First Time PAC Attack Recap 2016

Yesterday I fished in PAC Attack the fourth  tournament for the Bayou kayak fishing Club angler of the year series. The goal was to catch the heaviest three Redfish stringer there were also prizes for the heaviest fish and the fish with the most spots. I had never been to PAC (Pointe Aux Chenes) before, and only  I decided to fish the tournament on the thursday before. On the one day I had to prepare I made the decision not to prefish but to do internet prefishing instead. Everything I needed to see was on Google earth. The only thing that would have helped would have been to actually pedal around and look for clean water ahead of time more on that later. My alarm went off at 3:30 and I had a quick breakfast and hit the road. Fast forward a hour and a half and I was at the PAC kayak launch my buddy Cody was waiting for me and really helped expedite my launch. That launch is a super nice setup designed to launch kayaks. I launched at 5:30 and we headed out to one of the productive looking areas I had scouted on Google earth. 

The water had been really high where I had been fishing and PAC was no exception. The plan was to find an area where we could get as deep in the marsh as possible since the water was high the fish were probably deep in the grass. In the darkness we made it to the starting point I threw a Whopper Plopper 90 and quickly landed a nice speckled trout not what I was looking for but it was a start. I fished around this area but that was the last topwater hit I got. Now the sun was coming up I could start to see what I was hearing. There were a ton of mullet in this small pond and I could see a large wake on the opposite side I threw a chatterbait at it but my cast was a little short and it landed right on top of the fish spooking it but not before I could see it was a nice upper slot red. After this I moved into another little pond that was shallow and had much more grass I could see some little bait being harassed and I took a cast near it as soon as the chatterbait hit the water I had a hit. I quickly landed the 18 inch red snapped the pic above and let it go and continued fishing the pond looking for upperslot fish. I moved through a couple more areas with nothing to show the water was dirty and I didnt see anything for half an hour. It was now 8:30 as I made my way through a cut and into a large pond with only three small exits. The water quality was noticeably cleaner and the grass not quite as thick I worked around the pond counter clockwise. I switched to the always productive weedless gold spoon and blind dissected the shoreline points and coves. A couple minutes in I had a small red that shook off midway through me reeling it in. This is where not prefishing hurt me it took two hours to find a good spot and now I had wasted time in a bad area. A little further down another hit as soon as the spoon hit the water I landed a little 18 inch red. The gold spoon was working much better than the chatterbait because it spent less time buried in the weeds. I moved 30 feet down this bank to a small point I cast the spoon and landed another clone 18 incher now my confidence was growing. I continued fishing fast and thoroughly in the pond I stood up so I could cast to down the middle of a small trenasse as my spoon made it out of the cut a red appeared out of nowhere and crushed the spoon. It  turned out to be a 20  inch fish so I threw it in the bag. I figured if all else fails that could be my third fish it was now 9:15 I still needed two more to fill out the stringer. As I made my way around to where I started I began sight fishing looking for that perfect fish since so many were in this pond. As I drifted across the entrance to the pond I saw the iconic redfish tail sticking up I quickly flipped my spoon bass style inches in front. The fish charged it then disappeared for a split second I was dejected when out of nowhere it comes back and smashes the spoon after a brief fight I netted a solid mid slot fish. Now I needed two more of similar or larger size. I explored another smaller adjacent pond for about an hour I lost a smaller fish I still needed one more big fish to have any chance at a check. At 11 I decided to move back into the productive pond I had let it settle and I knew there were more fish there. As I drifted back in I saw a small red I passed on it and continued drifting through I saw a good looking fish. I flipped 2 feet past and reeled it in front and it jumped on it another 23 inch fish. Now I felt better and I had a 2 hours to upgrade the earlier 20 incher I  had caught. I stood and paddled around the pond but clouds kept blocking the sun. I would set up the drift while the cloud blocked and then drift when the sun reappeared. Finally in one of the breaks I saw the fish I needed I slowly bent down to get my rod and as I stood up I watched the fish disappear into the grass along with my hopes of a top 5 finish. That was the last fish I saw on the day I blind casted my way in to the launch with no luck. I ended up with 13.37 pounds that gave me 12th place. Congrats to the winners who were able to put it all together when it counted.