Twins

I was back to "work" today, fishing with Tim Ayers and his son Andrew, meeting them up at the Dee Dee Bartels Park early. It was a beautiful day, and for August, that's saying a lot. Running to our first stop up at the Jolley River, we all felt a coolness to the air and as we turned into the "bank", the sun was coming up over the marsh and ocean. We worked along that stretch of bank, tossing float rigs and live shrimp and getting excellent casts but we mostly got "nibbles" from bait stealers. Andrew did "knock the skunk off" when he hooked up and caught a copper-colored feisty Redfish.

We ran further up the river and fished around Snook Creek and again found the bait stealers, in addition to some small Ladyfish and Mangrove Snapper. Andrew added another feisty Redfish to his catch total. After fishing one more spot in the Jolly we came back around to Tyger, ran through and over to the Bell River and set up alongside a flooded oyster bar. Here, things did pick up a bit.  Andrew hit a hot streak catching some small Seatrout then Tim went in with a good cast. got a good drift and BAM! A strong hookup. Tim played it patiently to the boat and landed a beautiful golden 17" Seatrout. 

We worked the other side, battled with the baitstealers, then it was Andrews turn to get the nice fish. We had seen something bust bait up by an island and when Andrew made the cast it wasn't long before he had a good fish on. He worked it expertly to the boat and landed another beautiful 17" Seatrout, almost a Twin of Tim's fish. 

Our last stop was back around on the outside of Tyger as the tide started back out. There was a lot of movement going on but all we could seem to snag were the bait stealers. Andrew was fishing one of the last shrimp, a popcorn sized one, and had a Shark take it and run, heading to Georgia -it kept going, ran out of line and, BAP! Fish off. But it provided a short bit of excitement and a great way to wrap up a good day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.