An Education

 

After a weekend off I was back to "work" today when I met David Bolton and his daughter Katie out at his place on Lanceford Creek. We then made our way  back to the outside of Tyger Island and set  up fishing float rigs on a high and incoming tide. Katie "knocked the skunk off" and landed a feisty Bluefish to begin an "old salt" education of how to catch fish! But David wasn't going down without a fight and picked up hungry Seatrout before we moved on.

We motored around and up towards the Jolley but made a brief stop at a large drainage and switched to jigs and the shrimp, then moved on around to the Jolley. Here, Katie tangled with a high flying Ladyfish and hauled in a small Skate, then David had a Flounder right up to the boat. David found a nice pocket to drift his float and caught and landed a couple of more Seatrout.

 After running up the river we began fishing some flooded marsh grass, just short of Snook Creek and when Katie's float disappeared and the big fish began to rip drag, I knew right off that she had a nice Redfish. Katie played it perfectly, from stern to bow, and after a good battle landed a 22" Slot sized Redfish, boy what a fish! She turned around and caught one of the smallest Redfish I've ever seen on  hook, also! Katie had one more big bite along that stretch, a shark that took her bait and headed south - it spooled her and kept going, headed south.

After running thru the Jolley and around to the Bell we fished some docks and picked up a couple of small Mangrove Snapper, a small Catfish, and a small Sheepshead.

Our final stop was back at some docks at Eagans Creek, fishing the pilings on a lower outgoing tide. Katie had made a perfect cast and hooked up and landed another Slot Redfish, then David hauled one in, too. Katie put another miniature Redfish in the boat, then a large Black "puppy" Drum.  She wrapped up the day with one more Puppy Drum before we called it quits and as we headed back we counted it as another great day  to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.