ECONFINA 7-12-08
Posted: July 12th, 2008, 10:28 pm
Got a little late start this morning and didn't arrive at Jerry's Bait & Tackle till 6:45am to sign in for the tournament. Headed down to Econfina and had the boat in the water at 7:30am. Ran out to the river marker and headed west towards Aucilla. Started our first drift in 3ft. with very little breeze and minimal water movement. I decided that I was going to try to throw topwater for most of the day. Very first cast with the Popa-Dogg yielded a nice explosion about 20 ft. off the boat....but missed the fish 
Noticed a few tarpon rolling on the surface not too far from the boat also. My dad was throwing a jig under a CT and on his 3rd cast, the CT disappeared with a nice swirl all around it. A few sceonds later, it resurfaced with you guessed it...a HUGE tarpon! The fish jumped about 4-5 ft. out of the water and made a splash so big that we got a little wet in the boat from it 
My dad just sat there for a moment trying to take in what just happened. Pretty cool....just wish I could have got a pic. Avery hooked up with a nice trout for our first keeper of the day.....
I took a break for a few minutes and caught a few pinfish to float out behind the boat looking for a $200 cobia. The only fish that hit was this short trout.....
We decided to try a little deeper water and headed out to 8 ft. We managed a few short trout over the next 45 minutes or so. Nothing to brag about, so we decided to head back towards Hickory Mound where we had some decent luck last week. On our way, we started having rain show up all around....
We set up a drift and managed to catch a few keeper trout before the rain moved in and soaked us.....
It didn't look like we were going to get much of a break from the rain, so we contemplated heading in. I decided to run back over towards Aucilla to see if we could get away from the rain. We managed to find a dry area and did manage to pick up another keeper trout....
With time getting away from us, we decided to make one more run back towards Hickory Mound. As soon as we stopped, I managed a nice flounder off a chartreuse grub. With no other action to speak of, I decided to try topwater for a few more minutes hoping for a nice trout. All I managed to find was a big pinfish, a puffer fish and this little guy.....
With it being 2:15pm, we decided we better head in if we wanted to make the weigh-in for a change. Back at the ramp at 2:40pm. We loaded up and sped off to JBT. Got to the weigh-in on time and managed about 7lbs. with our 5 biggest fish. Not a great day, but we had fun. Saw some nice fish today at the weigh-in....we'll get ours next time
Congrats to all the winners 
Fished topwater most of the day with no trout boated. Only a few strikes and swirls
Expected better results for the effort, but I guess that's fishing. Heard that a few of the other guys did well on topwater Most of our fish came off jigs fished off the bottom in 3-5 ft. Live pinfish yielded only 1 short trout.
Noticed a few tarpon rolling on the surface not too far from the boat also. My dad was throwing a jig under a CT and on his 3rd cast, the CT disappeared with a nice swirl all around it. A few sceonds later, it resurfaced with you guessed it...a HUGE tarpon! The fish jumped about 4-5 ft. out of the water and made a splash so big that we got a little wet in the boat from it My dad just sat there for a moment trying to take in what just happened. Pretty cool....just wish I could have got a pic. Avery hooked up with a nice trout for our first keeper of the day.....I took a break for a few minutes and caught a few pinfish to float out behind the boat looking for a $200 cobia. The only fish that hit was this short trout.....
We decided to try a little deeper water and headed out to 8 ft. We managed a few short trout over the next 45 minutes or so. Nothing to brag about, so we decided to head back towards Hickory Mound where we had some decent luck last week. On our way, we started having rain show up all around....
We set up a drift and managed to catch a few keeper trout before the rain moved in and soaked us.....
It didn't look like we were going to get much of a break from the rain, so we contemplated heading in. I decided to run back over towards Aucilla to see if we could get away from the rain. We managed to find a dry area and did manage to pick up another keeper trout....
With time getting away from us, we decided to make one more run back towards Hickory Mound. As soon as we stopped, I managed a nice flounder off a chartreuse grub. With no other action to speak of, I decided to try topwater for a few more minutes hoping for a nice trout. All I managed to find was a big pinfish, a puffer fish and this little guy.....
With it being 2:15pm, we decided we better head in if we wanted to make the weigh-in for a change. Back at the ramp at 2:40pm. We loaded up and sped off to JBT. Got to the weigh-in on time and managed about 7lbs. with our 5 biggest fish. Not a great day, but we had fun. Saw some nice fish today at the weigh-in....we'll get ours next time
Congrats to all the winners Fished topwater most of the day with no trout boated. Only a few strikes and swirls
Expected better results for the effort, but I guess that's fishing. Heard that a few of the other guys did well on topwater Most of our fish came off jigs fished off the bottom in 3-5 ft. Live pinfish yielded only 1 short trout.