The Bite Warmed Up a Bit!

 I wrapped my week up fishing with the Portfleet's, Tim and Lori and their daughter Danielle. After meeting them early this morning down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp we ran up the Nassau River to make our first stop at Spanish Drop on a tide that had one hour to hit bottom. All three anglers were tossing jigs - Danielle and Lori baited with live shrimp and Tim fishing with a mud minnow. That first spot didn't produce nary a nibble so we moved on up to a large drainage. Danielle had made an excellent cast to the mouth of the drainage and almost immediately, BOOM! Fish On! She played it expertly to the boat and landed a feisty Redfish to "knock the skunk off".

We moved on up to Twin Creeks and fished the very last of that outgoing tide and here Tim had the strong hookup. He worked it to the boat and landed a hard fighting Jack Crevalle. Danielle valiantly battled a Shark for a long while then it was Tim's turn to battle one. He patiently played it and after  long fight, brought it to the boat for pictures and release. Our next stop was up at some docks at Seymore's and here the trio played cat and mouse with the Mangoves. All three caught them and contributed to the dinner box. 

Our next stop was down at Broward Island and boy was it pretty! Not much wind today and it made it easy to work along the edge pitching. We had a few good bites and then Danielle took advantage of one of them and hooked up and landed a nice 17" keeper sized Seatrout.

I was timing the trip to end up at one of my Mangrove Snapper holes but as we were passing Pumpkin Hill I thought it might be fun to fish some float rigs, so we set up alongside a flooding shell bank and began to drift floats long with live shrimp and boy did it pay off! Right off Lori hooked up and brought to the boat another 17" keeper sized Seatrout and from then on these anglers were catching fish. We'd have a drag screaming run from a Shark Bite, then another. Danielle hooked up and while her Shark was ripping off to the west, Lori hooked up with a big fish too. As we were getting Danielle's fish to the boat I saw Lori's fish "boil" a few times and knew it was a big Redfish. After Danielle's shark was photographed and released all attention turned to Lori and her epic battle. She stayed patient, kept the pressure on, and eventually hauled in an 29.25" Oversized Redfish, boy what a fish. 

We caught a couple of more Sharks, another Jack Crevalle, and another feisty Redfish before we called it a day, and as we were heading back, we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.