Bar Set Kinda High

 

We wrapped the week up with a beautiful August morning-sunshine and just a slight breeze.  The tide was still coming in when Bob and Kathy Miller and I had made the run from Sawpit Creek up to Pumpkin Hill. After the GPS caught and I set the anchor the two anglers began drifting live shrimp under floats, going long down the flooded grass bank. Each of them had a "nibble" or two, with floats disappearing but no hookup. But on about the third or fourth drift Kathy's float went down and stayed down. She "caught up to it" by cranking in the slack, lifted her rod and set the circle hook and, Fish On! The fish made a couple of short runs so I knew it was a nice fish but I didn't know how nice! Then it took off down the bank, ripping drag and running out the line. We started backing down as Kathy reeled in the line to build up some insurance, then the fish would dig deep and the drag would begin to rip. It was a great battle and Kathy played it perfectly, despite the unwarranted "coaching" Bob and I were giving, and she finally brought to the net a big Oversized 29.5" Redfish, boy what a fish! After pictures we released it to swim off, back to the deep.

We fished another bank and here we had a "double hookup". Bob had drifted his float down the grass line and when it went under he set the hook and patiently played to the boat a nice 18"  keeper sized Seatrout. While he was reeling that in, Kathy got on to another big fish, this one a Shark. I knew right off what it was as it took off, heading to Georgia. But Kathy knew what to do now and kept the pressure on, working it slowly to the boat and landed a nice 3' Bonnethead Shark.

Our next stop was around at Seymore's Pointe where the Bob put a nice keeper sized Mangrove Snapper in the boat. We had nibblers aplenty but no takers so we came back around towards Goffinsville and fished between docks, switching to jigs and shrimp. Here the duo teamed up to put a good handful of Mangrove's in the box. After moving down the way we switched back to floats and here they finished out their limit (10) on the Mangrove Snapper.

The final stop was down at Twin Creeks, fishing jigs. It was getting hot and the bite had slowed but Bob had one more fish left in him. He hooked up with something nice - a fish big enough to make his drag rip. Bob worked it in slowly, let it run when it wanted to, then brought it to the boat - a 2' long Black Tip Shark. Where we were at the breeze was blocked and we had the weekend calling so we headed in and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.