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After staying up half the night modifying our sample box, I mean tackle box for the NFGFC/CCA tournament, myself and Tincan launched the "Red Cross" boat at the lighthouse pool about 6:30. Anticipating rough seas and high wind, I dawned my my Frogg Toggs and we headed out in the dark...

We tried to get into a close by creek, but the water was too low with an approaching low tide and a north wind. We head out towards the rock garden and set up a drift. I think it was on my second cast that a 19" trout couldn't go without tasting my new lure, the "Franky P". Not a bad start, but good starts normally end that way, so I was a little worried...

Let me tell you about the "Franky P", in our tournament sample box there was one hard bait. The boxes that Tincan and I received both had sinking plugs. Sinking plugs and most of the fish are coming in 1-2 foot of water, not good....So, Friday night I arrive at Casa Tincan and after a fine steak dinner prepared by Mrs. Tincan...We goto Walmart for supplies needed to operate on these sinking plugs....One tube of 5 minute epoxy and a can of fluorescent pink spray paint....Back at the monster tackle garage we commence to drill holes into these plugs to remove the steel weights inside...Sir Reel came over to participate in the operation as well.....After removing the weights out of three plugs and epoxying them back together...Sir Reel throws his in the test tank and it sinks to the bottom ...Seems that Tincan and Sir Reels plugs had two weights where mine only had one....Tincan opened his back up to remove the other weight....I painted my black plug hot pink....I kept thinking of monster garage....I wanted to name the plug, something....I thought of Frankenstein and a pink lure....The lure was named the "Franky P"....The P does not stand for Pink, either....

Back to fishing.....We continue to drift this flat and pick up several trout on each drift....I switch lures a few times...I pick the ol' Franky P up and make a cast and just before pulling it out of the water and large trout can not stand the thought of going another day without tasting the "Frank P" ....I was sure this trout was going to bury up in the grass and pull off...But my wonderful guide and fishing partner netted the trout that came in at 20 1/4"...I performed CPR on the big trout and let her swim off to fight again another day....

Tincan has landed trout up to 17"....We could of stayed in this area and caught trout all day, but we needed to go catch a redfish and hopefully find a big gator trout laying in a creek....

We fish several creeks and see a bunch of mullet and bait...I land a 17 1/2" redfish on a straight jig of course .... I hook into another one that pulled free, that I think was better than the first....We fish some more creeks, but could not find any redfish....My personal opinion is a flood tide is great for trout on the flats but not worth a flip for redfishing....

We call it a day and head to the weigh in with Chalk having a 20 1/4" trout, 17 1/2" redfish and a lizardfish for a bonus...Tincan had a 17
" trout and a pinfish for a bonus fish.....I speculated the trout might be good for a second or third place finish, but figured someone would bring in a 25" plus redfish.....

All the players arrived at Jerry's Bait and Tackle for the weigh in at 3:00... After the dust settled and the numbers were added up....I had tied with Trout Trent for first place..tie breaker was the time the big fish was caught...I caught mine around 9:00 that morning and he caught his after lunch....So, I lucked into a first place finish.....Trout Trent finished 2nd and Butch Taylor third, I think....can't remember the rest of the placements... I'm sure crabtrap will post the official results....

Another fine day on the gulf with great friend and an okay guide ...Thanks for the ride and hospitality Tincan.....

Folks, he actually reported this one accurately. Nothing for me to add.

Any time, partner.

It sure is hard ta eat them pictures though aint it sounds like I missed a tuff day of fishing congrats on the first place finish

Great story. Congrats on the win.

Congratulations Chalk.

Things are hop'n here at work but I fully intend to report on how the "LAST PLACE" participant's day went when I get a chance

Congratulations on the win Chalk.
I've got some questions if you or anyone else can or will answer.

1. What baits where in the provided tackle box?
2. Where these "hard baits" unfinished or something? Because you say you worked on them, which brings me to question 3#

Why provide baits to make the playing field level , just to have someone modify them?

Just curious.

congrats... nice post....I reeeeely enjoyed reading it.

Post a picture of the Franky "P" WTG, fellas

Folks, he actually reported this one accurately. Nothing for me to add.

TC, ya feelin' ok??
Congrats Chalk...American ingenuity

Eerman wrote:

Folks, he actually reported this one accurately. Nothing for me to add.

TC, ya feelin' ok??

He's probably just tired. This retirement's going to kill him.

birddog wrote:

Eerman wrote:

Folks, he actually reported this one accurately. Nothing for me to add.

TC, ya feelin' ok??

He's probably just tired. This retirement's going to kill him.

You got that right.

catchin1 wrote:Congratulations on the win Chalk.
I've got some questions if you or anyone else can or will answer.

1. What baits where in the provided tackle box?
2. Where these "hard baits" unfinished or something? Because you say you worked on them, which brings me to question 3#

Why provide baits to make the playing field level , just to have someone modify them?

Just curious.

Tackle boxes were more or less equal with the exception of the hard bait...We did follow the rules....There was no rule stating we couldn't modify what was in the tackle box....Our boxes had a plastic shrimp, weighted DOA minnow, bag of SWA, two victimizer grubs, four riptide grubs, victimizer float, one worm hook, two jig heads and two pieces of lead and one hard bait (some floated, some sank and some were made to float)

You left out the three spoons.

tin can wrote:You left out the three spoons.

Yeah, one for kingfish, one for salmon and another that might of been considered a real fishing lure....Butch supposingly had a trout on that was a monster...When jumptrout51 says it was the largest trout he has ever seen that's a big trout and it hit the smallest spoon in the box...per JT51