After looking at the weather forecast last night, I was a little apprehensive about the chances of success fishing today. Temperatures were predicted to be in the mid 40's, which was OK with me, but wind predicted to be at 15mph which would make it challenging. But Bob Blalock and I were up for the challenge so we met up at Old Town Bait and Tackle boar tamp and made our way up the creek to fish some dock pilings on an outgoing tide that still had 2 hours to hit bottom.
It didn't take long fishing with jigs and live shrimp to begin to get bites. We had a good flurry of catches - small but feisty Redfish, and a Black "puppy" Drum. One of those Reds though, was in the Slot. All fish caught today were released. But then it was like a light switch was flipped and they turned off! So we moved down a couple of docks ,set up, and again caught fish, a handful of Reds and Drum. After about thirty minutes, with the tide almost at the bottom, we moved back to the original dock and BAM. BAM. BAM! Bob began to hook and land fish after fish. Redfish, Black Drum, and an occasional Seatrout. We kept an informal count of the Slots and we had at least 4 with one of them measuring right at 26.5", a "Tournament Red"! We tagged this fish and released it. It can be followed at Gray Fishtag Research GFR62478. One small Red that had 21 spots! Bob also had his limit(if he was keeping) of Black Drum.
We eventually made a run to some more structure, fished it with the jigs, and caught another handful of Reds and Trout. Our final stop was at the mouth of Eagans Creek, fishing the rocks, and although we had some nibblers we had no takers. S we eased back to the dock and counted it as another great day to be fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida
