5/8 - Jax Classic

Saltwater Kayak Fishing
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Hit the water at 6 am with Lost@Sea and about 429 other yakkers (thankfully we were spread out all over the Jax area). I think about 30 or 40 yaks in the area we fished.

After being in Italy last week and trying to get back on EDT, I looked a little rough.

We beat feet out toward the ICW, then ran up a small creek with some nice oyster walls, undercut banks, and deeper holes… perfect trout habitat to get one species off the list in a hury.

On my second cast with the topwater plug I had the mother of all braid knots that I had to cut out and re-tie. While I was doing that Lost@Sea cruised by and set up on some NICE structure. I set up on the opposite bank next to a pocket cove and began to get frustrated with losing flounder after flounder. While I’m losing fish Carter is shouting “Fish On!” over and over again. He’s nailing trout, flounder and a jack or two. Once he had two species of the slam he bugged out to hit a redfish haunt.

I decided to give up on the flounder for a while and see if I could get a good trout before the sun got to high in the sky. Drifted down a big under cut bank throwing the topwater plug and BOOM; big explosions but no hookup. Tossed it over there again and same thing…:face_with_head_bandage: Grabbed my bait and switch rod, tossed a mud minnow in the same spot and BAM Game On. Trout in the boat before 7:15

We spent the rest of the day fishing like madmen. I continued to lose flounder, caught several trout and never even saw a red. Carter kept picking up trout here and there and with 5 minutes left of fishing time hooked into a nice red. I"ll left him tell the story but after a nice couple of runs it came unbuttoned.

I got lucky… the 20.6 inch trout was good enough for a 4th place finish. :smiley:

If you’ve never fished the Jax Classic, you s

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Hey I was there also. The only think I won was a Penn Conquer 4000 reel and a ■■■■■■■ HMG rod on the raffles the first night. I was using top water 500 yards on my launch site and using the super spook in bone color the trout were slamming it but no hook up not even when I used live shrimp but it got my blood going seeing them slash my bait. Caught a ton of Reds in the 16" range but that was it no bigger than that. Good job on that trout, next time I will have to pre-fish better spots.

yo

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Congrats on the Conquer ■■■■■■■ combo. You definitely came home with better stuff than I did.

I had the same problem on topwater. Plenty of strikes, no hookups. I learned the bait n switch technique from a buddy of mine in Virginia. It saved my bacon Saturday.

Who’s ready for a sleigh ride?
www.kayakfishsc.com

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Zach and I had a blast , the gene pool has been handed down about 8:30 I look over and he is sound a sleep (snoring over the wind) while I landed 3 different slams the largest about 30 inches total :stuck_out_tongue: but with the wind we stayed put, did win a nice dry top in the raffles

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I have to admit it was still fun to fish there! I took the kayak off-shore on Friday close to a mile off-shore. Using silver spoons I was catching macks, bluefish with every cast until they used up all of my spoons, and then catching trout in the surf. Looked for kings and cobia but did not see any it was so calm out there I was standing on my kayak sight fishing for cobias. The boaters looked at me puzzled as what the hell a kayak was doing off shore.
The raffles were amazing! Next time I’m gonna buy more raffles and put them in the kayak drawings, the odds of winning were pretty good!! We should go in droves and stick together next time and represent S. Carolina like the Texans and the Brits did.

yo