Montana meets North Florida Slam
One of my old college buddies, Dave Bolton was in town and treated his daughter Katie and her fiance Mike to an Amelia Island backcountry fishing trip on The Anglers Mark today. It was a beautiful morning with just a slight breeze and a few clouds to keep the heat off. The young Katie and Mike were visiting from Montana and it was Mike's first time in Florida. We left the boat ramp at 7am sharp and headed up to the Jolley River to fish the first of an outgoing tide. Evidently the bait shops had sold out of their live shrimp over the weekend so we were using dead shrimp and artificial grubs and minnows.
Katie started things off by catching some Blues and then Mike had a few bites of small trout and blues, all on the dead shrimp. But David was having some good bites on a plastic minnow, caught a couple of small Trout, and then had one that ripped his drag, and, FISH ON! He played the fish perfectly and soon boated a nice 17" Trout. We moved on down the river and anchored at a runout where all three anglers immediately began to catch fish. They were catching small Trout, Croakers and had a couple of small Reds until Mike added a keeper sized Flounder, completing his North Florida Slam. But he wasn't finished yet!
We began a troll of the now exposed oysters and it wasn't long before Mike had a strong hookup and a good fight on his hands. The fish ripped drag and stubbornly stayed deep, but Mike played the fish like a pro and after a few minutes he wore it down and brought the 21" Redfish to the waiting net. We hit the docks at Lanceford creek where Mike picked up another small Redfish and all three anglers had good bites, but the sun was up so we called it a day, counting it as another great day to be on the water!
Posted by Cpt. Lawrence Piper at 8:13 PM
Capt. Lawrence Piper
The Anglers Mark
Amelia Island, Florida
904-557-1027
lwpiper@comcast.net
theanglersmark.com
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