BayGator and I launched his boat at Presnell's at about 6:30 a.m. The wind was already whipping...white caps were all around. We ran to a series of potholes in the back of the bay and immediately caught some keeper trout, but none bigger than 17". We moved around a bunch just checking on different areas and trying different baits. At about 9 a.m. we met up with Snatch-N-Reel and my dad and fished for a couple more hours, catching 15-17" trout. All the trout were caught on twitchbaits and TSS. Bay Gator and I ended the day with 21 trout, mostly keepers to 18", but kept 8 for the fish fry. He also caught a 21" redfish on a small Gulp shrimp rigged weedless.
Dad and Pat caught a few good trout and a nice flounder...
We did get to fish around Blair Wiggins and a few other FLW Redfish boats that had run 58 miles from Panama CIty.
Saturday
Snatch, my dad, and I followed the masses out of Presnell's and headed behind B.I. in an attempt to get out of the wind. My dad was slingin' the CT, Pat was throwing the TSS, and I alternated between a topwater plug and a twitchbait. The fishing was slow for the first part of the day...we caught fish, but most were small. We made a move around 8:30 a.m. to the other side of B.I. and drifted through potholes. I caught a nice 19.5" trout and we thought we might get lucky and pick up a few more at that size in the potholes. Instead, we loaded the boat with 16" fish...
Around 11 p.m. we went back to the area that we'd started the morning, except we went as shallow as we could. We tried to fish the scattered potholes at the grassline and had a little success. Pat had switched to a topwater and had a big red come out of the water to hit it...he was hooked up and already counting the redfish pot money when his line went limp...bad knot. We then continued our drift and my Dad hooked up with what looked to be an over 20" trout only to have the trout throw the jig.
We finished our drift and decided to go make it one more time. About halfway through the drift, I made a long cast to a pothole almost on the shore...twitch twitch twitch pause and then the line jumped. I set the hook and knew it was a good fish immediatly as it turned sideways and gave me a nice profile shot. I fought the fish for a good 2 minutes and finally got it in the boat after my dad tried to knock it off once with the net. It measured 25" and went 4.5 lbs.
Three Vices
We spent the rest of the day trying to upgrade our slot fish to no avail. We weighed in 10.75 lbs and came in 6th; it was a fun day with two good friends and we had a few good laughs and memorable quotes on the boat. Enjoyed it fellas!
Final tally for the day - 21 trout to 25"
Yellow Book Trout Count for 2008 - 121 , R - 69
