I’m still recouping from the weekend that consisted of as many hours behind the wheel and as hours on the water. Like most things that are fun it was also exhausting. This past Saturday was the first stop of the Xtreme Redfish Trail (XRT) in Port Neches, Texas. A total 90 anglers fished the tournament, 66 on the boat side and 24 on the kayak side. Some big weights were weighed-in but not what tournaments in Sabine are usually accustomed to because of the tough conditions.
Greg, my partner, and I had found some good fish weeks before the tournament, so we left our area alone for a couple of weeks leading up to the tournament. We were fishing shorelines with scattered shell with deep water access nearby. Not only did we find numbers of fish but we found heavy fish. That’s really the key to tournament redfishing. Finding fish that are well fed.
When we arrived to our spot on tournament day the wind was already blowing close to 15mph and forecasts were calling for the wind to pick up over the course of the day so when knew the fishing might be a little tough. We didn’t expect it to be as arduous as it was. The wind probably blew around 20 mph most of the day but that really didn’t hurt the area we were fishing. Our fish never turned on for us.
The bite was sporadic and the water was a little higher than I would have liked but I’m still a little puzzled why we couldn’t put anything together, but that’s fishing. Just when you think you got things figured out, Mother Nature throws you a curveball and leaves you wondering what went wrong. Well, sometimes nothing goes wrong.
We caught only a handful of redfish all day long and only upgraded once. Our final weight was 10.11 lbs and we finished in 4th. We also caught some nice trout to 4 lbs in the same area. I had around 10 bites all day long and broke off twice. One of the breakoffs was right at the kayak to a solid red that probably would have added a pound or two to our weight but that wouldn’t have helped our cause. We still would have finished in 4th. It took two big reds, about 14lbs, to be in contention.
Congrats to the winner and I’m looking forward to the next event in Galveston, Texas in June 18th.
Tournament Photos
Tournament Results
Here’s are the Official XRT Results:
Kayak Division:
1st – Rinando/Spillman – 14.64 – $1200
2nd – Koreba/Thorson – 14.08 – $500
3rd – Barghi/Barghi – 13.96 – $220
Boat Division:
1st – Bates / Veitch – 17.44 -$6600
2nd -Ellender/Ellender – 15.77 – $1800
3rd – Weaver/White – 14.67 – $700
4th – Vaughn/Hartje – 13.96 – $600
5th – Baker/Lester – 13.61 – $500
6th – Gilbert/Braddock – 13.49 – $400
