Blackjack
Brian thought you guys might appreciate this story.
For years the Freeport Fishin' Fiesta (always around July 4th) has been receiving my "charitable" donation as I have only made the leader board once, and that lasted about an hour. Anyway, it is a 5-day tournament that has about a thousand and one categories, but the focus of my attention this year was the speckled trout. Thursday sucked because we couldn't find any decent water anywhere near Cedar Lakes/Cow Trap due to the current (global warming induced) drought we are experiencing. We did make it out the CL cut in our 21', but that is another story for another time. Tally for the day, 1.5 million hardheads.
Friday things started looking up. It was the day of a mini-tournament (whopping $100 payout) and we were cruising in my father-in-law's new Blackjack 223. This boat had never been fished out of until then and it needed to be broken in properly. Found green water in EMB. About cast #4 for Jim (father-in-law) something slammed his skitterwalk (trout imitation) and ripped drag. We could tell it was going to be a decent fish but weren't prepared for what I netted. First fish in this boat ever was a 6.5# 27" speck. His personal best by 2".
My first came shortly after and was a respectable 4.9# 24" speck. This is when I learned one of those no-shit valuable lessons about pliers. The fish and lure were both snagged in the net so I grabbed the lure in one hand and the net (trout would have been a better idea) in the other. Well, the trout was still a bit green and decided to make a break for the water and in the process succeeded in pulling the lure from my grasp and sinking the back treble to the heel in my little finger. And she wouldn't stop flopping. I dropped my hand to the bottom of the boat and my brother-in-law, Justin, started bitching about making too much noise until he saw why. Adrenaline is a good friend and allowed me to rip the hook back out the hole it came in and only left a minimal amount of internal tissue sticking out the hole. Moral of the story, put pliers on the hook dumb ass (we had three pair on the boat and all were within reach).
Finished the day with a total of 6 specks and one red with Jim's big trout on the leader board.
We set out early on Saturday and were pretty sure we knew where we could get into them. My brother (Eric) joined us and was in for a treat. We started drifting and immediately started catching respectable fish, mostly grunting males in the 16-23" range. All of a sudden I heard a toilet flush and it was on! Initially we thought I must have a big red as whatever it was ran deep and fast, burning drag like it was going out of style. I took about 5 minutes to coax the fish within eyeball distance and I almost fell out when I saw her. 7.7# and 29". Now I've been fishing the coast for MANY years and don't have an excuse for it, but this was my personal best by 5" so you can see why I was excited. We did the dumb Houston-Asshole trout dance in the boat and almost decided to head straight to the weigh station, but changed our minds (good thing). It wasn't 5 minutes later and Jim hauled in a 6.2# 28" sow. Couldn't believe our luck, so we did another jig and had another beer. This whole time we are still steadily pulling in other legal trout. There were about six boats that decided to drift our line behind us, but nobody seemed to catch anything (right bait makes a difference).
We decided to swing back around and make the same drift, only a hundred yards or so to the west. My first cast brought in a 19" speck so the fish were still there. The other boats (now downwind) slowly peeled off and as the last one left (a nice blue Pescador) I heard the toilet flush again! This time it was a 6.5# 28.5" sow. Three trout over 28" in just over two hours and four over 27" in less than 24 hours! We ended up with 16 keepers and left EMB by 1045.
My best day of fishing to date. 7/7/07 = 21 = Blackjack (kinda) and a $700 check for the tournament big trout to boot. I should have bought a lottery ticket! Anyway, I'm looking for a good taxidermist to mount or replicate the three biggies. I have measurements, pictures and the carcasses (feel a little guilty, but I have released hundreds and won't keep a non-tournament biggy in the future). Any suggestions?
For years the Freeport Fishin' Fiesta (always around July 4th) has been receiving my "charitable" donation as I have only made the leader board once, and that lasted about an hour. Anyway, it is a 5-day tournament that has about a thousand and one categories, but the focus of my attention this year was the speckled trout. Thursday sucked because we couldn't find any decent water anywhere near Cedar Lakes/Cow Trap due to the current (global warming induced) drought we are experiencing. We did make it out the CL cut in our 21', but that is another story for another time. Tally for the day, 1.5 million hardheads.
Friday things started looking up. It was the day of a mini-tournament (whopping $100 payout) and we were cruising in my father-in-law's new Blackjack 223. This boat had never been fished out of until then and it needed to be broken in properly. Found green water in EMB. About cast #4 for Jim (father-in-law) something slammed his skitterwalk (trout imitation) and ripped drag. We could tell it was going to be a decent fish but weren't prepared for what I netted. First fish in this boat ever was a 6.5# 27" speck. His personal best by 2".
My first came shortly after and was a respectable 4.9# 24" speck. This is when I learned one of those no-shit valuable lessons about pliers. The fish and lure were both snagged in the net so I grabbed the lure in one hand and the net (trout would have been a better idea) in the other. Well, the trout was still a bit green and decided to make a break for the water and in the process succeeded in pulling the lure from my grasp and sinking the back treble to the heel in my little finger. And she wouldn't stop flopping. I dropped my hand to the bottom of the boat and my brother-in-law, Justin, started bitching about making too much noise until he saw why. Adrenaline is a good friend and allowed me to rip the hook back out the hole it came in and only left a minimal amount of internal tissue sticking out the hole. Moral of the story, put pliers on the hook dumb ass (we had three pair on the boat and all were within reach).
Finished the day with a total of 6 specks and one red with Jim's big trout on the leader board.
We set out early on Saturday and were pretty sure we knew where we could get into them. My brother (Eric) joined us and was in for a treat. We started drifting and immediately started catching respectable fish, mostly grunting males in the 16-23" range. All of a sudden I heard a toilet flush and it was on! Initially we thought I must have a big red as whatever it was ran deep and fast, burning drag like it was going out of style. I took about 5 minutes to coax the fish within eyeball distance and I almost fell out when I saw her. 7.7# and 29". Now I've been fishing the coast for MANY years and don't have an excuse for it, but this was my personal best by 5" so you can see why I was excited. We did the dumb Houston-Asshole trout dance in the boat and almost decided to head straight to the weigh station, but changed our minds (good thing). It wasn't 5 minutes later and Jim hauled in a 6.2# 28" sow. Couldn't believe our luck, so we did another jig and had another beer. This whole time we are still steadily pulling in other legal trout. There were about six boats that decided to drift our line behind us, but nobody seemed to catch anything (right bait makes a difference).
We decided to swing back around and make the same drift, only a hundred yards or so to the west. My first cast brought in a 19" speck so the fish were still there. The other boats (now downwind) slowly peeled off and as the last one left (a nice blue Pescador) I heard the toilet flush again! This time it was a 6.5# 28.5" sow. Three trout over 28" in just over two hours and four over 27" in less than 24 hours! We ended up with 16 keepers and left EMB by 1045.
My best day of fishing to date. 7/7/07 = 21 = Blackjack (kinda) and a $700 check for the tournament big trout to boot. I should have bought a lottery ticket! Anyway, I'm looking for a good taxidermist to mount or replicate the three biggies. I have measurements, pictures and the carcasses (feel a little guilty, but I have released hundreds and won't keep a non-tournament biggy in the future). Any suggestions?
Picture is missing 5 fish that went to Dallas with Eric.
posted by grunt | 4:14 PM
2 Comments:
Great report Wayne - an exciting account of big fish complete with a painful lesson and some global warming politics.
The Bumgarner and Hillis men had an awesome tournament. They nearly took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trout.
P.S. I'm sorry about all the bad names I called you after you phoned me to tell me you had just caught a 29" trout - I'm sure you will understand that I was doing chores around the house wishing I was fishing when you called.
Nice!!! Any chance you might wanna come down to PINS and teach me how to fish like that. I believe we could make some room for you. Good to make the fish pay you from time to time.
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