Amelia Island Fishing Blog

I guess most serious fisherman use more than one rod, with the theory being that the more baits you have in the water, the more fish you are going to catch. I think what happened today proved that theory actually works.

Fishing has been pretty slow at Ft. Clinch for the last month or so, but today there were trout, flounder, and reds caught at the pier. Why did that happen? Because there were a few more baits in the water than usual. About 450 more baits than usual...

A month or so ago one of my fishing friends reminded me that the FWC Kids Fishing Clinic was coming up, and that I should volunteer to help. I had forgotten about it until yesterday afternoon when I came back from fishing on the pier and found FWC setting up tents in the parking lot. So I stopped and asked if they needed more volunteers and was told that they sure did, and that I should be at the pier at seven in the morning.

Seven in the morning is pretty early for me, but somehow I managed to roll out of bed and be there on time, and I'm really glad I did. It was a really fun day, not only for the kids, but for the volunteers too. The most intense fisherman that I met today were a little too year old guy who was focused on catching a fish and a young lady who was full of questions about where's the best place to fish, how to put the bait on the hook, and a few other things. It was a real pleasure for me to be able to help introducing so many kids to fishing, and next year I won't need a reminder to volunteer again.

Click the FISHING ARTICLES link at the top of the page to read the article about the clinic and to see some pictures. If FWC holds a Kids Fishing Clinic near you, make sure you volunteer to help. You'll be really glad you did.

The first hurricane of the season came through here a couple days ago, and it didn't look like a great day for fishing, but I couldn't find anything else exciting to do, so I decided to try the pier at Ft. Clinch. Water was pretty muddy when I got there, about an hour after high tide because of the strong NE wind.

Last nite I cleaned up an old Shimano baitcaster and a six foot ugly stick that I used years ago for bass fishing. I rigged it up for flounder, and decided to use it for dragging mud minnows; see if I could drum up some light tackle action.

With a combination of the wave action and the tide going out, occasionally there were large pockets of clear water under the pier, and I noticed that when the water cleared up, the flounder started to bite. I missed the first two or three bites I had, but I did catch two small flounder, thirteen inches, and I saw a few other people catch small ones also.

The water muddied up again, and flounder seemed to quit. I had another rod with me, so I baited that with some cut pogey. Got a few bites that I missed and then one of the pogey baits got nailed by a sail catfish that weighed about three pounds. Released him and since I figured he might have some friends with him, I put up the cut bait rod and went back to dragging minnows; I only had a few left and I didn't want to tote a bucket full of water back to the house, so I decided to use them up.

On the next to the last minnow, which I had just hanging off the side of the pier not moving, I caught a nice eighteen inch flounder.

When I was putting it in the cooler, a lady who had been fishing next to me walked over and asked me a strange question. "How big are the mud minnows you're using?" she asked. I told her they were two to three inches long and she told me "We bought some at the bait store on the way over and they aren't even an inch long". "Don't tell me." I said. You've been to Leaders & Sinkers in the shopping center on 14th street.. She verified that's where she bought the bait. I told her the same had happened to me earlier in the week; I stopped and bought minnows there and when I got to the pier and looked in the bucket, I was amazed to find that the biggest one was about three quarters of an inch long.

Seems like Leaders & Sinkers is quickly becoming famous for microscopic mud minnows. If you need minnows and you don't want to use tweezers to put them on the hook, try the bait store at the marina at the north end of 14th street, under the bridge. Their minnows were responsible for all three flound that I caught today. I had some micro minnows in the bucket with them the other day, but today they were gone; I think the real mud minnows ate them.

Anyway, three flounder, one ugly sail cat, and I just had flounder stuffed with crab meat for dinner. Just another day in paradise....

A friend and I decided to get a few hours in at Ft. Clinch before dark, high tide was around 6:45 PM. Not much of a Whiting bite tonite, but I saw a few caught and we caught two.

Mullet were still moving out of the inlet, but very hard to see the schools with the wind and chop on the water. My friend finally caught a few, and we chopped a fresh one up for bait just as the sun was setting.

I put two fresh mullet baits out on a surf rod, and it didn't take long before we had a customer. Certainly wasn't a Whiting because I was notified of the bite by the sound of the drag on the reel; the pole was bent over to the point where it was hard to get it out of the rod holder on my fishing cart. At first I wasn't sure what I had hooked, but whatever it was headed straight for the Georgia side of the inlet.

As the fish stripped line off the reel, my friend and I discussed the possiblities. Big red drum? Nah, wrong time of the year. Tarpon? Nah, he's not jumping. Good sized shark? Maybe. After about 100 yards of line was gone off the reel, I realized that it would be pitch dark by the time we hauled this guy back in if I let him go too far, so I decided to tighten up the drag a bit and slow things down.

When I started applying a bit more pressure, the run came to a halt and I had nothing but a heavy dead weight to deal with, which made me vote again for a shark. Sharks tend to give up quickly after one good run, and reeling them in is like reeling in a cinder block.

But then after I started pumping line back in, whatever it was took off in another direction. This time he was headed towards Italy instead of Georgia, but I managed to turn him and head him back towards the pier. With the fish coming in my direction, it didn't take long to get the line back, and I could see my shock leader headed for the pier, so time to put on the brakes before he got near the pilings and cut the line.

I managed to stop him about 10 feet from the pier and that's what he did - stopped dead. Now I had what felt like two cinder blocks sitting in one place on the bottom, so I stopped thinking shark and started thinking ray. After a few minutes of pressure with the 40 lb shock leader around the reel, I managed to drag him up to the surface so we could see what we had. Nice sized Atlantic stingray....

We netted him in the pier net, got him up and unhooked, and lowered him back into the ocean with the net to be on his way. I guess he was about 2.5 to 3 feet wide, and I don't have a clue how much he weighed but my friend said something about "Damn, he's HEAVY" when he was pulling him up to the pier in the net.

Not one for the trophy cabinet, but sure was nice to see the pole bent and listen to the drag screeming for a while. A good time was had by all...

No fish today but finally some bait. Lots of mullet schools heading out of the inlet, a few hours before dark. I didn't really make an effort to fish - I was more interested in catching some fresh mullet for bait, but I put one line in the water while I ran up and down the pier chasing mullet; no bites, no fish.

The mullet were not easy to catch, but I did manage to get about two dozen, and they were all grade a size jumbo - 9" to 12" long. Little big for flounder, but we'll give them a try as cut bait later on this week. Nothing seemed to be chasing them.

I spoke to several fisherman leaving the pier - one reported no fish, another reported catching a dozen whiting.

Today was a very nice day for fishing - sunny, hot and just enough wind to keep from getting roasted on the pier. Not such a nice day for catching, but nice for fishing. I fished a few hours before/after the afternoon high tide. Two whiting were all I caught, but that seemed to be about average - almost everyone caught two whiting with the exception of one gentleman who caught two dozen. None of them were jumbo's, just average size.

Other than the whiting, the only other fish I saw caught today were a couple of flounder. Two guys were trolling mud minnows from a jon boat between the pier and the jetty and caught the flounder.

There were some good sized schools of mullet headed out the inlet to the ocean, but they were too far away from the pier to catch with a cast net, and we only saw them go into the hoping along the surface mode once, so it didn't seem like much was after them.