Fishing Lure

  I was a little concerned when I checked the weather last night for todays fishing trip. It called for a bit of wind at 11mph, rising to 16mph as the day progressed. But when I killed the alarm and looked at it again over my yogurt and granola it had dropped down to 8mph, rising to 14mph.  I met Will Hacker and his step father Doug up at the Old Town Bait and Tackle boat ramp as the sun came up and we eased out of Eagans Creek and made a run over to Lanceford Creek to fish a grassy spot on a tide that had been going out for a couple of hours. The two anglers were getting nibbles and more nibbles on their float rigs and live shrimp, but no takers. We moved on over to  seawall and pitched to it and here they "knocked the skunk off" with a feisty Redfish catch. 

We then dropped back to Soap Creek and fished an oyster island. Doug was casting up alongside the island while Will went in behind it and both tactics paid off. Doug put a good handful of  hungry Seatrout in the boat and Will picked up another Redfish or two. But once that tide got down to where the shell were really showing the Reds turned on - both anglers began to catch Redfish, one after the other. Most were undersized but Doug put a couple of Slot sized fish in the boat. We probably could have stayed there for another hour but we were blowing thru out bait!

After a long run back down Lanceford, then up the Bell, we set up between two docks and switched to
jigs and shrimp. Will got hot on the stern of the boat and caught a handful of Seatrout and another Red, and a 16" Flounder (season closed today for a month and a half!)  Then he had a stronger bite and battled to the boat a big 18" Seatrout.  We made our way further up the Bell, into the Jolly, and stopped at JC's spot and now that predicted wind was kicking! I went right to the "honey hole" and it paid off - the duo caught a handful of small Redfish, then Doug had a strong bite and this one was ripping drag, Big Fish On! As he fought it Will yelled, "fish ON!" and he too had a big fish hooked up. Doug patiently played his to the net and landed a nice 23" Slot Red - I netted it, dumped it on the deck, then ran up and netted Will's - a Big 22" Seatrout! This puts Will in 2nd Place in the Anglers Mark 2025 Bragging Rights Tournament-Seatrout Category (scroll down the right side of this report for standings)   We fished and caught more RedsIand a Black Drum for a Grand Slam) until we ran out of bait, then moved to artificial Z-Man baits and caught one more Redfish. I asked the guys how many Reds they thought we caught today and it was a consensus - "30 Redfish!"  

That wind was over 14 as we headed back - there were some serious white caps and we got sprayed a few times as we made our way to the dock, but we had caught a bunch of fish, had a few in the box, so we counted it as another great day fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida. 

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