Greg and I fished the second stop of the Xtreme Redfish Tournament Trail out of Harborwalk Marina in Hitchcock, Texas last weekend. I haven’t fished around Galveston much lately, and leading up to the tournament we weren’t on any heavy fish. We planned to swing for the fences and fish an area that traditionally produces big fish. Greg checked out the area a couple weeks ago and caught a some decent fish but he saw some bigger fish that he couldn’t convince to eat. Prior to tournament day I had only fished the area once this year so I had my doubts the fish would be there.
The small area we fished on tournament day constantly reloads with fish on tide changes, so our plan was to the grind the area hard from start to finish. We didn’t expect to get a lot of bites but we were hoping we would get the right bites. Tournament day started off with more action than we expected; more so for me than Greg as he struggle early. We were both throwing redfish Skitterwalks.
I started off the morning breaking off my first two fish. Not exactly the way you want to start a tournament. I was discouraged, but it didn’t last long because as soon as I tied another lure on I found a couple schools and caught two four pound fish. Not big fish but two fish on the stringer ease some of the tension. I caught several more fish and had numerous blows working the area not far from where we started fishing. Most of my fish were 4-5lbs. Greg on the other hand struggle to put a keeper in the boat. All he could muster up was a few small fish.
We kept setting up long drifts over shell in 2′ of water. Greg started to catch fish and the better fish too. We picked up a few fish here and there. We were constantly upgrading all day. I managed to break off two more fish later in the day for a total of four breakoffs. I lost three Skitterwalks and one of them twice. Funny story. I found my Skitterwalk floating about an hour after I broke it off. It had better hooks and finish than the one I had tied on so I cut the old one off and tied it back on. Not ten minutes later I broke it off again for a second time, but this time I never saw it again.
On the last two drifts Greg upgraded two more times with two solid fish. We ended with one fish that was pushing 26″ and the other was pushing 27″. Greg thought we had between 13-14 lbs. We didn’t weigh our fish before we made the drive to the weigh-in. We knew we didn’t have enough to win, but felt like we could make a good showing with the fish we had. Our final weight was 11.37lbs and putting us near the bottom of a very close pack. Our fish were long and skinny. Besides Rick and Sam’s stringer that weighed 15.18lbs all the kayakers weighed less than 13lbs with most people weighing between 11-13lbs. Harborwalk Marina is a great venue. I had fishing and had a good time at the event.
Photos from the tournament are located here…
XRT Harborwalk Marina Hitchcock, Texas
Boat Division:
1st – Weaver / Stevens 15.85
2nd – Wadell / Haloran 15.79
3rd – Catching / Young 15.26
4th – Malone / Sweezy 15.21
5th – Bruss / Watson 14.62
6th – Morin / Colvin 14.19
Kayak Division:
1st – Spillman / Rinando 15.18
2nd – Cox / Hutchinson. 12.81
