Baseball great Reggie Jackson was given the name Mr. October for his clutch hitting performances during the A's and Yankees playoff runs in the late 70s and early 80s. If you fish tournaments in this area chances are you've heard of Ashley Mock and chances are he's won some of your money. The dude catches fish, big ones and lots of them, and is practically unbeatable in the month of April. Pat and I jokingly started calling him “Mr. April” last year and he lived up to his nickname on Saturday.
Background
About six years ago, a guy named Junior Dice walked into Pat's store and they struck up a conversation. Pat and I'd fished a handful of tournaments together and we'd heard of Junior and his partner Ashley. Pat was able to sweet talk his way into a fishing trip with Junior and the friendship began. Shortly thereafter we met Ashley and so began a friendly rivalry between our two teams. We wanted to beat them every tournament and I'm sure they wanted to do the same to us. Winning was cool, but we felt a whole lot cooler when we beat them.
Since then, Pat, Ashley, and I have fished several tournaments together and we've won our fair share. We hadn't however caught the giants that Ashley and Junior are known for. I bet we've fished 20 times together and the biggest fish we'd ever weighed was a hair over 5 lbs. It seemed like every time Ashley fished a tournament without us, he'd weigh a 6.5 lb trout.
4/12/13
Ashley lives in Perry and we usually stay at his house the night before if we plan to fish down in his neck of the woods. On the hour ride to his house, we were reminiscing about past tournaments and Pat made a few comments about how we'd never caught a biggun' together. Once at Ashley's, we plugged the trolling motor up to charge and went into the war room and talked about a game plan. The war room is a bedroom-turned-man cave that houses all of Ashley's rods and reels and tackle. Maps of the area cover the walls as well as big checks from past tournament victories. Boxes of old plugs are stacked in the room and you can't help but get fired up to fish upon entering. Ashley had done some scouting earlier in the week and found a good school of reds located fairly close to the ramp. Ashley and I had fished the club tournament the Saturday prior and had a good idea where some big trout might be as well. The plan was to stop first thing at a known big trout spot while we had enough water. After sticking a big one, we'd head over to the redfish hole, locate the big school, stick one 27" on the nose, and be done by 8:30. Easy, right?
4/13/13 - Game Day
Fell asleep to crickets chirping and slept surprisingly well. Usually I'm too excited to get much sleep, but the combination of a comfortable bed and a long work week made it easy to fall asleep. Woke up at 5:30, slammed a Red Bull and was ready to go. Our tournament routine usually includes a trip to Katie's, the local convenience store, for a sausage biscuit, so we left Ashley's house and headed that way. On the ride to Katie's, Pat said, "Ashley better be right. Maybe Junior is the one that catches all their fish. He hasn't ever caught one when we've fished together." Upon arrival, we stepped out of the truck, looked back at the boat and something wasn't right. Seems we'd forgotten to unplug the extension cord and it had joined us on our ride. Not a good start to the day.
After gorging ourselves on sausage biscuits, we made the short trek to the ramp and launched the boat. Idled out of the canal, made the run to our first stop, and were pleased to see that no other boats were around. We pulled out our cell phones and waited until all of the phones read 7:00 A.M. and made our first casts of the day. Spot 1 resulted in a few slot trout, a 23" red, a dead trolling motor, a kicking North wind, and zero big fish sightings. Time to head to spot 2.
Spot 2 was occupied so we stopped a mile short in another of Ashley's sweet spots. The shallow flat had broken bottom with the occasional rock mixed in. Mullet greeted us once we stopped idling in 16" of water. Each of us picked up our favorite top water plug and slung it out. About four casts into the drift, a big trout bombed Ashley's plug, but the fished missed on the first, second and third swipes at the plug. By now, the plug was no more than ten yards from the boat, but luckily the fish wanted the spook bad and tasted steel on the fourth strike. Ashley guided the big girl to the boat and after a practice net job by Pat, the fish settled into the bottom of the net on the second attempt. We power-poled down and high fives and fist bumps were passed around. The fish tipped the scales at 5 lbs, 12 ounces, despite only measuring 25". Ashley is Amish and doesn't believe in taking photos of his catches, so we weren't able to document his catch while it was still alive. Just kidding, he was just so excited about making the next cast that he didn’t have time for photos.
Confidence in our guide restored, we lifted the power-pole and resumed fishing. About two casts later, my plug disappeared in a wall of water and the fish immediately ripped drag. The fish surfaced and we all saw that it was a good redfish. Turns out it was too good as it taped out to 31". I'm not Amish so we stopped for a minute for a photo op.
We call this one “The Creasy”
Power-poles were lifted and two casts in another one bombed my spook. Anyone that has tournament fished for reds has probably had this same conversation during the fight when the fish gets close to the boat.
Angler 1, "He's too big, he won't measure."
Angler 2, "You're crazy. That fish is good all day long."
Angler 1, "I'm telling you man, that fish is long. Damn it!"
Angler 2, "Dude, you don't know what you're talking about, that fish is legal."
I got the fish close to the boat and Irwin was on his netting game. Once the head made it in the net, the toughest 30 seconds of red fishing began. You know, that 30 second gap between landing and measuring. We laid the fish on the measuring board and it was as close to 27" as you can get without touching the line. To quote Wooderson from Dazed and Confused, "Alright, Alright, Alright!" A quick ride on the scale revealed that the fish was 7 lbs, 11 ounces.
It is now 8:20 A.M. and we have two fish in the box that weigh 13.5 lbs. Most people would've called it a day right then. Not Ashley Mock. We continued fishing and about four casts later Ashley caught a 28" red, a true pumpkin. This time he posed for the frame.
He still hasn’t mastered the Creasy
I forgot to mention earlier, but in the war room on Friday night Ashley called his shot. He told us, "I don't care what we have in the box, at 9:30, we need to be sitting at "The Trough". With that low water, there won't be any boats there and we should be able to whack a giant once the tide flips at 9:45."
So at 9:30, we left fish that were biting and moved on. Most days Pat and I would've told Ashley, "Hell no, we aren't moving", but it's a whole lot easier to give in when you have studs in the box. After all, we were fishing with Mr. April.
At "The Trough" we found low water. I'm talking 12" of water. We took the boat in as far as it would go and then drifted out. The trough was a deep(er) channel running out from a creek mouth. Outside of the trough, the water was 12" deep, but once we were able to get into the ditch, the depth increased about a foot. Plenty of water for a piglet to feed in.
So we continued drifting out with the wind, Ashley and I on the front and Pat on the back deck. About five minutes into the drift, Ashley turned to me and started to say, "This is the most productive stretch, we should hook up in the next few..." Our conversation was interrupted by a huge hit on his plug. He set the hook and not two seconds later a giant trout leapt completely out of the water with his plug in its mouth. The fish swan dived back into the water and I let out a, "WOAH". Our net man picked up his tool and went to work. The fish got close to the boat and the head shakes began. Unfazed, Pat scooped the big fish up, slung it in the boat and proceeded to lay on top of it. She wasn't going anywhere. We screamed like little girls and gazed at the beautiful 28.5" pig now resting in the bottom of the boat. Again, Amish Ashley refused to pose for pics. So we power-poled down and contemplated our next move. While sitting there, Pat remarked to Ashley, "Damn dude, I'm glad I talked smack about you this morning. You finally showed me something!"
We now had a trout that weighed 6 lbs, 11 ounces and a red that weighed 7 lbs, 11 ounces on my scale. Pretty damn tough to upgrade that. The problem was that we needed another foot of tide to get the boat back on the trailer seeing that it was 10:05 A.M. and the tide had just started to roll in. So we sat down, ate a bologna sandwich, and drank a beer.
We tried to continue fishing, but it just wasn't happening. So we killed time and made it back to the ramp about 11:45. The water was still low, but with some handy push-poling by the net man, we were able to get the boat in the canal and onto the trailer. We drove to my parents' beach house in Ochklocknee Bay and made it there about 2 P.M. I showered, Ashley napped, and Pat took a dip in the pool to kill time before the weigh in. We finally left the beach house at 3:45 and made the short drive to Carrabelle. Several nice fish were brought to the scales including a 7 pound trout, but no team had a bigger combined weight than us. We ended up winning the tournament and I had the big red fish as an added bonus.
Weighing the big girl in
Three pigs and one helluva net man
Big Red
The two winning fish
It was an awesome day on the water with two of my good friends. I can now say that I've seen firsthand why they call him “Mr. April”.
