Mangroves Reds and Manatee

We did a mid morning trip today, meeting at 10:30am - High Tide up at Nassauville. I met James Tuten,

his brother Robert and Roberts daughter Katie down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp and we made the 15 minute run up to Semore's Pointe where we went with float rigs and live shrimp on the first of an outgoing tide - it was high!  It didn't take long before Robert "knocked the skunk off" when he hooked up and landed a keeper sized Mangrove Snapper. We dueled with those Snapper for a bit before we moved on. 

After running thru Horsehead we made our way over to Poteat Pointe. The tide was right, just starting out, but the wind had picked up as forecasted and it was blowing right in our face. All always say, when fishing floats, "get a natural drift in the zone"= we were getting the drift but the wind was blowing our baits away from the grass - we had no real bites. We then made our way over to a creek off of Jackstaff and worked it with the floats, again, no avail.

Back thru Horsehead we went, up the Nassau, and to some docks at Nassauville where James and Robert went to jigs and shrimp and Katie stuck with the float rig. She went to the rocks, making excellent casts and it paid off when her float disappeared. She lifted the rod and let the hook set and Fish On!  Katie worked it to the boat expertly and landed a keeper sized Mangrove Snapper. We stayed there until we got bored, boxing 10 keeper sized Mangroves, then moved on.

A short jump over and we were fishing Back River with floats. The tide was right but the drift was getting pushed off. We moved across the river and fished a bend and this did the trick. The current was strong enough to keep their baits up near the grass and it paid off with a good handful of feisty Redfish catches. While we were fishing we had a few small Manatee meander by, going downstream, then back up until they were hanging out right by the boat. 

We had had a beautiful weather, mostly sunny, and even though we had to deal with the wind, as we headed back we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.