Left the fort about 6:30 and headed east. Decided to try for the trout first and went to some shallow water near gray mare. Fished for about 10 minutes in the howling wind and cold, frothy brown water. Stuck my had in the water and tasted it. You could have drunk a glass the water was so fresh. Decided we should find some saltwater if we were going to find some saltwater fish.
Moved out to 8 feet of rough water near the stake line. Sonny was the only one catching anything. He was throwing gulp/slayer/ct combo with a 5 foot leader. Pretty soon we had all changed over. We got a keeper trout and small spanish pretty quick. Then Sonny hooks up with something stout. 15 minutes of chasing and fighting and he had landed his biggest red ever.
Not soon after we started our drift again Jackson was finishing a retrieve. Just as he picked the bait out of the water, this bad boy came 2 feet out of the water and grabbed his bait.
On the next drift Sonny put a ladyfish in the boat. We had 3 of the 5 species and it was about 9:30. We decided to focus on trying to catch a rockbass. Let me tell you we hit nearly every rock from Aucilla to St. Marks. Even braved the rollers after the wind died down and ran to 20 feet of water looking. I've never had any trouble catching rock bass ever, but today they just wouldn't cooperate.
We came back to an area near the second stake and went back to the tried and true gulp/slayer/ct combo and immediately started catching trout. There were several schools of cownose rays swimming around. I made a cast near one of the schools and nearly had the rod ripped from my hands. The fish/torpedo/polaris sub/ whatever it was nearly dumped my reel before we could get the boat cranked. We gave chase for 15 minutes and I never gained any line back. I have no idea what I hooked but not long after that it gave a surge that popped the 20lb leader at the jighead.
Back to the task at hand, we continued landing 14-16" trout on nearly every cast. I finally hooked up with a nicer 18" fish and in the box he went.
Made it to check in with about 10 minutes to spare. Come to find out we won with 7 plus pounds combined thanks to Jackson's 3.77 lb spanish. He was very excited.
Thanks to John McLaurin, John Vickers, and all the NFGFC and SMYC folks who put on a very fun tournament.
We ended up having to leave before the fish fry but got some togo boxes and ate them on the way home. That was some good eats.
