That annoying alarm blared at 0400. Reluctantly, I got up. We were meeting at Day Break Marina at 0500 and if I closed my eyes again I'd likely sleep 'til noon. Everything had been readied the night before, all that was left was to load the rods into the boat and grab the bait. By 0530 we were ready and waiting for the 0600 shotgun start.
As soon as the tournament committee let us go we were racing to our first spot, looking for a Speckled Trout. We fished hard, moved around a few times, and Tim finally connected with our only Trout of the day. He ended up tipping the scales at 3.25 lbs. Another 15-20 min. passed trying to catch a bigger one; I finally hooked up with a nice, if unexpected, Flounder. That's 2/3 of our slam! He wasn't a big fish, but it WAS a Flounder. Immediately we picked up, we HAD to find a redfish.
The Redfishing was slow, but within an hour we'd caught eight, all oversize by 1.5"-11". Our biggest fish was 38.5 inches. I was the lucky one on the Redfish hole and boated a fish that was a hair under 27", perfect. A 7 lb Red to go with a 3.25lb trout and a 1 lb Flounder, that's 11+ lbs. We've got a shot winning this thing!
A bigger Flounder would be the clutch fish. The mission had come down to this. We moved around, caught a few fish at one spot, improving with each fish in the net. The bite slowed. We moved again and kept right on catching; Captain DP put 7 fish in the boat with 8 casts. Our final Flounder, which we estimated at 2.5+lbs, hit the ice and DP put the throttle on the dash.
We're in the 12lb range now and felt we had a better chance of improving our Trout. We went back to doing what we started the day with. The bigger Trout never showed. As the clock neared 1730 it was time for us to pack it in and head for the scales. We felt pretty good about our chances, but we knew Tim's brother had a few nice fish of his own.
When our fish got weighed we were in the lead with a 12.5lb aggregate, including a (then first place) 6.9lb Redfish, a 3.25lb Trout, and a 2.35lb Flounder. As the evening progressed we got bumped by Capt. Chad Pruitt and crew, with 13.65lbs, and again by Tim's brother, Chris, whose crew won with 14.6lbs. We finished in third for the aggregate and second in the Redfish division. Whoo hoo! What a day of fishing!
Thanks to our sponsor, Georges Marine Electronics, and to Outcast, Blazer Boats, Day Break Marina, and all the other sponsors for putting on a great event.
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