Outcast Inshore Slam; May 16 2009

0400 and the alarm clock is screaming at me! I only hit the snooze button twice before dragging myself out of bed. Capt Dusty, Tim and I were meeting at Day Break Marina at 0500 and I had to get moving. By 0545 we were loaded up and ready for the 0600 shotgun start.Once the go call was made we were off and running, 48 boats fanning out from Bayou Chico, what a sight.

The first order of business was a good Speckled Trout. We made the 10 minute run to our Trout spot, set the anchor, and began tossing out Croakers. The bite was astounding! Within 20 minutes we had upgraded our Trout probably five times and within an hour we had two Trout in the box that tipped the scales at over 6 lbs! As for how many Speckled Trout we caught and released, I wish we would have kept count. I feel confident saying we released 5 fish over 5 lbs, 10 over 4 lbs, and a number of 2 and 3 lb fish. Undoubtedly the best bite of big Speckled Trout that I have ever been blessed to witness and am honored to participate in.

Another tournament boat was fishing within 100 yards of us; when they found out the quality of fish we'd caught they couldn't believe we had not moved on in search of a Redfish or Flounder. We were going to sit right there until the bite was over, not willing to give up that spot until it ended. Big Trout had been caught with fair regularity lately, fish up to 8.5 lbs, that was the wildcard in this situation. We weren't sure that 6 lbs would be enough. They did, however, have a valid point. The Trout alone was not going to win the tournament no matter how big it was; we needed two other fish to go with it. The bite had begun to slow, it was almost time to leave. Tim kept fishing for Trout as Dusty and I got everything ready for Redfish. Once our prep work was complete we let most of our Croakers go on the Trout hole, consider it an offering of thanks to the fish, then pointed the bow at the Redfish hole and punched the throttle.

Ten minutes later we arrive at our Redfish spot. On my second cast I hook up with a brute. This fish put up an enormous fight, putting that Shimano combo through it's paces. Dusty's first look at the fish produces my favorite of his phrases. It goes something like, "Damn! He's over, definitely over, probably 27 1/2, 28. Man! If he makes, he's a winner." Upon completion of his phrase he nets the fish, pulls it in the boat, lays the net down, and goes back to fishing, leaving me to tend to my fish.

I got the hook out and put my fish on the measuring stick, 27 on the nose, I was shocked! This fish looked big, to big to fit in the slot. I flipped him over, measured him again, and called to Dusty. He peeked over the leaning post at my huge smile and said, "You're kidding." Nope, not kidding. On the hand scale he weighed 8lbs 2oz. WOW! At that moment we erupted with excitement! This was surreal. We immediately headed to our Flounder spot.

Five minutes later we arrive. Dusty was posted on the bow with his favorite Shimano Sustain and a Gulp! 4" Shrimp on a 1/4 oz jighead. His only job was to fish, our job was to keep him fishing. His first two casts went untouched, his third cast got eaten by a 16" Flounder. We couldn't believe it! We had a solid weight and the reports we were getting told of only one really big Trout. We felt good but still wanted to improve our Flounder so we kept right on fishing. Less than an hour later I put the net under another of Dusty's fish, one that measured 21" and weighed a little over 3.5 lbs. We unanimously agreed to leave our spot and head for another of the Flounder holes on our list. It's not worth letting someone find our Flounder spot to try to upgrade a fish like that.

Five minutes later we eased into our next stop. We caught 3 more 2+lb fish in 15 minutes or so. At one point we all looked at each other and decided it might be best to regain our composure. We pulled away and took a breather. Again all the fish were measured and weighed. Our calculations came out to 17.5 lbs, WHAT?!?!?! We weighed them all again. Then the scale was questioned. I pulled out 15 oz of leads and hung it from the scale, it read 15 oz. The scale was right on. We really had 17.5 lbs. That's a new tournament record! It was 0845. Unbelievable!

What to do now? No matter what, we wanted to get closer to the dock, just in case we had problems. We began idling toward Day Break Marina. Capt. Corey Maxwell saw us and called. His brother, Ryan, asked what we were doing, "It's 9 o'clock, what ya'll already won the tournament and just messing around?". He didn't believe us when we told him.

We decided to head for a place in north Pensacola Bay that historically holds Trout, Flounder, and Redfish but had not been productive for us during pre-fishing. That held true, we never caught another Flounder or Redfish the rest of the day. We did, however, stumble onto a hot bite of big Speckled Trout a little after noon. We caught around 2 dozen more Trout before we ran out of bait. We released 6 fish over 5 lbs, 8-10 in the 4 lb range, the rest of the Trout were in the 2-4 lb range, our smallest fish was 19 1/2". The only thing that kept this from being the best bite of Big Trout I have ever seen was the bite we were on first thing in the morning! What a day!!!

Our bait supply ran out around 1330. We pointed the bow towards the scales and started idling again. We couldn't stop smiling and reminiscing about the Trout bite we had just left 10 minutes ago. Again we weighed and measured all of our big fish, put our two big Trout on the balance beam, and rechecked our math. Then we began honestly spreading the word.

At 1440 we were tied up at Day Break Marina, waiting for the scales to open at 1500. Once the tournament guys were ready we brought our fish out. The Redfish got weighed first, 7.9 lbs. The Trout came next, 6.15 lbs, bringing our tally to 14.05. Then the Flounder, 3.65. For a grand total and new tournament record of 17.7 lbs. WOW! Now to wait for the next three hours for the scales to close.

We took the opportunity to take pictures with our fish and all of our Shimano equipment, then pulled the boat, flushed the motor and cleaned everything up. Other teams began showing up to weigh in and reports kept coming from the rest of the field. One of those reports was that J.R.'s team had added a nice Redfish to his big Speckled Trout, but he still needed a Flounder to complete the slam. There was time left for him to connect with that much needed Flounder and reports of his progress stopped coming in. As the sun was drifting low on the horizon J.R.'s boat rounded the corner and the tension built. They tied up to the dock, Trout hanging out of the cooler, and told us that no matter what they tried they couldn't come up with the Flounder.

It was official, we had won! A full 4 lbs separating us from the second place team. Our final tally was 1st Place Aggregate, 1st Place Redfish, 1st Place Flounder, and 2 nd Place Speckled Trout, an awesome finish! The tournament committee convened to figure out all of the pay-outs before announcing the winning totals. When they were done awards were handed out and prize moneys were announced. We pocketed $15,375.50 in cash and a brand new 2009 Blazer Bay 1960 rigged with a 115 Yamaha outboard, valued at $27,495, bringing our grand total to just under $43,000. What a day! Unbelievable!


A big thanks to my teammates, you guys kick major a**! Thanks to our sponsors: Georges Marine Electronics, Breeze Fabricators, Johnson Castnets, and JustFishTournaments.com; for helping us chase our dreams. Thanks to Outcast Hunting and Fishing, Day Break Marina, and Blazer Boats for putting on a great event. And of course to you, the readers, for taking the time to read this really long post.

Last years tournament report can be seen here Outcast Inshore Slam 2008