Fish in the freezer

Restocking the freezer has just begun after a few hours of fishing along the sandy beaches of the Amelia river yesterday.  Had to relearn the art of throwing that casting net and catching some of those little mullet to use for bait -- first few attempts brought in nothing (though the net looked nice and circular when it hit the water).  Did finally get enough of the little fish to throw in the bucket (though some of them did their usual jumping right back out and onto the sand -- until I threw the net over the bucket and got a couple on my hooks).

There were a number of people up and down the beach wading into the river and casting nets or fishing.  I visited the nearest guy and asked if he had been catching anything -- he said mostly Blues and that he had been fishing earlier at the north end of the island until the rain drove him down to the southern tip.  Shortly after talking to the guy, I saw my small rod start dancing in the pole support planted in the sand and started reeling in a decent sized fish which turned out to be a two or two and a half foot shark -- got off when it was about one foot from the beach (thank you very much).

A little bit later, the same rod started dancing again as I was putting some sunscreen on my face so, I pulled and reeled with the tube of sunscreen still in my left hand and landed a nice Jack Crevalle.  Pretty fish with its yellow tail and bright colors (didn't have my camera -- sorry) and it was as long as the inside of my cooler -- perhaps some 18 inches.

After feeding some of the nearby white herons about 5 or 6 of my dead mullet, something hit again on that same small rod and gave a pretty fierce fight but, soon broke the 50 pound test line -- last year's knot right above the swivel (probably weakened over the year or from use in south Texas waters).  A little later, I caught a nice spotted sea Trout about 21 or 22 inches and called it a day at around 2:00 p.m.  Had been fun but, the tide had me moving my poles closer and closer to the Jeep so, I cleaned the fish and headed back along the narrower strip of beach.

You may wonder why the fish were hitting only on that small pole and that is probably because it had been rigged with clear monofilament leaders and the large pole had black steel leaders on it -- bought two of each at Walmart when I bought my new Florida license.  Guess you know I will be buying more of the clear line leaders before I head for the beach again (perhaps later today if it doesn't rain).