James Shelton
James Shelton
High School Teacher
Cadiz, Kentucky
Fishing the Surf Since 2006
Surf Tournament Wins:
- April, 6 2007 – 1st Annual Crossroads Fellowship Men’s Retreat Surf Fishing Tournament (St. George Island, Florida)
*Big Shark – [Tie with Stan Rogers] - April 4, 2008 – 2nd Annual Crossroads Fellowship Men’s Retreat Surf Fishing Tournament (St. George Island, Florida)
*1st Place / Tournament Champion
*Tournament Week Big Fish – 39-Inch Red Drum
James is an avid and experienced bass fisherman back home in Kentucky. His home lakes are Kantucky Lake and Lake Barkley. James serves as President and Founder of the FOCAS (Fellowship of Christian Anglers Society) chapter in Cadiz, Kentucky. He is a well-know and respected angler in Western Kentucky.
James started surf fishing in July 2006 on a family vacation to St. George Island, Florida. The Shelton family shared a beach house with the Baggett family. He had been to the beach several times in his life, but he had never tried to fish the surf.
Now, fishing tackle is mandatory equipment for the Shelton family beach outings!
July 2006 – St. George Island, FL
This is James’ first-ever Speckled Trout … a nice keeper!
James caught this dandy little Crevalle Jack in the surf. It was an awesome fighter. James actually thought he had a lot more of a fish than this!
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
Visitors to This Site
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
That is a nice pompano, not a jack crevalle. They look alike.
Comment by Hal— February 23, 2010 #
Hal, I beg to differ. James caught this in the middle of July in Northern Florida. No Pompano are up there during that time. I have only caught them in March, April (most), and rarely in October.
If you look really closely you can see the one primary feature that identifies the fish as a Jack (as opposed to a Pompano). It has a doubled dorsal fin. You can barely see the smaller front fin just above James’ middle finger. It is laying down slightly. Another telling characteristic is the black spot on the gill plate, which is evident just above James’ forefinger.
Where do you fish? Do you get to fish the surf much? We are landlocked surfcasters up here in Kentucky. We will be making our next group trip down to SGI during the first week of April.
Thanks for visiting our funky little site.
Comment by Geoff Baggett— February 23, 2010 #
Hey All,
Just found your blog. I’m heading down to SGI for the first time in December. I’m used to fishing near the arctic circle for huge pike and walleye (believe it or not, you can catch about 200 fish by noon on good days). although i have watched people fish the surf (and have never seen anyone catch anything), i’m a newbie, so i would be grateful if you could give me some tips (bait, rigs, etc) for how to surf fish in SGI.
thanks!
sean
Comment by Sean O'Brien— October 19, 2011 #
Sean,
I was just down on SGI last week. I hate to say it, but don’t get your hopes up … especially in December. It was my worst surf fishing ever in October. Usually, everything is biting in early October. Tropical Storm Lee kind of messed things up in the fishing department down there. All of the “old timers” told me that nothing had been the same since that storm flooded the beaches on Labor Day weekend.
Still a lot of fun, though. The dolphins put on a good show every morning.
It will be cold in December.
Just use any open-face spin reel, a good, stiff rod. I like 20-30 pound braid line. You can buy leaders for a buck at any of the local bait shops. Depending on the surf, put a 1 to 3 ounce pyramid weight on the terminal end, and either shrimp or squid chunks on #3 circle hooks (stainless steel).
Hope you catch a few. Be sure to climb the lighthouse while you’re there. And visit the estuarium (on the land side of the bridge). Really cool and interesting, plus it’s free!
Geoff
Comment by Geoff Baggett— October 20, 2011 #