Archive for October, 2009
Red Snook Tournament Results
The annual Nature Conservancy Red/Snook tournament was a great time this year, my anglers Henly Shotwell and Rich Christians fished really hard this year. Congratulations on our third place finish, just nine inches from Capt. ken Chambers for second place. We ran into some good and bad luck and there were some moments that were baffling.The first morning of the two day tournament Rich had a bad case of “Rubber Hooks” loosing 8 or 9 Snook and Redfish that would have really come in handy later. We managed to fill our Snook tag of 3 which landed us in fourth place after the first day.
On the secound morning we left the dock at 7:00 a.m and by 8:30 Rich had filled his Snook card and added a bonus medium sized Redfish. The first couple of larger Snook that we hooked that morning were big but they seemed to be shy of the net, and left us with a full but small Snook card. Then the bad luck started, on tailing redfish ate the fly three times, and we were left staring at a huge wake leaving the flat in dis-believe. As the fish disappeard off the 6 inch deep flat what happend next will be talked about between us for years.
The enourmous bay which was almost dry looked like the most perfect conditions I could imagine. A mullet boat that was patrolling the flats decided to run the whole bay driving his boat in and out of each cove that was inches deep, ounce they had made it directly to the spot where I usually see tailing redfish they ran the boat into the mud untill stuck. Then they proceeded to jump out of the boat and start slamming big wooden oars on the water, it sounded like an AK47 going off, in fact we were all convinced they were shooting a gator or some critter untill we could visually see what they were doing. They were beating the oars on the water trying to get the mullet schooled up so they could catch them. Not so good for the fisherman trying to catch ultra spooky tailing Reds and Snook.
After the mullet fisherman left Henly made a perfect cast at a Redfish that was waking and feeding his way down the shoreline. The Red slammed his fly and then ran directly into a crab trap, getting off in the barnacled mess of the discarded trap. Ounce again we stared in disbelieve, and left the bay feeling like eventually something has to go our way.Rich and Henly both came through by catching a medium sized Snook which filled our Snook card for the day, and Rich landed a 30 inch Red and lost one that was equally as large. With one Redfish left to catch and Henly being the angler that had to catch it, the 45 minutes left in the tournament were very stressfull. We spotted a large red 30 inches or greater and Henly made a great cast, he stripped the fly and the Red kicked its tail hard trying to catch it, it popped it jaw and got with in an inch of it ready to feed. The fish then slowly turned away from the fly and slipped away.
It was a great time fishing this tournament and was an awesome experience getting that close to a win with my buddies. Next year that Red is going to eat!!!!
