Aucilla - 4/19/09 - Windy Team Seatrout
Posted: April 20th, 2009, 4:22 pm
Had the opportunity to fish with Bad Behavior in yesterday’s Team Seatrout tournament. We launched from the Aucilla around 7 a.m., ran out to the mouth and made the decision to go West. We pulled into spot #1, a series of rockpiles, and both began slinging Spooks. The wind was light out of the Southeast and created the perfect chop that you want for topwater fishing. After about 10 minutes of working around the dragons, I had a hit on the Bone spook and was able to bring in a 27” redfish. We’d entered the redfish side pot and just knew we had it won (I really thought we had it – hand raised). We fished around the piles some more, but got no love from the fish.
We moved further West to an area known for its good fishing and found the area deserted. It’s a good feeling pulling into an area and having the spot all to yourself. Unfortunately, the water was coffee-colored and you could not see bottom in 1.5’ of water. In fact, you could barely see the head of the trolling motor under the water. We fished for a solid hour with no love until BB caught a good 19.5” fish on the Sebile swimbait. We fished on for another 30 minutes, but found nothing. Decided to head in the opposite direction.
After a move to the East, BB and I settled into an area with good broken bottom that’s a bit deeper than any of the other areas we’d previously fished. After a short while, I was able to stick one that went 20” on the Redfin. The wind had picked up considerably by this time and so we were drifting along at a quick 1.4 miles an hour. Our second drift through the area resulted in zero hits and so we decided to run further East in an effort to find some areas protected from the Southeast wind. We set up a drift in across a creek mouth and had been fishing for about five minutes when a familiar boat came riding by – SeaSpot and JT. We continued fishing the creek and found a good bit of bait in the creek, but BB and I only had a couple small hits and no fish landed.
After the creek mouth, we hit up Old Faithful – a spot that always delivers. And it did…two 12” trout on the Redfin. BB and I were scratching our heads at this point and decided that we needed to spend the rest of the day in deeper water. We hypothesized that the trout were not aggressive due to a combination of the relatively low salinity level and the dark, dirty water and figured that you had to get lucky and drag it across their nose to get a bite.
We moved out to 5’ of water and threw everything in the box for the remaining hour. I was able to stick an 18.5” trout with about 10 minutes left on the Bite-A-Bait twitchbait to give us three fish for the day. It was surprising that our three fish were able to win us 3rd place - it really shows that it was a tough day of fishing when 12 teams fished and only two caught limits. So far in two Team Seatrout tournaments this year, we’ve had 20-25 knot North winds and 20-25 knot South winds. Maybe May will bring better weather… I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to fish in winds less than 10 mph.
BB – enjoyed the day of fishing on the Maverick - what a sweet ride! Looking forward to whipping up on them in next month’s tourney.
We moved further West to an area known for its good fishing and found the area deserted. It’s a good feeling pulling into an area and having the spot all to yourself. Unfortunately, the water was coffee-colored and you could not see bottom in 1.5’ of water. In fact, you could barely see the head of the trolling motor under the water. We fished for a solid hour with no love until BB caught a good 19.5” fish on the Sebile swimbait. We fished on for another 30 minutes, but found nothing. Decided to head in the opposite direction.
After a move to the East, BB and I settled into an area with good broken bottom that’s a bit deeper than any of the other areas we’d previously fished. After a short while, I was able to stick one that went 20” on the Redfin. The wind had picked up considerably by this time and so we were drifting along at a quick 1.4 miles an hour. Our second drift through the area resulted in zero hits and so we decided to run further East in an effort to find some areas protected from the Southeast wind. We set up a drift in across a creek mouth and had been fishing for about five minutes when a familiar boat came riding by – SeaSpot and JT. We continued fishing the creek and found a good bit of bait in the creek, but BB and I only had a couple small hits and no fish landed.
After the creek mouth, we hit up Old Faithful – a spot that always delivers. And it did…two 12” trout on the Redfin. BB and I were scratching our heads at this point and decided that we needed to spend the rest of the day in deeper water. We hypothesized that the trout were not aggressive due to a combination of the relatively low salinity level and the dark, dirty water and figured that you had to get lucky and drag it across their nose to get a bite.
We moved out to 5’ of water and threw everything in the box for the remaining hour. I was able to stick an 18.5” trout with about 10 minutes left on the Bite-A-Bait twitchbait to give us three fish for the day. It was surprising that our three fish were able to win us 3rd place - it really shows that it was a tough day of fishing when 12 teams fished and only two caught limits. So far in two Team Seatrout tournaments this year, we’ve had 20-25 knot North winds and 20-25 knot South winds. Maybe May will bring better weather… I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to fish in winds less than 10 mph.
BB – enjoyed the day of fishing on the Maverick - what a sweet ride! Looking forward to whipping up on them in next month’s tourney.
