It Ran Like A Shark

 I was back to work today, fishing with Brian Roach and his son Mike after meeting them down at the Sawpit Creek boat ramp early. We made a short run up the Nassau River to Spanish Drop and began fishing a large outflow on a tide that still had a few hours to hit bottom. But the oysters we exposed and these two anglers began pitching to the edges with jigs and live shrimp. Things started a bit slow but they eventually had some good action catching hungry Seatrout, and a couple of small Reds. We bounced up the river, stopping at drainages and at each one they put fish in the boat - Trout, Reds, Ladyfish, Black "puppy" Drum, Flounder, Jacks, and ......Catfish. Brian did have one good hookup which he played patiently. I was calling "Flounder" the way it as digging deep but as Brian worked it to the surface we saw it was a nice Slot sized Redfish which he landed.

We fished between some docks at Littlefield, to no avail, then ran down to Broward Island and fished a severely low tide, starting on the south end and drifting with the still outgoing current. Not a bite. I knew that we had been getting most of our fish around shell beds but to not get a single bite on a low tide down at Broward was surprising. 

After making a long run back to Nassauville and thru Horsehead we began working along some exposed shell on the first of an incoming tide. Mike picked up his Flounder to round out an Amelia Island Back Country Slam of Redfish, Seatrout and Flounder. We had been being stalked by Bonnetheads and when Brian had a bite that began ripping drag and heading out deep behind the boat we both called "shark"! Brian worked it around the rear of the boat, fought it up off the bottom and we mentioned "I saw it", I began to wonder - normally those Bonnetheads don't come up until they're worn out. Brian fought it  for another few minutes then he saw that it was a big Redfish! That will chance your attitude!  He played it patiently and eventually landed a 26.25" Redfish, boy what a fish. 

We fished over at Poteat Point then worked one other edge where Brian picked up one more Redfish with about 5 shrimp to spare, then we called it a day and headed back to the ramp, counting it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.