Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

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Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, baits, techniques, species caught, etc.
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SouthernPointe
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Joined: September 18th, 2019, 2:13 pm

Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by SouthernPointe »

My brother in law and I had been looking forward to this tournament for quiet some time since most have been canceled. It will be our last tournament together before he leaves for Brazil as a missionary next month. I know he’ll be send me videos of the peacocks soon! The first/last tournament we’ve fished was the RedTrout Shootout which was back in October of 2019.

With very little advice from others (besides there are a lot of rocks) and never fished the Steinhatchee area, we decided we try to do some prefishing the day prior. We started the day off with some minor boat issues so we didn’t get on the water till 9am. We eased out and fished some creeks. The water temp ranged 56-59 and was stained but clear. We used a combination of lures from twitch baits, topwater, spoons and soft plastics to see what the fished liked. We caught 15 reds with a 26” being the biggest and lost plenty of tackle on oysters.

On Saturday, we were the second boat to leave the dock at first light. Water looked a little different because it was low tide and man was it revealing as to what’s out there. We ended up stumbling on some structure that paralleled 100 yards off the shoreline. That’s where we caught most our fish, about two hours in. Fish were caught on spoons and twitch baits. We ended up catching over 23 reds with a 26 3/4” being our biggest (7.1 lbs).

We weighted in two fish totaling 11.4 lbs. nothing astonishing but it was good enough to place third out of 56 teams.

All fish were released.

If you never fished a tournament, I recommend finding one and trying it out. This tournament was done right! You don’t need the fastest boat or even saltwater lures (our twitch bait was a bass lure) to catch fish. Heck, we could have paddled to where we fished. So try a tournament sometime!

Get out there and just fish! I’m no pro but If you genuinely need tips on fishing I’d be happy to help. Just PM me.

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Last edited by SouthernPointe on December 14th, 2020, 9:33 am, edited 4 times in total.
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kenfly
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Re: Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by kenfly »

Wow, thats awesome! Congrats guys
Diff want to try some of these tournaments when they have some


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SouthernPointe
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Joined: September 18th, 2019, 2:13 pm

Re: Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by SouthernPointe »

kenfly wrote:Wow, thats awesome! Congrats guys
Diff want to try some of these tournaments when they have some


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You should do it. All it takes is some beginners luck! NFRSeries.com is doing multiple local tournaments this upcoming year and I plan on finding a new fishing partner(s) to fish them with.


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Salty Gator
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Re: Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by Salty Gator »

Excellent work gentlemen
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FishWithChris
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Re: Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by FishWithChris »

Nice work, guys!

George and I fished as well; arriving Thursday and prefishing both Thurs/Friday. We found some quality fish everywhere we looked. Come Saturday we started off hot and then had a few hours of silence; finding our largest red in a creek bend we hadn't explored the day prior. Unfortunately for us, as we eased out and starting hauling arse back it was already too late. We arrived at the dock at 3:10pm with what would have been close to in the money (but likely just out). I probably could have pushed the boat further but we were already at ## miles; which is about my boat's range... we'll see on next fill-up how much more I could have ran.

We love that Eggnog tournament and always have smiles for miles. Glad to see y'all take home some scrilla; I'll enjoy my deeply discounted Power-Pole :D and the memories of the extreme backwaters that revealed parts of Florida that many will never have the opportunity of seeing outside of history books and The National Geographic.
:beer: :beer:
Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn. ~Chuck Clark

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Rainman
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Re: Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by Rainman »

Great job! Fished it each year but this one. Always a blast.
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SouthernPointe
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Joined: September 18th, 2019, 2:13 pm

Steinhatchee 11th & 12th (Eggnog Open)

Post by SouthernPointe »

FishWithChris wrote:Nice work, guys!

George and I fished as well; arriving Thursday and prefishing both Thurs/Friday. We found some quality fish everywhere we looked. Come Saturday we started off hot and then had a few hours of silence; finding our largest red in a creek bend we hadn't explored the day prior. Unfortunately for us, as we eased out and starting hauling arse back it was already too late. We arrived at the dock at 3:10pm with what would have been close to in the money (but likely just out). I probably could have pushed the boat further but we were already at ## miles; which is about my boat's range... we'll see on next fill-up how much more I could have ran.

We love that Eggnog tournament and always have smiles for miles. Glad to see y'all take home some scrilla; I'll enjoy my deeply discounted Power-Pole :D and the memories of the extreme backwaters that revealed parts of Florida that many will never have the opportunity of seeing outside of history books and The National Geographic.
:beer: :beer:
That was the same for us on Saturday. I’m relatively new to fishing reds and knowing where to go during the seasons and tide flows. So I was a little lost getting out there at low tide. It went dead on us a little before and after high tide.

Yeah, I over heard folks in the weigh in line talking about making 80 mile runs. I think the 1st place guys ran down to Cedar Key. I didn’t realize how far folks ran.

Next tournament I’ll introduce myself. I saw you and your boat in passing but didn’t recognize anyone else from our neck of the woods.

Stay safe.


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