The weather leading up to the event was perfect and fishing was easy ,but two days before the tournament a cold front passed through and threw a wrench in my plans. The winds picked up and made the area I planned on fishing look like the muddy mississippi river water. So I opted to hit my favorite launch on 23 and explore some areas I had never been to before. I launched early Friday morning in the 37 degree and 20 mile an hour north wind to look for some tournament winning fish. I started in a familiar area where I had caught all three fish before. I gave it 30 minutes and searched high and low but couldn't get a bite so I moved on to uncharted waters. I decided to head south along the levee that was blocking the wind. I made it to a dredged out canal that was about 25 feet and began jigging the drop off. After figuring out where the fish were holding I began to catch 11 inch trout every few casts after doing that for 15 minutes I decided to move on to find some bigger trout. By this time the sun had gotten over head and I moved to an adjacent flat that had some relatively clean water. I also noticed some mud slicks on the flat which can be a giveaway for rooting redfish. As I was working the bank with topwater I heard a huge splash behind me. I turned just in time to see a dolphin fin disappear below the surface . Then another dolphin breached 50 feet in front. At that point I gave up on that flat and decided to see if I could find the series of ponds I had scouted on Google earth. When I made it to the entrance pond I was greeted by a 20 inch red that I initially thought was a big speckled trout. After netting the red I could see a bigger one crashing bait and working down the shoreline towards me. As it neared I put my deadly Dudley right on his nose a little too close and instead of eating it he took off in a cloud of dust. At this point I decided to switch rigs to a bass jig and a gulp trailer. As i pulled into the pond i could see the reds floating and I staked out in a well traveled corner. It was like a conveyor belt of fish and with the bass jig flipping it in front proved to be deadly. I went through fish after fish and caught a perfect 26 3/4 fat redfish. After catching about 10 reds I decided to move out of the pond and double back to some of my tried and true trout spots. These turned out to be either too rough or too dirty to fish so I headed back to the launch.
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