Trout Challenge 7

 

 

This past weekend was the 3rd tournament in the BCKFC's angler of the year 5 tournament series, and it was a challenge to say it nicely.  I hadn't been able to fish Louisiana waters in what felt like an eternity and starting a new job this month was the culprit for my lack of preparation. 
As I usually fish alone, this event was different, I had decided to team up with Ty Hibbs, a local angler that spends more time on the water in one week than I do in a month.  Not being able to pre-fish as  I usually do, I was leaving the scouting up to Ty, I felt very comfortable going into the tournament on his knowledge alone being he always seems to find the fish.

Well, at 9:30 pm the night before the tournament, we changed our plans.  Originally we were going to fish Lake Pontchartrain from several different locations, but a last minute scouting trip by Ty had us dumbfounded.  The fish were not where they were supposed to be.  So we decided it was time to load up and head west.  Around 10 pm we hit the road and were on our way to Lake Charles to follow the same route I did the year before for this same tournament.  After several stops, and a dozen cups of coffee, we arrived at our launch point around 2 a.m.  Safe launch light was 3 a.m., we got our yaks unloaded, prepared all of our tackle and were watching the clock with anticipation and a little bit of anxiety.  We were very cautious with where we were launching and wanted to keep it quiet to the rest of the night owls on the road, so with every passing car, we would turn our headlights off and sit in the darkness.  When suddenly a vehicle pulls around the turn and then slows to a crawl, I couldn't imagine who it was, other than maybe the poh poh, coming to investigate what we were doing, but when the vehicle turned in, it was obvious who it was, Brendan "Lego" Bayard and his fishing partner Lance.  I couldn't help but laugh.  As we helped unload their yaks and joke about following each other to different launch spots within the area, the clock hit the top of the hour.  We dropped the yaks in the water and the race was on.  Four us peddling like the Flintstone's heading for a brontosaurus burger, we all headed to the dock lights that were in front of us to pick up a quick 5 specs and then head in another direction for sunrise trout. 
As we pulled up, there was already a boat in place, and they were bringing specs up one by one, I flanked their left, and Ty flanked their right, Brendan then eased around me and flanked my left, and Lance worked another area in the darkness.  Within seconds Lego was bringing in the specs, he would bring them yak side quietly and out of view of anyone, as to not raise suspicion that he was on to something, and he was.  It didn't take him 15 minutes to fill his bag, I knew they weren't beast, but they were more than the croakers and dinks I was pulling in.  Finally the boat left and then Lance and Lego headed off into the darkness.  Ty and I stayed, we landed 10-15 specs within minutes of the chaos disappearing into the darkness behind us, I even pulled in an 18" flounder and a red, but no keeper specs.
We were now 15 minutes behind schedule for our next launch location, so we peddled back to the truck, loaded up and went to spot number two.  You wouldn't believe what we saw when we pulled up.  Yep, it was Lego's truck.  At this point I knew we were going to have to do something different, we decided to run further south than the dynamic duo in an attempt to make it to an area I fished last year that proved productive.  As we passed Brendan and Lance, it was made clear that they had fish in their bags, nothing special from what they said, but anything was better than what I had. 
As we made it nearly a half mile past them, we came across some bait piled up along the banks, and there were some trout in the area, I landed one then Ty landed one, I stayed closer to the bank as Ty worked the waters a hundred yards or so off the bank.  I then decided it was time to find some small reefs, I took my jig rod and chunked the matrix shad behind me and began peddling as I was working a topwater in front of me.  Within 100 yards, I landed a spec in front, while at the same time my jig hung up on a reef and took my rod right out of the yak and to the bottom of the lakes floor.  I landed the trout, put it in the bag, and then began my search for my rod. Within 10 minutes I was hooked up and relieved to be reeling in my Bullbay rod and Shimano reel.  I made some safety adjustments to my reef finding strategy and began further south again, when bam, another fish on, and then another, and then another.  It was obvious at this point that these little reefs were holding some fish.  As soon as I noticed my rod tip bouncing up and down from the jig hanging up on shells on the lakes floor, I would turn the yak and start working the area.  It worked flawlessly all day, find some shells, and you find the fish.  I ended up with over a limit of trout and a limit of reds within 4 hours of working this technique.  They weren't the big female trout that I was looking for, but they would end up being enough to weigh in.
As the time moved closer to 1 p.m. I knew we had to make it back to the truck in time for our nearly 3 hour drive to the weigh in at Cabela's in Gonzales.  Not happy with the fish we had, we had to call it quits and head in.  Being it wasn't far to the truck, I decided I would make a last ditch effort and through out two jigs to troll back.  Big mistake, within seconds both rods bowed over like I just hung a tank, one was going left and the other was going right.  I grabbed the closest one and began the fight, the drag was screaming and I couldn't gain an inch on the fish.  As the yak spun around, so did the other fish on the rod that was still in the rod holder.  Now I had two screaming drags, and the fish were tag teaming each other and wrapping lines on everything, at one point I looked 

 back and every rod in my black pack was wrapped up in fishing line from the rod in the rod holder.  I finally got one of the fish yak side, it was  red, and as I began to clip the Boga grip on the fishes lip, the other fish took off and took the yak side red with him.  At this point, I'm yelling to Ty that I need help, and he's next to me laughing at the circus that's going on.  Ty took my rod from the rod holder, I landed one fish, cut the line after I had him boated, and then cut the line of three other rods in order to free the nest of knots that had been created.  I then began to fight the next red by hand, pulling the line in foot by foot until finally, the red escaped capture and straightened out the hook.  It was a sight to see, and needless to say, after that, I headed straight to the truck.
As we reached the truck, we were both a little bummed, we both had our limit, but we didn't think we had anything close to finishing in the top 10 of tournament.  And with our tails tucked between our legs with 5 small specs each and stories of the big ones that got away, we were on our way east to Cabela's.
As we arrived, I was surprised to see the amount of people in line to weigh fish already, at this point I was now convinced that maybe I shouldn't even take my fish bag out of the truck, but I did.  We signed in, sat our bags at the end of the line and began listening to the stories around the table.  It appeared that we weren't the only ones that didn't have a good day.  In fact, after hearing all the stories of people that didn't catch fish at all, my spirits began to lift.  As the scales opened, the weighing began, first it was one fish, than three fish, than one fish, I was surprised to say the least.  This tournament is usually one where some big mules are brought in, but not today.  The only mule brought in was by Steve Lessard who weighed in 5 fish and one of them broke the 4 lbs mark. Steve is always one of the guys you have to look out for at weigh ins, if he is fishing, you can bet he's going to be at the top of the board come cut off time.  After Steve loaded up the basket, it was time, time for me to grab my bag and see what I had.  All I knew was I had a bag full of fish, but not really sure where they would fall, I opened it up, sorted through the smaller ones and put my five in the basket.  I was very surprised to see the scale floating between the 7.5 and 8 lbs mark. WOW, 2nd place and only two more people to weigh in.  I couldn't believe it when the weight held true to the end.  Steve Lessard ended with Big Fish and 1st place, I had 2nd place and the Trout Calcutta, Brendan "Lego" Bayard had 3rd, Denis Sognier 4th, and Ty Hibbs, in his first kayak tournament, had 5th. 
What I thought ended in a poor showing but a fun day, ended with a bang and a big surprise placing.  I couldn't have been happier with my performance given the lack of fishing conditions that everyone endured this day, the sun shined, the wind blew, the tide moved slightly, but the big fish just were not biting.
Congratulations to everyone that participated and placed in this event, and Thank You to Pack & Paddle and Cabela's for your continued support for the BCKFC AOY Series, it has been a fun year thus far, and with only two events left in the race, it's still anyone's game.

Until next time,

Stay Safe & Catch1