Big Tides Didn't Affect The Fishing

 With a big NE storm that passed thru this past weekend, coupled with some "King" Tides, it was all over the news about Front Street flooding. When I launched this morning old dead marsh grass was piled up at the top of the boat ramp at Dee Dee Bartels, and one floating ramp was damaged from the high water.

I met Steve Locke and his fishing buddy Jason early with a tide that had been low at 5:30am, so it had been coming in for almost two hours. We ran up to the Jolley River, turned into the current and deployed some float rigs and live shrimp, working along a bank with the oysters already covered up. We fished for 30 minutes without a nibble and I was beginning to wonder if it might be nice to see a "baitstealer" when Jason hooked up and landed a nice 17" keeper sized Seatrout. He then drifted long off the stern and began to pick up Trout, one after the other, and graciously offered to have Steve come back and join in, which he did. Both anglers caught Trout, one after the other, and most of them were 10-15' from the bank. 

Jason was getting another good drift when his float disappeared, he lifted the rod and set the hook and
this was a bigger fish. He played it patiently  and after a good battle brought to the net a big 20.5" Sheepshead, a fish that puts him squarely in to 2nd place in the Anglers Mark 2021 Bragging Rights Tournament-Sheepshead Category(scroll down the right side of this report for standings).

We eventually ran up the Jolly to Snook Creek and fished that bank and this was hot, too. Both anglers caught Redfish with a few of them being of keeper size. They also added another few keeper sized Seatrout.

Our next stop was on the outside of Tyger which didn't pan out, then we ran thru the creek and over to the Bell and set up alongside a grassy pointe where we picked up two more Seatrout. But the bite had slowed considerably and after one more spot we called it a day, another great one to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.