NFGFC Keaton 3/7/09
Posted: March 7th, 2009, 8:36 pm
What a great 3 days of fishing. I love Keaton in the Spring. My son and I rolled into town around noon Thursday, got situated at the cottage, dumped the boat in the water, and headed out. We got into redfish right away. Surprise, surprise. A trout tourney and I'm finding tons of reds. 
Not a bad problem to have, so we played with a few.
Smitty joined us late that evening at the cottage, fired up and ready to go for Friday morning. Warrior called and invited us to join him and Nicole at the Hot Dog Stand. We readily accepted and had a great mullet dinner. Thanks Ashley and Nicole.
Friday morning found us idling out the canal at 1st light. Around 8:00 we landed a sweet 26.5 sow trout that pushed the boga to 6lbs.
Saw a few more good trout and had a ball landing many redfish. We didn't catch another trout until 12:00. A beautiful 23.5 female.
The bite seemed very slow but we marched forward. Finally, finding a pretty good slot trout bite many miles away.
Packed it in around 3:30, to get cleaned up and rested up for the fish fry Friday night at the marina.
Up @ 5:00 Saturday a.m. Got the boat ready, stood around jawing, talking strategy and such. Finally 6:30 came and we oozed out the canal. We ran way back to where we got our big trout the day before and found a desert. Dry as a bone. I was expecting the low tide and planned to fish further off our spot and float in with the rising tide. The bottom further out was horrible, so we tried plan B. Ran back to some good redfish territory and began a drift. We got into reds almost immediately. Only problem was they were too big. 28"-29" was the best we could do. Fun as heck to catch but ain't gonna make you no money. Finally, we felt like we had enough water to fish our big trout spot, so we headed back. It appeared we could have gotten back there 20-30 min. earlier, but those big reds had our attention.
The flat we had found the gator trout on was beautiful. Just the perfect mix of sand and grass. Not long into the 1st drift, Smitty grunts as his pole doubles over. Good trout he says. Real good. It appears to be 5-6 lb. sow. I'm just starting to count the 1st place money as his line goes limp. She just came unpinned. Smitty was hurt. Bad. I told him, just bad luck dude. Nothing you can do about it. Keep fishing hard.
We lose another decent trout, and several of what appear to be good slot reds, landing a few lower slot reds. Then, 10:30 we got to go. With a long run ahead of us to our slot trout holes, we had to go to be sure we had time to fish when we got there.
We arrived many miles later just as the rising tide had peaked. We set up a drift through some rocks and "fish on". Started catching good 19"-19.75" trout. Kept 12 to weigh/eat and threw back at least 20. We had a big time. What a blast it is catching trout like that.
Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Keaton. We headed back to Keaton, not sure what to expect. I tell Smitty you never can tell how you're gonna end up at the weigh in. So many times I've gone in thinking, "well, that sucked". Only to find out we had fared pretty well.
Today was 1 of those days. With our biggest trout which my son caught( a little over 22"), and the 3, 19" trout that Smitty put in the box, and the 1, 19"er I put in the box, We squeaked out a 3rd place finish. High fives all around and $120 in our pockets.
A big thanks to Hunter and Warren for fishing hard and never letting up. I had a lot of fun.
A big congrats to Big T, Jackson, and Sonny for an awesome stringer of fish. You've been overdue Tom.
Big congrats as well, to Ashley, Junior and Nicole. Wow, 2nd place total weight, 1st place Big Trout, and 1st place Big red. That's mighty fine.
Thanks to all who cooked fish for us Friday night. You fellas did a wonderful job.
Can't wait til next time.
Not a bad problem to have, so we played with a few. Smitty joined us late that evening at the cottage, fired up and ready to go for Friday morning. Warrior called and invited us to join him and Nicole at the Hot Dog Stand. We readily accepted and had a great mullet dinner. Thanks Ashley and Nicole.
Friday morning found us idling out the canal at 1st light. Around 8:00 we landed a sweet 26.5 sow trout that pushed the boga to 6lbs.
Saw a few more good trout and had a ball landing many redfish. We didn't catch another trout until 12:00. A beautiful 23.5 female.
The bite seemed very slow but we marched forward. Finally, finding a pretty good slot trout bite many miles away.
Packed it in around 3:30, to get cleaned up and rested up for the fish fry Friday night at the marina.
Up @ 5:00 Saturday a.m. Got the boat ready, stood around jawing, talking strategy and such. Finally 6:30 came and we oozed out the canal. We ran way back to where we got our big trout the day before and found a desert. Dry as a bone. I was expecting the low tide and planned to fish further off our spot and float in with the rising tide. The bottom further out was horrible, so we tried plan B. Ran back to some good redfish territory and began a drift. We got into reds almost immediately. Only problem was they were too big. 28"-29" was the best we could do. Fun as heck to catch but ain't gonna make you no money. Finally, we felt like we had enough water to fish our big trout spot, so we headed back. It appeared we could have gotten back there 20-30 min. earlier, but those big reds had our attention.
The flat we had found the gator trout on was beautiful. Just the perfect mix of sand and grass. Not long into the 1st drift, Smitty grunts as his pole doubles over. Good trout he says. Real good. It appears to be 5-6 lb. sow. I'm just starting to count the 1st place money as his line goes limp. She just came unpinned. Smitty was hurt. Bad. I told him, just bad luck dude. Nothing you can do about it. Keep fishing hard.
We lose another decent trout, and several of what appear to be good slot reds, landing a few lower slot reds. Then, 10:30 we got to go. With a long run ahead of us to our slot trout holes, we had to go to be sure we had time to fish when we got there.
We arrived many miles later just as the rising tide had peaked. We set up a drift through some rocks and "fish on". Started catching good 19"-19.75" trout. Kept 12 to weigh/eat and threw back at least 20. We had a big time. What a blast it is catching trout like that.
Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Keaton. We headed back to Keaton, not sure what to expect. I tell Smitty you never can tell how you're gonna end up at the weigh in. So many times I've gone in thinking, "well, that sucked". Only to find out we had fared pretty well.
Today was 1 of those days. With our biggest trout which my son caught( a little over 22"), and the 3, 19" trout that Smitty put in the box, and the 1, 19"er I put in the box, We squeaked out a 3rd place finish. High fives all around and $120 in our pockets.
A big thanks to Hunter and Warren for fishing hard and never letting up. I had a lot of fun.
A big congrats to Big T, Jackson, and Sonny for an awesome stringer of fish. You've been overdue Tom.
Big congrats as well, to Ashley, Junior and Nicole. Wow, 2nd place total weight, 1st place Big Trout, and 1st place Big red. That's mighty fine.
Thanks to all who cooked fish for us Friday night. You fellas did a wonderful job.
Can't wait til next time.
