Thurs – Fri I left town immediately after the NFGFC meeting on Thursday evening headed to Keaton Beach to meet up with Melissa and Andrew who departed earlier that afternoon. I made one stop just North of Perry for a diet Coke and sunflower seeds to keep me from nodding off on that long road out to the coast. Arriving at the cabin we rented from Keaton Beach Marina, the one request I got from my wife was “Please let me sleep in the morning…” Hmm, so the early morning prefishing excursion was postponed a few hours.
I was up and edgy just before 7:00 am, which doesn’t quite qualify for Melissa’s definition of sleeping in. In order to get out of the room and have something to do I cranked up the Jeep and pulled around to the boat lift at the marina. I was the third person in line, but it didn’t take long for the Keaton crew to have my boat in the water. I docked it behind our cabin, then loaded all the fishing gear. Still, I was the only one stirring in our cabin….
In an effort to make a little noise and still appear helpful, I thought I would cook breakfast, but a thorough search of our kitchen revealed no frying pan. Back to the Marina store, where they apologized and found me a brand new no-stick pan. The smell of bacon brought my late-sleeping crew to life. After a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs, and luke-warm bagels (no toaster in the kitchen either) we were ready to hit the water at a not-so-early 9:00 am.
I had fished Keaton the previous two Saturdays hoping to find some pattern to the fish action, but didn’t have any strategy that would win a tournament. I headed over to the rock piles near Dark Island, but the outgoing tide was leaving the area so quickly that I was afraid to take the chance on getting stuck until high tide. I headed North, but the further I went, the thicker the fog became. About two miles North of the Keaton Channel, the fog coated my sunglasses thick enough that I couldn’t see. After bringing the boat to a stop we saw a little bait jumping near our boat. A few tosses with a Zara Spook brought us a couple of strikes, but no trout. With the fog beginning to lift, we headed further North.
Remembering Capt. Pat McGriff’s advice from the previous evenings NFGFC meeting, the next stop was just South of Yates Creek in four foot of water. Sure enough, we put two keepers in the boat then marked the spot and pulled off of it to leave the fish for the tournament. The tide was getting low, and I could see the tops of some oyster bars beginning to break the surface of the water, so we headed to the shoreline to try for reds. No luck on the reds, but I did pick up one more trout and had one blow up on topwater as we were drifting toward the bars, so once again, I marked the spot and decided to move.
As I searched through my gps in the “Find Nearest Waypoints” mode, I came across a spot marked “WOW” . This spot had been in my gps since last year’s Keaton tournament, but I had never tried it. I headed over to WOW and found another boat parked right on top of the spot. Stopping far enough away and upwind to drift across the spot, I began to fish again and quickly picked up two large trout. It was now 1:30 pm and I had three good spots to try for the tournament, so we headed back to the Marina.
Saturday Keaton Tournament – Between the time we quit fishing Friday and the start of the fish fry, we worked in a trip to the beach, rigged poles and refueled the boat, so Andrew and I were ready to go Saturday morning. I woke up at 5:20 am, packed some lunches and made breakfast quietly (under strict orders NOT to wake Melissa). We left the dock with the other 33 boats when Casey gave the go ahead. Headed back to WOW and found calm water with a good amount of floating grass. It was tough using a topwater, but we landed a couple keepers on a Spook, then switched to Cajun Thunders. By 9:00 am we were feeling pretty good with 4 keeper trout and a nice bluefish in the boat. After 9:00, the tide slowed and so did our bite. We checked the oyster bars with no luck then headed back to a random spot in 4 foot of water. With the wind building and whitecaps beginning to form, I headed over near Dekle Beach for calmer water . We found a spot were I landed two nice keepers back to back and proceeded to drift across it several times.
On the second drift, Andrew put his pole down to net one of my fish. As he returned to the front deck of the boat, he said “Dad, my pole is GONE!” Hmmm…..Honestly, I hadn’t even heard a splash. Thankfully this was not the expensive combo he won from Kevin’s Sporting Goods. I scanned the horizon on spotted his Cajun Thunder bobbing in the rough water about 100 feet in front of the boat. We quickly started the boat and caught the Cajun Thunder. No fish underneath, but we were able to follow the line back to the rod and reel and get it back in the boat. ( If you don’t happen to remember last year’s tarpon story – this is the second rod and reel combo we have been able to retrieve using the same method. Thank God for Cajun Thunders. )
By noon when we left the Dekle Beach spot, we had 8 keepers in the boat. That bite stopped when the wind calmed down. We headed back to Wow to give it one more try on a higher tide. Shortly after stopping, I picked up a nice trout, then Andrew got his biggun’ at 23” giving us an anchor fish for our weigh in and finishing our limit of 10 trout. Thinking that we may be able to find a redfish in the rock piles around Dark Island we ran back to the South of the Keaton Channel and up into the rocky area. We fished for about 20 minutes when a boat Carolina Skiff came by moving pretty good headed right into the rocky area. Sure enough, we heard three loud bangs as he found the rocks with his outboard. Just a few minutes later, a pontoon boat came through and did the same routine. Deciding there was too much boat traffic coming through there and far too much noise and shrapnel from the outboards being destroyed, Andrew and I headed into the little bayou by the Keaton pier. (The pontoon boat was able to get underway again, but I never did see the Carolina Skiff lower what was left of his motor or crank back up. With only about a half hour left to fish, I couldn’t tow him in and still make the weigh in time). Andrew and I made one drift across the bayou and up into a creek mouth catching two small trout, but still no reds. Seeing multiple other NFGFC members heading up the canal, we motored back across the bayou and joined the fray at the weigh in.
Our five fish at 12.64 lbs. was good enough for third place which earned us $155. The bluefish was the largest bonus fish, so that brought another $200. We all ended the day sun-burnt and happy. Thanks to all of you who fished hard and worked hard to make the meeting, fish fry and tournament a great success.
Good job. Glad the fish are coming back to my holes.
