She's On Her Way!

 Evidently Hurricane Helene is headed to Florida, hopefully passing us by as she hits over near
Tallahassee. But we were able to squeeze in one more fishing trip today when I met the Ahrens, Bryan and his sons Henry, down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp. We headed up the intercoastal, turned into the Nassau and made our way around to Back River where we set up to fish float rigs and live shrimp on a tide that had been going out a few hours - the oysters were just beginning to show.

All three anglers were getting good drifts up near the grass and it paid off - they began to get feisty Reds, one after the other - they put up a good battle and are fun to catch. I mentioned that every once in a while we'll get a keeper "Slot" fish and shortly after Oscar had a stronger than normal bite. He lifted  his rod and let the circle hook set and when it ripped some drag with thought it might be a bit bigger, and it was. Oscar played it perfectly and brought to the net a 18"+ Slot Redfish.  Not too long after that, after we had moved up to where he could toss between two oyster beds, Oscar and another big bite, this one was even bigger! Oscar played it patiently as it ran deep and back to the stern and after a good battle he landed a nice 24.5" Slot Red.

We eventually moved across the river and fished a big bend, letting the floats drift around it and again, we caught umpteen fiesty Reds. Bryan went long and picked up a couple of hungry Seatrout and when Henry followed him he picked up a small Flounder. There was a commotion up ahead of us so Henry moved to the bow, made a long toss forward and BAM! Big Fish On!  He fought it expertly, let it run, worked it in, let it run and eventually landed a beautiful golden copper 22" Slot Red - they had their limit!

After running down the Nassau we worked a large drainage with jigs and shrimp and caught more Reds, a Catfish, a couple of Jack Crevalle and then Oscar put a keeper sized Flounder in the boat. We fished a dock at Seymore's where Oscar added a Croaker to the catch, then we headed back to the ramp and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.