DAY 1 It started early Friday but not that early Because we had to wait until 6:45 safe light to launch. After taking my launch picture I hit the water and headed straight for my trout spot. I knew I would have to peddle fast because the sun was coming up and the big girls don't like to hit the top water much after the sun gets over the horizon. I was unsuccessful in beating the sun but it was still early enough to catch a few on top my first was a decent 19 inch speck I quickly took a picture of and released.
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| The picture is missing something. |
My goal was to catch at least 20 inch speckled trout. I knew that would put me in contention for the big trout so I kept throwing top water. Not even Five minutes later I had a huge blowup on top and I could tell I had a bigger trout on as he wouldn't come up to the surface. I took my time making sure to not apply too much pressure and rip the hooks out. I finally landed it and at 8:00 I knew I was done targeting trout for the day.
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| At this point i realized I didn't put the token on the other fish. |
I left my trout spot and headed for my big redfish flat that is situated right off some deeper water. As I was pulling up I could see finger mullet being blasted up and down the shoreline. I cast my top water in and after one twitch I was hooked into a nice 18 inch trout this continued every other cast for about 150 yards until I reached the flat. I did hook something big while fishing this stretch but it popped my line right after I set the hook. Once I got to the flat even bigger mullet were being chased and I knew the big reds were there nope more trout. If this wasn't a tournament I would have bee thrilled to be catching all these trout especially since they were all 16 inches or better but I needed a redfish. Abandoning that trout bite was hard to do I more than once thought about saying screw the tournament and filling up my ice chest . I stuck to the plan and headed to a deep main drain where the water was moving and I had caught a couple bulls before. Five minutes in I hit what I thought was a snag but soon It started moving. A couple minutes later I had a solid 30 1/2 inch redfish and was taking my picture. I felt great having 51 inches and it was only 10:00 especially since that was my goal going into the day.
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| Notice anything missing? |
In my excitement I forgot a very important element for the picture again twice on the same day. Forgetting the token on a 18 inch trout and upgrading was a part of the plan, not having a 30 inch redfish that I landed count would be devastating. After taking a quick water break and composing myself I went back to jigging. After 15 minutes of nothing I had a hit turned out to be a gafftop. Then I popped my line twice in the next ten minutes. I continued jigging At this point I had roughly an hour and a half until I had to head back to the launch. I wouldn't need that much time because my drag began to sing and I knew I had a big fish on the end of my line. I took my time with this fish as I only had 15 pound mono spooled up and I didn't want my line to pop. I was praying it wasn't a black drum but I took my time and fought it much longer than normal. I landed it and headed to the bank to measure. It was big but I guessed it was 36 inches when I finally measured it was 39inches and it would have been at least 40 if it had a whole tail.
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| Headed to the bank to measure. |
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The fish was not as excited as me.
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| Maxed out at 39 inches. |
Day one went about as good as A tournament has ever gone for me I was able to stay calm and composed throughout and execute my plan. There were some great numbers put up on day one ,and after the first day I was near the top of the leader board.I was in 6th place with 60 inches only two inches behind the leader.
Stay tuned for Day 2.
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