frost and his wife Carron at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp early. There was a big Red tailing right at the  ramp and I was torn between fishing right there or getting the trip started by running up to Pumpkin Hill. In my mind I tossed a coin and decided to go ahead and make the run and it turned out we landed on "heads".  After setting up along the flooding marsh grass the husband and wife duo of anglers began to drift float rigs with the current and in short order Steve had hooked up and landed a keeper sized Seatrout. He went back to the same spot, picked up a small Flounder, went back to the same spot and got a keeper sized Flounder. Then Carron had a strong bite and, Big Fish On!  Her drag was ripping and the fish zipped away, then it came back, stayed fairly shallow and we were thinking, "Big Redfish". But as she worked it patiently to the net we saw that it was a big Jack Crevalle - a beautiful fish, fun to catch, but not so good on a dinner plate.

We fished further down and as we eased up into a cove we

could see some wakes moving around and soon after Steve's float disappeared and he had a big fish too. He played it perfectly, worked it to the boat, and landed a nice 21.5" Slot Redfish with 11 Spots. Later he had an even bigger hookup and battled and landed a 4' Bonnethead Shark.

After fishing around the corner for a bit we came back to Seymore's Pointe, fished  a large outflow, then a marsh line, to no avail, then we moved around and fished some rocks with the floats and immediately began to catch keeper sized Mangrove Snapper - one after the other. I had to keep a running count to make sure we didn't go over our limit. These fish were a tad bit bigger than what we've been getting - some of them were up to 12".  We blew thru most of our shrimp, then move on.

Our final stop was down at Spanish Drop where we switched to jigs and mud minnows. We worked a large outflow then eased along a shell laden bank, pitching up near the shore and working it back slowly. When we reached a corner I was about to pull up and move but Carron had a bite and, Fish On! She played it beautifully, worked it to the boat patiently, and landed a Slot sized 21.75" Redfish - a good fish to wrap up a great day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida