Inshore Spring Challenge Tournament results

This past Saturday, I fished in the Fisherman Post's annual "Inshore Spring Challenge" fishing tournament. I had two crew members on board with me. We left the dock at 5am looking for bait. We had to hunt in a few places but we were able to find plenty.

When our lines went in the water at 6AM, the wind was calm and the sky was clear as the sun rose overhead. That didn't last long. Soon the wind howled and the rain began. Certainly not matching the forecasted "isolated showers, the rain was socked in for over 3 solid hours. And it was a cold rain with the wind making it feel even colder.

Then the clouds cleared and it warmed up. Off came the slickers and sweatshirts. The rest of the day was spent under sunny skies.

We fished hard all day. With three anglers fishing two lines each, we covered a lot of territory. We were using a combination of live bait on Carolina rigs and Gulp! soft baits on jigheads. We also trolled some Xraps and Mirrolures for speckeled trout.

We weighed in at 4:00 pm sharp (the latest allowable time). We caught a total of 7 flounder but no trout. The flounder were small with the biggest being 15 1/2 inches and weighing 1.6 pounds. Not a huge fish but it was big enough to put us on the leader board and in the money at 16th place. All the fish weights were down from previous year tourneys. The big fish just haven't moved in yet with all the cold fronts we have had this month.

Overall, it was a fun day. A long day, but fun.

Can't wait till the next one!