We got up early the next morning and made our way to the ramp in darkness. Launched BB right at 6 a.m. and cruised to spot 1. We caught fish for the next four hours wherever we went. Probably caught 5-6 limits of keepers. About 10:30, the boat was sitting in 3.5’ of water and we were casting out to a little deeper water with topwater plugs. Jay made a cast and about had it back to the boat when all of a sudden the plug disappeared into a whirlpool followed by a giant “kersploosh”. We both screamed an expletive and yelled out, “Tarpon!” The big fish (125+ lbs) came out of the water, tailwalked twice and then broke off when it hit the water. Pretty freaking cool. After that the fishing died and we spent the remaining hours looking for kicker trout. No love from them though.
The water temperature was 76 when we got there and 80 when we left. I threw one plug all day and Jay maybe threw 3 different ones. We caught all of our fish on top in less than 6’ of water over spotty bottom.
We had a solid limit of trout, but were lacking the two bigguns that you want to have on tournament day. We weighed 5 trout (22”, 22”, 19.99”, 19.99”, 19.5”) for a total of 13lbs 12 oz and lost to Warrior and Nicole by exactly a pound. Congrats to Warrior and Nicole for winning and especially to Nicole for catching her first topwater trout!
BB caught a whole bunch of fish and I told him it won’t be long before he and CT win one of the NFGFC tournaments. On a side note, we’ve now fished two tournaments together and won money in both…he’s fished numerous with CT and ain’t seen any green yet. CT – step your game up, son!
If I can convince the girlfriend we might have to put the smack down on ya this weekend. 
