Tripletail Starts the Slam

 I woke up this morning to see the box score of the Florida/Lsu baseball World Series game and sure enough, my Gators got drubbed! They could have used a Grande Slam like we picked up today fishing!

I had met John Gaydac and his son Robbie and grandsons Gray and Cam down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp early today and we made a fairly long run around to Pumpkin Hill and sat up to drift float rigs and live shrimp on a tide that had been going out a few hours (in retrospect, it had been going out a bit too much for us  to be at this spot, but I wanted to try it). We had just a nibble or two, so we began to work around a point and down alongside  some exposed shell and it was John who "knocked the skunk off" when he had a hookup. He played it perfectly and worked it to the boat and when I saw a gaping maw of a mouth, a bit yellow, I called it a "big Seatrout"! But as John brought it to the net we found that it was a nice sized Tripletail! Always a surprise! Coincidently we had recently caught a Tripletail within about 20 yards of this one a week or so ago. Robert also caught and landed a keeper sized Seatrout here (all fish caught today were released)

We then motored back down the Nassau to Spanish Drop, fished an exposed oyster edge, then eased up
the river to a large drainage. Here things picked up when these anglers caught a up a couple of Seatrout, Donnie hauled in a huge Catfish, and both Donnie and Robert battled some Bonnethead Sharks. They tangled with Ladyfish and boated a couple of Jack Crevalle and Robert put a nice Flounder in the boat to make it a Slam. I think we also had a small Redfish along there which made it a Grande Slam, but we improved on that later!

To wrap up the day we ran up to Seymore's Pointe and fished some dock pilings and there both Donnie and Robert played cat and mouse with the Mangrove Snapper and caught a couple of keeper sized fish. We were about to wrap things up when we had a "bump", a bite, and Fish On! Donne was on the rod and played it expertly, keeping this big fish away from the engine. After a tense battle he landed a nice 22" Slot sized Redfish. The young anglers, Gray and Cam had stayed with it throughout the morning with Gray improving on his casting while Cam "wrangled" the shrimp, keeping them in line, so as we headed back to the ramp, we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.