My buddy and I fished in a tournament on Saturday. I only took one picture, and that was of the sunrise. We just knew heading into it that we had a shot at placing in the redfish and trout categories. We left the landing at 4:00 AM and headed toward a spot, stopping occasionally to throw at spots on the bank with topwater and paddler lures. I guess it was too cold and dark for anything to even try to bite.
By the time the sun started coming up, we were set up in our spot and had already warmed up with hand warmers in our pockets and a few hot cups of coffee in our bellies. I started throwing my topwater spook and it got blown up more than ever. I was reeling in 15-16" trout with almost every cast. The bite slowed as the sun got higher, but we still caught trout the whole day. The crazy thing was no matter where we went, all we could catch were trout. We took the biggest two to the weigh in, and their combined weight was a little over 5 lbs. In my opinion, that’s not bad for two guys who started fishing out of kayaks a year and a half ago and couldn’t catch fish inshore to save their lives.
I think I’ll stick to just fishing for fun from now on. The rules said we had to be in line to weigh in by 4:00 PM. We showed up at 3:50 and weighed our fish. Two of the three weights that beat us weighed their fish at 4:15 and 4:30, so I was pretty disappointed. I certainly won’t fish that tournament if I do enter another one.
I still had a lot of fun fishing with my best fishing friend. We caught more trout Saturday than we ever have. We caught over twenty trout and only two or three were undersized.
Water temperature was from 53-62 degrees everywhere we went. The water was pretty clear.
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
Sounds a little fishy to me! LOL Sorry couldnt stop myself! That is some bs tho! Great job on the excellent day on the water!
“you win some, you lose some…but nothing beats getting some!”
Not to mention the frozen fish being turned in at the weigh-in.
Good post as usual, Hoofman. What were y’all catching them on once the sun came up?
“I’m not a hundred percent in love with your tone right now…”
Nice fishing, not sure what tourney you were fishing but I can tell you from years of doing tournaments, it depends on the weighmaster. There are tournies all summer and fall that have been around a while and if your not in line at the cut off time…you are DQ’ed. Frozen fish are tossed out too.
quote:
Originally posted by Black Bart
What were y’all catching them on once the sun came up?
On my usual topwater spook. I changed out the hooks the night before, and that made a huge difference in my hook-up/miss ratio. A few people here on CF told me to swap out the hooks months ago, and I put it off over and over. I wish I had done that a lot sooner.
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
If the late fish were ‘not in line’ at the cutoff, you should be able to file a complaint…that is if it’s important to you.
So y’all continued to catch them on topwater even though it wasn’t sunrise or sunset?
“I’m not a hundred percent in love with your tone right now…”
quote:
Originally posted by Black Bart
So y’all continued to catch them on topwater even though it wasn’t sunrise or sunset?
If I see lots of movement and feeding, I will throw my spook over it at any time of day. By 9 o’clock it had slowed down a lot. That’s when I started switching back and forth between a paddler on a jighead and my spook. Eventually subsurface lures start working better as the morning goes on, and at that point I make the switch.
I’m don’t want to call them out on the internet. Maybe it was on Sunday? Now I can’t remember?
If you see me at the boat landing, I’ll tell you all about it. How’s that? 
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
Nice report Hoof and the rivers your this weekend. I have to work. Sharp hooks do work better than rusty. LOL! See you soon!
“Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education”
18’ CC SeaFox
