Jax Kayak Tourney Report

[erayyak]

Well, I must say that as always Mike Kogan of Jacksonville Kayak Fishing has really put on a great show. The Captains Meeting and weigh in were moved to the Shrine Center and it was a great venue. If I hadn't been so lazy (or taken my camera) I would have gotten some photos of that but it was great. Somewhere around 340 kayak anglers in the tournament. And although the fishing had been tough, there were plenty of nice fish caught. As one of the judges in this event, I have the privaledge of seeing the photos.....and as always there are some who lose out on placing and prizes for not following the rules. Makes it tough as a judge but you have to be consistent.

And some where in all those 340 people was Nathan from these boards.....we talked on the phone before and after but I never got a chance to meet him. Nathan, hope you enjoyed yourself as well.

One of the guys I was fishing with Jon Ward (Vercetti on some boards) managed to come in 3rd Place overall in the slam. With something in the high 50's but the numbers escape me right now.

Anyway, I got up at 2 am on Thursday to leave Concord and actually beat my friend Todd to the launch. He was coming from Tampa which is almost a 4 hour drive. The plan was to pre-fish until the tide prevented us from fishing.....which we almost didnt make it back. Jax is very muddy, as some friends found out when they jumped in and sunk almost to their waist.....not good. It is difficult at best to find a way to pull yourself out of that and everything that is solid is an oyster.

Day 1 left me with a skunk. Todd managed to catch a small slam, mostly trolling a Gulp.....and I missed a couple of small strikes. But we did find fish, some really nice reds, by spooking them up around some oyster bars in the mud paddling back to the launch. So we knew they would be there again. So that was a plus.

Day 2, we tried an area we had never heard anything about. We went for trout, but I managed two reds and Todd got a flounder. We only fished it for a few hours because the wind forecast for tournament day was going to make it almost impossible to fish it after the sun came up and the wind started to blow.

Tournament Day, we came up with a plan to focus on the area where we saw the reds on Thursday, then take out to put in at another spot where our buddy Jon had been catching flounder. We knew that there were trout and reds in that first spot, and that would be out best bet. Well, the morning started off slow, Todd got a nice trout 19 +, then Jon got a few including an 18 +. But no reds yet. I managed two flounder, largest 13 and then 4 trout largest 14 +. We had set a time to leave because of the inability to get out of that area on low tide and also to get to the flounder spot. The wind was really blowing good so it made it tough to sight fish and to stay in one spot. I couldnt get a red for the life of me, Jon got a 26 + and Chris another guy fishing with us got a 25.5. Todd hooked one up but it cut him off on an oyster. And it was time to go. We were running out of water.

At the flounder spot, I upgraded to a 15 inch flounder, Todd got one and Jon caught two with his biggest being 16. But it ended up being enough to give him 3rd place. Here are a few photos:

1) Todd at the Day 1 Launch

2) We were fishing in a "creek"?

3) My nicest fish of the week

4) Todd with a flattie

5) Jon the Sheik with his flattie that put him in position


Todd has some more photos once I get those I will post them.