Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Mangroves Make The Day

 We probably had the prettiest day today that we've had in the last two weeks! I had met Bart Mathews down at Sawpit Creek on a tide that was low and just starting in - we had clear skies and just a very little breeze as we headed up the intercoastal. We made our way up to the mouth of Jackstaff and turned into the current and began pitching jigs and live shrimp. We got all excited when Bart had a good "hookup", thinking it might be a Flounder by the way it was fighting, but as it got closer we saw it was a determined Blue Crab, which we netted and released. After bringing in a small Catfish Bart again got some excitement going with a bigger fish which he played expertly to the boat, only to find it was a bigger Catfsih!

We ran thru Horsehead and over to some docks at Seymore's and fished the pilings out of the stern. Here Bart hooked and landed a handful of Mangrove Snapper, a couple of which were of keeper size, and he also battled a feisty Black "puppy" Drum to the boat.

Our next stop was down at Broward Island, fishing the first of an incoming tide. He caught and landed another keeper Mangrove, then we moved down the way, worked it thoroughly , then moved on. Back at Pumpkin Hill we drifted float rigs long and did pick up one small but feisty Redfish, then we continued back down the river to some rocks at Nassauville where Bart finished his limit on Mangroves. We started culling smaller ones and ended up with a nice catch of the Mangroves, good enough for "Fish Tacos"!

Our final stop was over at Twin Creeks, drifting floats and after landing another Ladyfish, Bart finished the day off with a feisty Flounder catch. We had had some pretty good action, had caught a variety of fish (and crab), so as we headed back to the ramp we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida. 

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