Double Up On Shark

What a great Shrimp Fest weekend we had, and back to "work" today, fishing with Emily Rutt and her husband Joe. I met them early up at the Old Town Bait and Tackle boat ramp and we headed out of Eagans on a beautiful morning on a tide that had been coming in for about 2 hours. We made the run up and around to the Jolley River, turned into the current and began to fish the "bank" with live shrimp and jigs.

Both anglers were getting good tosses  then Joe hooked up and battled to the net a high flying Ladyfish. Emily hooked up and had to the boat a small Sea Robin and Joe had another brief encounter with a Ladyfish. We ran up the river and fished the outside of Snook Creek then eased inside where, sure enough, they had some serious drag ripping fights with shark - the first was a double - Joe was up on the bow, Emily was back on the stern, and their sharks were headed in opposite directions!  That makes for some exciting times and it was for a bit until Emily's broke off, then shortly after, Joe's broke off too.

But just a short while later Joe hooked up and had a good fight with another shark and this  one he brought to the net for photograph and release. Emily had one more encounter with a big shark then she felt a good bump, set the hook and expertly landed a keeper sized Seatrout. After a photo, we released it to be caught another day.

We came back to the outside of Tyger Island and trolled the edge of a Jasper Beach with the jigs and mud minnows, thinking we might pick up a flounder. We think we had one good "bump", then a couple of times the "Ladyfish King" tangled with more Ladyfish, then we continued on over to Bell River. 

From then on we were fishing float rigs and live shrimp. We might of had a nibble once or twice but no takers. We fished Soap Creek and up in Lanceford then headed back to the dock counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.