Me and the boy decided that we would give Carrabelle/Lanark a try for this months NFGFC tourney. At the last minute, my dad and brother wanted to tag along, so we made it a family event too. We signed in at Jerry's about 5:20am and headed off to Carrabelle. The boat was in the water and we were on our way around 6:45am. Went west down past Carrabelle Beach and started a drift. Got real good action on the topwater, but the fish were missing the plug. I managed one keeper trout (18") in the first hour while my dad and brother put on a gulp clinic with everything from trout to blues. Not many keeper fish, but they were having fun and that was all that mattered. The bite slowed about 9:30am so we went a little farther west with no success. Went back to where we started and managed to play with the blues and ladyfish with a few small trout mixed in. We finally made the run over to Lanark and started fishing in about 18" of water over some nice grass. I noticed a few tails poking out of the water, so we tossed a couple of topwater plugs their way. A few casts later, my son Avery gets a strike and the water EXPLODES!!!! I thought it was a shark because we had seen a few when we stopped. When the fish got closer to the boat, we saw a huge flash of copper and alot of black spots
It was a huge red!!! Avery's first on topwater. I grabbed the net but the fish made an explosive run and out came the plug
He didn't get the fish, but he'll remember the experience for a lifetime. I tried to console him by telling that the fish looked over 27" anyway. Didn't work. Oh well, we fished a little while longer and I managed to catch our biggest trout of the day right before we left (21"). Got right back over towards Carrabelle River, when the man cruises by. Everything on the boat checked out fine except for the fact that I only had
3 life vests and a throw cushion. Remember, my dad and brother joined us last minute and yours truly didn't think to put another vest on the boat
I've got 15 or so at home, but they didn't do me any good not being on the boat. So, add
$73 to the cost of today's trip
The man tells us that technically we needed to head on in and get another vest or leave someone and come back out. He goes the other way and said he would leave that up to us. We were trying to get back to the weigh-in, so in we went. I called Trouttrent to tell him we were on our way, but got delayed due to "involuntary contributing revenue to the state"
We got back to Jerry's about 3:40pm, but didn't bother to weigh our fish. All in all we still had a good day
Congrats to all the winners
