It seems like only yesterday that Derek Eager, Danny Mikell and myself were pulling away from the James Island Yacht Club dock at 5 am to fish in my first fishing tournament ever, the 1989 Allison Oswald Memorial Tournament. We were juniors in high school and we all had been fishing our entire lives. The tournament was just a “small tournament”, but the mere thought of participating in a tournament with such a young crew had all of us excited. We started planning for the tournament weeks in advance, making rigs, scouting bait, and listening to reports during our after school jobs at Johns Rod and Reel. The Thursday night before the tournament we went to the captains meeting, registered, and got our free t-shirts.
We enjoyed talking with and getting to know the other anglers in the tournament, many of which we had met at the shop. Each one of us walked away from the Captain’s meeting feeling as though we had graduated to the big boys anglers club as we started friendships that evening with fellow anglers that we still have to this day.
We went home that night and planned our next two days. First, we would catch finger mullet on Friday afternoon in the harbor out of my father’s little Carolina Skiff. Then we would go and wade in Danny’s fathers creek and catch some big mullet. We would keep the bait alive off of Danny’s father dock in a bait pen and pick them up on the way out Saturday morning.
Saturday’s fishing was planned to the “T” around the tides. We would leave the dock at 5 am and go to the end of the jetties and fish for Kings during high tide and wait for the tide to turn. As the muddy water from the harbor moved out we would then go fish off Morris Island for Sharks. After that we would take advantage of the slack low tide at Dynamite Hole to try and catch a big Channel Bass. As the tide started coming back in we would try to fish for Flounder at Fort Johnson. At mid tide we planned to fish up the Cooper for Trout, and finally we would finish the day at Castle Pickney at high tide trying to catc