FNT VII recap

I've been a member of the Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club for a long time, but I have rarely gone to the tournaments. This was my third entry. I've always kind of had the fly fishers' attitude about competitive fishing - I never wanted to make what I do for relaxation a competition. The competition in BCKFC is for the most part friendly, and it's a great bunch of folks to hang with. I will start doing
more of them.

I came down Friday afternoon and went over to Joshua's where Nick Lauve (Teknickcull) had just landed his kayak. He had a slam of redfish, flounder, and specks. He said he was in the islands straight out from Joshua's and the water was so clear you could see the bottom. He asked if I was heading out and I said no, I had seen all I needed to see. Thanks Nick!

Saturday morning I started with breakfast at Delta Marina's restaurant since I knew I hadn't brought my light pole and could not launch until daylight. I launched about a half hour past sunup at Joshua's and headed out to the islands where Nick and Paul Bernard were fishing. Paul had already caught his Leopard Red winning red before first light and they both were steady catching trout on topwaters. I put the Rockport Rattler jig head from the captain's bag on with a newpenny/chart. double tail gulp also from the bag and started bouncing it off the bottom next to the grass. Soon I got a hookup. When it got to the boat at first I thought I had a monster flounder, but it was a big sting ray! While I was getting it off the hook, I broke my Okuma ML rod into three pieces. Glad it's lifetime warranted..
The next fish was a nice 17+ inch flounder. Then I caught a keeper speck and then a 12-1/2" flounder which I released to grow some more or hopefully help some else to make a slam.

The action slowed down so I headed south to an outlying island at the edge of the marsh. I saw a lot of activity in the water and tossed the gulp close to the shore. It was a 27-1/2" redfish, 3/4" too big. After releasing her I then moved around to the front of the island into the open water, staked out and started casting towards the island. I caught four specks around two pounds each one after the other. I didn't weigh or measure them, just tossed them in the cooler and kept fishing. I also picked up a couple of high slot size reds there.

Once the tide stopped moving I worked the islands west of the point and picked up another nice red. It was getting past noon so I started heading in to the marsh south of the landing. I stopped and worked a glow gulp shrimp with a Shiney Hiney jighead (freebee from the BCKFC forum) under a popping cork. As I was pulling away working outlying grass clumps, I got the biggest slot red of the day. I headed on in and got to the weigh in for 3pm.

I thought I had a chance, but there were a lot of people weighing in a lot of fish. The redfish were especially impressive, all were big and healthy. After talking to Ben (fishtaco) I knew he had a good chance of winning it with 12 lbs+. It was a lot of fun listening to the awards knowing that I hadn't been called yet. I got 4th place cajun slam. I lot of the elite members get teased about being 4th, but I'll take it any day! It was my first win of any kind in a tournament.

Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to Steve, Dave, Clayton, and all the club volunteers. It would have been a really nice weekend even if I hadn't caught a fish.