Picture this: The skipper’s best friend, George Johnson, comes down from Atlanta to see if they have anything in Panama City waters that will tear up wooden plugs as fast as the peacock bass they fought in Brazil. Capt. Chris Parker takes him offshore to a Hathaway Bridge span.

They cast 2-ounce white jigs with 8-inch curly-tails, let them bottom out, then jig them furiously back to the surface. None makes it. Amberjacks strike instantly. Everyone is hooked up and fighting. They get up the 15-pounders, make fast releases and go down for more.

The fish wouldn’t wait. They come up looking for action. Soon an acre of water churns with hungry fish. The AJs grab jigs as soon as they hit the water. If the school dives, jigging brings them up fast, slamming jigs right at the boat.

Johnson brought some big topwater lures they used in Brazil. They try bait and switch. Two pump jigs to keep the action high while Johnson and Parker pitch 9-inch propbaits into the frenzy.

Everyone has fish on. The jiggers switch to the long wood lures. They get whacked—in fact, whacked so often and with such violence on the 30-pound spinning rigs that after a few dozen catch and releases, those still standing and able to work a rod, remove the plugs’ hooks to enjoy just the strikes.

“Bam! They not only struck those 9-inch hookless plugs,” laughed Chris, “but the fish knocked the things out of the water in their eagerness. Three of us were casting topwaters with no hooks. We got the jacks so stirred up, we could actually do figure eights with the rods at the side of the boat and everyone was getting soaked from all the explosions. You could throw your plug out about 10 feet, rip it one time and not touch it again and the amberjacks would repeatedly maul it. They’d suck it down a few feet and continue to hit it. It’d float back up and get hit into the air again. We caught several fish with the hookless plugs wedged crosswise in their mouths!”

When I heard this I thought, what an idea for bait and switch using spinners and fly rods. I asked Chris to call me when conditions were right.

Early last May, he called to say the time was right for AJs. So I phoned Jack Montague in Punta Gorda and told him to load some fly rods in his van and hit the highway as soon as possible. I figured anyone who starts fly fishing at five years of age should know something about it.

We met at St. Andrews State Recreation Area where I set up camp and tied several 5-inch Lefty’s Deceivers for the encounter. This recreational area is an ideal location for the area’s fishing action. Even locals move their motor homes into the park when spring and fall fishing starts. St. Andrews Recreation Area didn’t get it’s gold medal best-of-parks award for nothing. Tree-shaded sites separate the bay from the Gulf of Mexico and offer a choice of dock, jetty, marina and pier fishing facilities so visitors can sample both bay and Gulf angling at it’s best. Springtime triggers the action.

At 8:30, Chris and Bill Fowler picked us up at the bay pier. Instead of his usual high-powered flats boat for remote bay fishing, our guide was using his 22-foot inboard sportfisher with hardtop, cobia tower and new electronics. When Parker doesn’t fish far offshore he favors this combo capable of fishing up to four anglers with 8 to 10 rods, and almost a dozen rodholders; five on top, two on the tower and four on the gunnels. A compact nearshore action boat.

Over the years I’ve caught many a fish and crab off St. Andrew Bay’s old Hathaway Bridge. Jewfish the size of 55-gallon drums were once taken from the bridge on ropes tied off to heavy tire innertubes. I caught the occasional cobia and shark from her spans. Today, those same spans still provide fish as inshore reefs within a 15-mile radius of the park.

As we powered out, Chris—who has worked in the seafood business—brought me up to date on the amberjack situation. In a nutshell, about 15 years ago Paul Prudhomme, the famous Louisiana chef, came up with a mix of spices for his specialty, blackened redfish. It swept the country. Demand was so great for the fish that airplanes were used to spot and direct netters to the schools of mature brood fish. That lasted a couple years and suddenly there were no more mature redfish in the Gulf of Mexico. Then young reds trying to survive in the bay were wiped out when bay gill netters took them. The fishery was depleted.

“So they banned the nets and stopped the commercial fishing for redfish in the Gulf of Mexico. Sportfishermen were limited to one redfish between 18 and 27 inches per day per person.

“But the country’s appetite for blackened redfish was still there,” said Parker. “Commercial fishers soon filled the demand with blackened amberjack, which with the powerful seasoning turned out to be just about as tasty. Soon, the same thing happened to the amberjacks. The fishery was depleted down to where only little ones were left. So, those in the know stepped in and put an end to the amberjack fishing and put higher size limits on them. Today, it’s one fish per person with a 28-inch minimum to the fork which makes it at least a 15-pound fish.