Keaton Tournament 03-22-2008
Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 6:10 pm
Imagine if you will a fishing report from Tom Keels....the owner of BBF.Net and co founder of the NFGFC. Here we are almost April and this will be my FIRST FISHING REPORT OF 2008.
We left Tally at the crack of 4:30 am and made it down to Keaton and had the boat in the water by 6:15. We motored down to the Marina and met up with Tin Can who was going to loan us a depth finder since ours broke a pin on Friday night.
Well, we try that one and it will not come on. Oh well, strike one NO DEPTH FINDER.
After getting our goodie bags and making with the chit chat, we headed down the canal 2nd in line.
As we neared the end of the channel we knew we wanted fish an area we found 3 years ago when we won this tourney. As I started searching both GPS's, I quickly realized that I not only had forgotten that number, I had NO GPS NUMBERS FOR KEATON BEACH....ZERO. Strike 2.
We continued North and fell in behind the Taylors. I knew the spot was close to Yates creek, so we headed that way, no depth finder and still too dark to see the bottom. I got into an area I thought looked right and we shut down and started a drift. First fish was a fat 18 incher on a BITEABAIT on the 3rd cast. After that we had a couple of shorts. Sonny and I thought we would freeze to death. That north wind and overcast made it nearly unbearable. We pressed on however. We made a second drift through the area. This time Sonny had 3 hits on 3 casts on a CT/GULP combo. All 3 fish threw the hook, the 3rd fish being a hoss of at least 4 pounds. I pick up another fish on the BITEABAIT that went 16 inches. We had 2 more boats join our drift so we had to shorten it up and the next 2 were only about 150 yards long. However we could now see that this was a depression that dropped about a foot deeper than the rest of the bottom around it. It had spotted sand/shell with thin bladed grass. Now that I could see the holes I switched to a soft jerkbait and nearly had the rod taken away on the second cast. 19 3/4 in fish in the boat. We have 3 fish and its not 9 yet. I'm ecstatic. After that drift the fish got smaller. Thinking it was going to take a big stringer we released the next 2 fish that were just over 15". STRIKE 3.
We did not get another keeper until 2:45 when we moved south past Dark Island. luckily it was another fat 18" fish that Sonny got on the ct. Jackson my son was content to eat everything in the boat that wasn't nailed down. However, between binges he manged to put a couple of the shorts in the boat with his own rod from SOUTH GEORGIA OUTDOORS.
We made it back to the landing around 3:15 and were surprised to learn of everyone else's tough day. We thought we were screwed with only 4 fish, but it was good enough for 5th place.
Good seeing everyone, and its nice to be on the water again. I just learned that there will be no Saturday baseball games for my son this year, so you boys better watch out now. Keels/Blanton are back in it to win it. And we've added a Keels to the mix, so it's on now. Just wait until we have GPS numbers and a depth finder.
We left Tally at the crack of 4:30 am and made it down to Keaton and had the boat in the water by 6:15. We motored down to the Marina and met up with Tin Can who was going to loan us a depth finder since ours broke a pin on Friday night.
Well, we try that one and it will not come on. Oh well, strike one NO DEPTH FINDER.After getting our goodie bags and making with the chit chat, we headed down the canal 2nd in line.
As we neared the end of the channel we knew we wanted fish an area we found 3 years ago when we won this tourney. As I started searching both GPS's, I quickly realized that I not only had forgotten that number, I had NO GPS NUMBERS FOR KEATON BEACH....ZERO. Strike 2.
We continued North and fell in behind the Taylors. I knew the spot was close to Yates creek, so we headed that way, no depth finder and still too dark to see the bottom. I got into an area I thought looked right and we shut down and started a drift. First fish was a fat 18 incher on a BITEABAIT on the 3rd cast. After that we had a couple of shorts. Sonny and I thought we would freeze to death. That north wind and overcast made it nearly unbearable. We pressed on however. We made a second drift through the area. This time Sonny had 3 hits on 3 casts on a CT/GULP combo. All 3 fish threw the hook, the 3rd fish being a hoss of at least 4 pounds. I pick up another fish on the BITEABAIT that went 16 inches. We had 2 more boats join our drift so we had to shorten it up and the next 2 were only about 150 yards long. However we could now see that this was a depression that dropped about a foot deeper than the rest of the bottom around it. It had spotted sand/shell with thin bladed grass. Now that I could see the holes I switched to a soft jerkbait and nearly had the rod taken away on the second cast. 19 3/4 in fish in the boat. We have 3 fish and its not 9 yet. I'm ecstatic. After that drift the fish got smaller. Thinking it was going to take a big stringer we released the next 2 fish that were just over 15". STRIKE 3.
We did not get another keeper until 2:45 when we moved south past Dark Island. luckily it was another fat 18" fish that Sonny got on the ct. Jackson my son was content to eat everything in the boat that wasn't nailed down. However, between binges he manged to put a couple of the shorts in the boat with his own rod from SOUTH GEORGIA OUTDOORS.
We made it back to the landing around 3:15 and were surprised to learn of everyone else's tough day. We thought we were screwed with only 4 fish, but it was good enough for 5th place.
Good seeing everyone, and its nice to be on the water again. I just learned that there will be no Saturday baseball games for my son this year, so you boys better watch out now. Keels/Blanton are back in it to win it. And we've added a Keels to the mix, so it's on now. Just wait until we have GPS numbers and a depth finder.
