Saving The Best For Last

 After a long Labor Day weekend, we were back fishing today, and wouldn't you know it, we
had....WIND!  It wasn't so bad that we did go fishing - the rain chance was down in the single digits, but the wind was forecasted to get up to 14mph, and I believe it did. It made for some "challenging" fishing but my two anglers, Bart Mathews and his longtime friend Jaime were up for the task. We met down at Sawpit Creek boat ramp and made our way up the Nassau River to make our first stop at a large runout at Seymore's Point. They were getting good casts with the wind at their back and getting good drifts on the very first of a (very) high and outgoing tide, but we had no takers.

We then ran thru Horsehead and over to Poteat Point and drifted that stretch of grass with the floats, and may have had a nibble, but nothing more, then we came back into Jackstaff and fished a small creek and here the action picked up a bit - Jaime hooked up and had a big battle with what I thought was going to be a big Redfish - he played it perfectly - but as closer to the boat it started making that trademark dig-dig-dig and sure enough, when Jaime brought it to the surface we netted a big Jack Crevalle - a great battle! Just minutes later Bart had the strong bite - he played it expertly and I thought for sure we had it but the fish headed right for some submerged oysters and "BAP" fish off! Ouch. 

We ran back thru Horsehead and down to Middle River and fished a stretch, then continued on down to Pumpkin Hill where we switched to jigs and Bart picked up a an "almost legal" Redfsih, then came back to Twin Creeks where we tangled with a couple of Ladyfish. We then moved east to another nice drainage and pitched the jigs. Bart had put on a finger mullet, tossed it to the drainage and almost instantly, BAM! Big Fish ON! And boy was it big. A long fight ensued - that fish took Bart from the Bow, down the port side, around the stern, back around the stern, back around the stern and finally Bart wore 'em out and landed an Oversized 31.5" Redfish - big enough to move into 2nd Place in the Anglers Mark 2026 Bragging Rights Tournament-Redfish Category (scroll down the right side of this report for standings). Boy what a magnificent fish! After fishing Spanish Drop briefly, we headed back to the ramp and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.