This afternoon I fished my normal spot for a bit and caught a couple of small fish and decided to move on.  I won’t say where I ended up because there are too many local guys fishing this tourney that might “discover” my spot.  Man the fishing was incredible!  I caught 30 plus Trout, 2 bluefish and one was 24”, two Snook with the biggest going 23”, a 20” Gag Grouper, several jacks, ladyfish, and a redfish that was 24”+ that got off at the boat.

 The biggest excitement came just before dark when I was thinking about heading back to the dock.  All of the sudden my topwater lure was destroyed and drag was screaming from my reel.  At first I thought it was another Snook because of the way it ran… but then it jumped!  Holy crap it was a giant Sea Trout that looked like a 15 pound largemouth bass.  It had to be the fattest trout I’ve ever seen.  I fought it for about ten minutes making sure that I kept the drag just right to not break the line (20lb Power Pro with a 30lb fluorocarbon leader ).  I fought him perfectly and got him along side the boat and I figured he was 28” or more and went to grab my net.  As I turned back to the fish the lure came out of the water and hit me on the shoulder with a thud.  Bye bye giant Trout…

 After a few choice words that I can’t repeat here, I looked to my shoulder and saw the lure is stuck to my shirt and I thought, great I’m hooked good.  (By the way I just spent 4 hours in the hospital two weeks ago getting an infected thumb taken care of because of a fish hook that lodged in my knuckle and I just finished the antibiotics yesterday).  After getting over the thought that this giant fish was a goner I studied the lure to find out that I was not hooked after all.  I removed the lure in amazement to discover that the front hook was gone.  The eye that is mounted in the lure is in tact but the hook and split ring were gone.  All I know is I had that fish hooked good and if it wasn’t for a tackle malfunction I’d be an easy winner this week.  Oh well this is just day one, six more to go…

Tight lines everyone…

This week I lost both of my Okuma spinning reels to defects, one on Thursday and one on Friday.  I dusted off some old Shimanos and put them on my St. Croix rods and respooled them.  Today I had to respool one of them again when a wind knot from Hell ruined my PowerPro line.  I also lost an eye insert on one of my rods this week.

I probably spent close to 40 hours fishing this week for multiple species… Trout, Redfish, Tarpon, Grouper, Snapper… and landed 3 trout and one Mangrove Snapper.  I have had a terrible time finding the trout and redfish this week.  I fished from 8 inches of water to 16 feet of water offshore, where one of my keepers came from.  I waded, drifted, trolled, you name it, I did it with little luck.  I’ll post a picture of my trout once the tournament close tonight.

Tight lines…

Check out me on the dock with a couple of winning checks.

Payoff

I joined Bountyfishing about a year and a half ago. They are a web-based tournament, open to most of North America, and they were just starting the saltwater fishing tournaments with Sea Trout and Redfish. I have fished trout for most of my career so I have the trout figured out although they run smaller on this coast of Florida. My personal best is from the east coast of Florida a little over 30″ long. This side has produced a 23 incher so far.

I have never fished a tourney that is so easy to fish. You sign-up, select the tourney, pay with paypal or credit card, get your bounty code and go fishing. This code is used during the tournament to uniquely identify the competitor in the photos. You catch an eligable fish, take a picture with the fish and a ruler, a picture of you and the fish, and submit it once back at the dock.

It has added so much more excitment to my fishing. I will now go out in 30+mph winds or heavy rain to try to add to my fish’s length.

This year I vowed to learn the redfish game as best as I can. I will be looking at tips, tricks, and anything else I can find over the next 6 months or so to perfect my technique.

Check out www.bountyfishing.com and see for yourself how much you can learn and earn while having a blast fishing.