BigBendFishing.Net

Lower St. Marks River
2/16/08

Met up with my fishing partner jon at 3:30 and headed down to meet up at Jerrys for the Redfish tournament. Signed up got some shrimp and headed south and launched at the fort. Headed down river towards the lighthouse and discovered very little water in the creeks so we decided to fish the oyster bars for a little bit. Once the tide finally started to move we saw some mullet jumping and ran into a school of mid slot sized reds. We probably saw 5-10 swim under the boat. They did not want anything we threw at them Rat-L-Traps, Spoons, Shrimp, or Mullet. Once we had more water we started working up into a creek where we pinned a redfish up in some real skinny water. Competed with a bird for it and we both lost. After being very frustrated with no fish in the boat at 11:30 we headed up river past the fort. We were fishing some down trees and edges on the river finally pulling in a 19-20" red. Fished for a little longer with no luck and moved back down towards the fort fishing a couple of spots along the way. The clock moved to 2:30 and we decided to head back. Pulled out and headed up to the gas station on the corner of 98 and woodville hwy and picked up some ice and headed back for weigh in. Seemed like we were not the only ones struggling to catch fish. Congrats to the winners you guys had some real nice catches.

-Mike

Nice meeting you at the weigh-in Mike! It was a tough day for sure...

nice meeting you too...It was both of our first time tournament wise. We will probably be back on the 1st...hoping to catch two fish of course

Thanks for the report, Striper. Appears you are right on a tough tourney day. Glad you got out and brought something back.

Glad you got some fish, I've been back plenty of times empty handed. Nice to have met ya.

Good to meet ya, Saturday, Striper. As Casey said, it was a tough day for us, too. Look forward to seeing you again.

Nice report Striper.

If you're enjoying fishing the redfish tournaments then you should contemplate joining the fishing club and give the trout tournamnets a try. Entry fees per event are less, and you'll learn a lot about the local area from the folks that participate.

I wish I could have met ya. We got skunked!!! We put in a the light house and headed east. We saw plenty of redfish and even more trout. Caught at trout 21", but for the life of us could not catch a red. At 2:30 we decided to make the dreaded phone call to Jerry's, " we will not be attending the weigh in."

We could not go home empty handed and decided to try our luck on grouper. We headed off shore and managed to catch one short, and get this, a flounder on a stretch 25. We then got ticketed for not having any flares on board. No excuse.

Congrats to Jsuber on the win!! That was one tough day of fishing.

It was still a good day out on the water. Cant beat fishing all day. Im just looking forward to the March 1st tourney, hopefully things will turn out better that day.

Tough day on Saturday you will get um' next time.