From Big To Bigger

 

What a great morning to start the week with! We had beautiful weather that greeted us out at Goffinsville Park when I met  Bob Blalock and his fishing crew - brother and sister-in-law Tom and Martha.  The tide was already covering the oysters and still coming in for a few hours so we headed over to the Spanish Drop area and eased along a flooded shell bank and began fishing with float rigs and live shrimp. All three anglers were getting good casts and good drifts but we had no luck until we reached the mouth of a drainage and Bob then tangled with a couple of high flying "poor mans Tarpon" - the Ladyfish. 

We motored back up the river, fished Twin Creeks for a bit, then I let the boat drift backwards with the current. Martha teased one up- a nice Seatrout, and had it to the boat before it threw the hook, then Tom went up to the same spot, got a good drift, and BAM! He had a hookup. He played it perfectly and brought to the boat and net a nice 19" Trout. As we drifted just a few feet back, Bob had found that he could toss back to a grass edge and there was a back current. On his second or third drift his float slowly went under. Bob tightened up and let the circle hook do it job and, Fish On!  He fought the fish expertly and brought to the net a Slot sized 21" Redfish.

We ran down to Pumpkin Hill, drifted long with floats, battled a Shark, picked up a smaller Trout, caught a keeper sized Trout, then ran back to Seymore's at the very peak of the high tide. We worked some rocks with the floats and caught a couple of small Mangrove Snapper, then ran thru Horsehead to catch the first of an outgoing tide. 

Here, Martha had made a pin-point cast, just beyond a grassy island, and when her float disappeared she set the hook and in a text book manner, brought to the boat a hungry Seatrout.  We were about ready to wrap things but decided to "fish out" of the area so we worked a bank as we went. Bob had a strong bite that he hooked up but the fish (we thought a shark) is still heading to Tallahassee! So a few minutes later when Tom had a strong bite we were speculating Shark? But this big fish was staying up near the bank (why in the world would you even want to go to Tallahassee?) Tom kept the pressure on and battled the big fish from bow to stern and back, under the boat and back out and (despite Bob and mine's coaching) landed a big 29" Oversized Redfish, boy what a fish! After quick photograph and release, we headed ack to the ramp and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.