Slim Sliver of a Silver Moon

Beautiful Sunset

That was the light I saw in the sky yesterday evening when I made the turn to go directly west from Amelia Island instead of the bright, sunny spotlight in my eyes when I made the return trip the night before -- easier drive except for the darkness along the canopy covered section of road on the island.  The spanish moss hanging from the trees make the drive on Buccaneer Trail/Amelia Road a beautiful drive during the daylight hours but, at night it seems more of a haunting drive (appropriate for the month of October, I guess).  Low tide was at 5:31 p.m. so, I fished until the sun went down and left me just enough light to maneuver off the beach -- me being the next to last 4-wheeler to leave the beach.

Yesterday again provided a fun filled few hours of fishing and I again brought home a couple more fish (one nice blue and another 15" spotted sea trout).  This time, I only had to throw my casting net once into the stream of mullet and had a couple dozen of the little bait fish to put on my hooks (first into the bucket).  Someone else had taken up the point I had fished the day before so, I parked beyond them a little closer to the ocean.  The threat of rain all day long seemed to dissipate when I arrived at the water's edge and the sun shined through a clearing sky and kept me comfortably warm the whole time there.

Conch shells from Nassau Sound

Since this spot was closer to the ocean, I thought the bed of sea grass would be more accessible with my big surf casting rig but, the current seemed to be stronger than the day before so, I found myself spending a lot of time retrieving my drifting lines -- one after the other as they seemed to be drifting parallel to the beach.  The first hour didn't produce much of anything except for the re-positioning exercise -- and one huge snag in the sea grass that resulted in me pulling in one small plant (I did find a nice conch shell at the same time in the shallows as I attempted to walk the beach and retrieve my gear with the plant attached).

Beautiful Colors

As the outgoing tide eased up and the wave action of the ocean began to creep into the mouth of the river, the action started on my poles.  I missed a couple good strikes and had to re-bait some of the empty hooks and then I finally caught one of those hungry Blues.  It soon became a game of which pole to hold and which one to put in the pole support and at times I would be holding both poles at the same time in an attempt to feel the bites and set the hook.  It seemed Murphy's Law (or some other crazy law) took over because whichever pole I chose to put in the support would be the one that got the next hit or bite -- and another missed fish.  However, I did manage to bring in another one of those Ladyfish (member of the Tarpon family)  and it danced along the top of the water during the fight -- lost one of them just before bringing the second one all the way in.  The first one danced a couple times and then spit the hook.  I let the second one go.

Soon after that, I caught that nice sea trout (kept him) and then a little Flounder (some 12 inches at most so let him go).  As the sun was going down, I cleaned the two fish I decided to keep and still tried to watch one of the poles (missed a couple more fish) after putting most of my other gear in the Jeep -- got myself ready to make the dash back up the beach.  I should have taken a picture of the fish before cleaning them as they seemed to lose some of their beauty (and the brown spots on the trout) -- next time.

I won't be going back this evening as the low tide will be right at sunset and fishing for another hour after would be way more difficult to even see what I'm doing or where I might be driving -- need to clean those headlights on the Jeep.  Another good reason for not fishing in the dark came floundering through the shallow waters along the beach where I had been fishing -- a six or seven foot shark came thrashing through at sunset feeding on the little stream of mullet near the water's edge.  That had me watching more closely as I rinsed off some of my gear and emptied that bucket with the fish guts and dead mullet.