The day started out a little rough... As I was loading the boat I slipped and fell off the gunnel and smashed my shin on the underside of the dock and landed in the bottom of the boat. After the bleeding stopped I went out at first light fishing for Trout and had a 20”+ on the first cast that I lost next to the boat. So I thought this is going to be a good morning. Didn’t happen like I expected it to and I caught only one other fish in 2 hours so I packed it in and went home. 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! In less than two hours I caught 20 plus Trout, 2 Bluefish with one at 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 ). He jumped 4 times during the fight and I fought him perfectly getting him along the side the boat (I figured he was 28” or more) then grabbed 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 during the last tourney 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.
And who knows the way it's going there might be another hospital visit this week and I will need that first place money for bills...
Tight lines everyone…
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