Bait Management-Net Princess-Future Biologist

She can take her pick, but young angler Lenora has a bright future ahead of her when it come to fishing! Her mother Marnie Bird and her Uncle Dave met me down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp early this morning and we made the run thru Middle River and around to Pumpkin Hill to set up along side some flooding marsh grass. Marnie and Dave began tossing float rigs with live shrimp to the bank and letting it drift with the current.  Lenora was already managing the bait buckets of live shrimp and mud minnows. Marnie "knocked the skunk off" when she hooked up and battled a hard fighting Bonnethead Shark to the boat.  Only minutes later, Dave, who had made an excellent cast to the point of some grass, had a hookup and, Fish On!  He played it perfectly and brought to the net a 21" Slot Redfish (with 8 spots). He followed that up with a big Bonnethead Shark catch of his own. 

We came back to Seymore's Pointe, fished a large outflow and here Marnie put a hungry Seatrout in the boat, and then a small Mangrove Snapper.  After moving around the corner we got into the bigger Mangroves and the duo began to catch one after the other. Lenora reeled in the biggest one of the day, but she spent most of her time netting her Mom's and Uncles fish! She handled most of them and released the smaller ones back into the river.

After running thru Horsehead we fished the mouth of Jackstaff. Dave was fishing a jig and picked up a couple of feisty Redfish. We then headed back to the dock where I cleaned the Slot Red and Mangroves. Lenora was keen on seeing what was in their stomachs so we dissected those that had their belly's full. Most had our shrimp! Bud one had a minnow! We had a good day of fishing so we counted it as another great day to be out on the water here at Amelia Island, Florida.