Flounder Out of Season

 

It stayed dreary all day today - overcast, a bit windy, and somewhat cool. I had met William Blalock out at Goffinsville Park early and with it dark enough still to have the NAV lights on, we eased up river to fish Pumpkin Hill on a high and still incoming tide. I had hoped that we'd pick up some Seatrout - sometimes we do- but we had nary a bite all thru that last bit of tide.

We came back down the river and around to Seymore's Pointe and fished a large drainage, now with the tide going out and this did the trick. William was making excellent casts to a point of grass and began to get bites right off. He hooked few up an brought to the boat some fat keeper sized Mangrove Snapper. He found that he could drift a little longer and get Seatrout. The first nice one came off at the boat but William brought the next one to the net, a 17" keeper Trout. He added a few more smaller Trout and a few more Mangroves to get his limit, before we moved on. 

After running thru Horsehead and over to Poteat Pointe we drifted the grass and again picked up
Seatrout. Most of them were small but we did get another keeper to add to the box. Back over at Jackstaff "Bank" we found more Seatrout and a hard fighting Jack Crevalle and a feisty Redfish. We than ran back thru Horsehead and down to Back River and fished a bend and here we had some good action. "Hungry" Seatrout, then another of keeper size, another Jack Crevalle, and then, as William drifted his live shrimp close to the grass, he had a hookup. It wasn't fighting like the Redfish or the Trout or the Jack and we both guessed correctly - Flounder!  William expertly eased it to the boat and we netted a nice 18" fish. Unfortunately they are out of season so we photographed and released it. It may have been the next cast, or one or two afterwards when William had the same kind of bite, hooked it up, and brought to the net another big Flounder. 

We fished that spot out, used up all of our bait, then headed back to the ramp and counted it as another (albeit not so pretty) great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida. 

Don't Try This at Home

Crazy weather today...from yesterday's forecast it looked like we would be able to squeeze a trip in today but when I got up it showed a 9mph wind early, increasing to 17 increasing to 20 increasing to 23! And that it did!  But I "had a plan" when Dara and William Blalock walked up at the Goffinsville Park boat ramp and so, we went for it!

After a 10 minute run around Seymore's, thru Alligator and up the intercoastal a bit we set up fishing some structure with jigs and live shrimp and sheltered by a land mass, we were oblivious to any impending wind. Both Dara and William began to get fish and caught 6-8 small but feisty Redfish and one small Flounder.  We also had a Salt Marsh Mink sighting. When that bite slowed we eased on up the intercoastal and turned into a creek with a stretch of docks that I though would surely be out of the wind ....and the plan crumbled - there was already another boat fishing the spot. Dang it. 

We then ran south, back to Nassauville, and set up fishing between a couple of docks and William hooked up and landed Redfish and a Seatrout. We also had an Osprey and a Bald Eagle sighting.  After moving around to Seymore's we fished a couple of docks, out of the wind, but to no avail.   I thought that Broward Island may be blocking the SW wind which had increased to the 20's and when we got down there it was somewhat blocked for a while. Dara too advantage of that and put another Redfish in the boat. But then the wind shifted and was blowing right "down the pipe" which made for some difficult fishing. 

I had been thinking about hitting a small creek that I hadn't fished in a while but knew that the tide was already down a good bit and I rarely go anywhere shallow in my boat on a low outgoing tide, but you know, what would Kirby do? Go for it! So we made a 10 minute run and eased up into the creek and sure enough in some places I was getting a reading of less than two feet, and the tide still had to go our another 2 hours. But we made it to our destination and began pitching the bank with the jigs (the bank was only about 4' deep, and when we got to one downed log, William went in with his initial cast but got snagged and while he re-baiting Dara went in with a perfect cast and BAM! Fish On!  She played it perfectly and brought to the net a nice Redfish. For the next 20 minutes the duo caught fish, one after the other with three of them being of Slot size (all fish caught today were released). 

When the bite slowed we made a u-turn and puttered out of there - a few times I had to raise the engine and I could feel the hull skimming over mud - but we made it out and as we headed back we counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida.