I went for an evening wade the night before the tournament to check out a spot for the tourney. Greg and I fished for about few hours without a nibble until after dark. I ended up landing 2 small reds and 2 solid trout, including a 26.5″ 6+lb trout. All Greg could muster up was a “potato chip” flounder. We each missed a few bites but overall fishing was very slow. We caught everything a morning glory hackberry hustlers on 3/8oz jigheads. My two trout weighed between 9-10lbs combined, but with all the good trout fisherman in this tournament, I knew it was going to take a lot more weight to have a shot at winning the tournament.
Tide was coming in swift all evening and into the night and didn’t start slacking off until well after dark. Water levels were lower than we both expected. Although the water off-colored because of strong SW winds, it had a decent visibility. The water temps had warmed up significantly from where they were at the few weeks earlier and the abundance of active bait and bait prowling the shallows was a testament to the warmth.
I decided against fishing the area I fished the night before because the conditions just weren’t right. Brandon and I decided to fish other areas. Tournament day the fishing was tough for us. We tried plenty of different areas but we just couldn’t put anything together. We tried reefs both deep and shallow, flats and bayous, but we couldn’t find a pattern.
The tide was very low in the morning but started coming in strong as it got later in the day. We found at least a little bait nearly everywhere we stopped but the fish either weren’t there or want our offerings. All we ended up catching were a few small reds and a foul-hooked croaker that was the size of the Corky Brandon was chunking. Jokingly, I tried convincing him to toss it back out with the croaker attached to see if we could change our luck.
The morning started out absolutely gorgeous: light winds, partly cloudy sky’s, clear and green water everywhere and a beautiful sunrise (see photo below). As the day progressed, the wind and cloud cover increased. There were plenty of people on the water, so we tried to avoid the crowds and maybe that’s where we went wrong. Most of the people we talked stated that the fishing was pretty slow. We even talked to a couple of game wardens at the ramp when we loaded up and they affirmed our observations. Out of all the boats that they checked only one had caught any speckled trout, most of which were small keepers.
Brandon and I didn’t get off the water until late and by the time we made it to the weigh-in the festivities were already wrapping up so we didn’t so we didn’t stick around very long. There were some impressive weights brought in and the winner, Daniel Popovich, had over 18lbs. Incredible considering the format was three fish speckled trout tournament with only fish over 25″ allowed. Equally remarkable was the fact that Daniel fished the event solo and the buzz is he walked-in at his spot and opted to leave the boat at home.
Here’s the top three…
1. Daniel Popovich – 18.5 (3 live fish)
2. Havens / Renteria – 15.3 (3 live fish)
3. Team Battistoni – 14.2 (2 live fish)
*Keep in mind there was a 1/2lb bonus for each live fish brought to the scales.
View the rest of the results and photos here. Thanks to everyone who worked to put this event together and to Brandon for giving me a ride in his boat. I had fun and found some new water that I will definitely visit again.
