Ok, so I don't start too many threads, but I'll comment when I feel I have something add. Today, I'm going to start one. Of course it's a combo brag/report post..lol This past Saturday, my son and I fished our first tournament together in a Toy's for Tot's tourny on Lake Waco that a FB group (Fish On Texas) hosts annually.
(Report Part) Fishing was tough! Watching the weather and the forecast last week I was all but determined to go shallow to start the morning. This was my plan all the way up until we could leave dock to start heading to our fishing spots. At that time, something told me to ditch the shallow idea and scan some deeper areas, so I abandoned my week long game plan and we headed to some deeper waters. After about 10-15 minutes of scanning, I had already seen enough good size fish for me to start a drift in 24-30 fow. Wind was barely moving when we started so we opted to power drift in to the wind, following a point contour. 30 minutes in we had seen numerous good fish on both sides, but we were only getting dink pecks. We decided to give the drift a bit longer, and also to turn out 30-35' fow. We were coming off one side of that point heading to 30-35 fow when a rod bowed over and the board began skipping on the surface. My son bound off the front deck to the rod, reeled down, and the fight was on. 1st fish on the boat and easily our fist of 2 fish we could keep over 30 inches for weigh in. Couple high fives and we got our line back out and continued our drift. We didn't pick anything else up, even though we marked plenty of fish. I don't remember the time, but the wind finally picked up enough to drift without the aide of the TM so we picked up, ran the start of a long flat we'd been pulling through in 30-35, and began a drift back through where we picked up the first fish. Barely got the rods out, when another rod went down. This fish was right on the 30 in line. Great! a close one. In the livewell he went and we continued our drift. Not long after continuing, another rod started a constant bouncing. Reeled down and picked up a dink, I didn't even measure. 3rd fish though, so in the livewell it went. I think it was about noon at this point and that is all we had. We made a short run to another part of the same flat, marked some fish, and started another drift. This time a long line straight out the back of the boat got hammered! My son jumped, reeled down, and fish on. I just knew this fish was going to top the first one, but I guess it had that little fish syndrome and just wanted to fight everything. None the less, it went 33 inches and put me in a bind with the fish. I put this one in a seperate livewell and took the other decent fish out to remeasure and reevaluate. It was still just too close for comfort on that over/under 30 inches so I had to release it. Bummer! After this, we couldn't get another fish to stay one the hook. We only needed 2 more unders for a 5 fish limit and we just couldn't do it. Downsized hooks, downsized baits, nothing worked for us.
(Brag Part) I couldn't any more proud at the way my 12 year old son handled himself in his first tournament. He woke up on time, stayed up and attentive the entire trip, and showed great sportsmanship at weigh in. We did not get in the money, but we took 5th out of 30+ boat teams, only missing some money by 8 lbs on total weight (2 more 5lb fish would have done it). And my son missed money with Big fish by 7 lbs with his 34.5lb fish. Believe it or not, that's a tough loss for a 12 year old. What he did to warm me up was take the loss like a champ and applaud the teams that beat us out on both total weight and big fish. He looked to the positive, shook his head, and said "We almost did it Dad!" That, in my book, is a win!
Way to go Trent!!! That is totally awesome buddy!! Can’t wait until my son is old enough to tournament fish! I scanned both major main lake points Saturday on Lewisville and barely saw a dang fish! Lol. Couldn’t find em on the flats either! I got one report of big fish being way up north in 3 ft of water but I didn’t want to go that far being that I didn’t have long to fish Sunday. I did scan around Pecan Creek but only marked eaters and never saw anything to get me excited. Did find a huge pile of fish in a secondary channel in 46 ft but Sunday they didn’t want to play! Back to the drawing board!
There is a fine line between fishing and floating around like an idiot!! Check out out my YouTube channel El Gato Azul TV https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg0aV-uOxzxKxeqFFfREzKg ⚓️⚓️⚓️⚓️ Home of little boys holding big catfish! ⚓️⚓️⚓️⚓️
Check out out my YouTube channel El Gato Azul TV 