Alright I am finally getting around to posting our final tournament report of the year. The wife and I fished the 2014 low country redfish cup championship the second weekend of November. This was a two day tournament that only the top 15 teams in total points from the 2014 series got to fish the championship. Shannon and I won the 2014 low country redfish cup team of the year title and were defending champions of the 2013 lcrc championship. We pre fished from Beaufort , SC to Georgetown, SC. We caught several redfish on Category 5 lures rigged on weighted hooks over the course of the 4 days we prefished before the tourney. We found an abundance of upper slot fish the last two days prior to the event on several different flats in a two mile area. On day one we bundled up and headed to our first and best low tide flat. We were beat to the spot we wanted by a fellow competitor, so we came in 200 hundreds yards down the bank giving them well more than the 50 yards required by the tourney rules. We caught one upper slot red at this spot along with a black drum and an under slot. We left this flat and hit our next rising water spot as the tide was low rising from the tournaments start. We found fish right where we had found them in pre fish on this flat and were able to put another upper slot fish in the livewell by 9:00 am. This took the pressure off as we had two good fish early and hadnt even hit our three high tide spots. The next three flats we hit on high water produced a ton of bites and hook ups.....notice I didnt say landed fish. I was totally unprepared for the fishing we were doing at high water. The fish were so far back in the grass I was having to add pinch weights to our weighted hooks to get the baits down to the fish. Although this was a tough task, the hard part came when we hooked up with the fish. We only landed 12 to fifteen out of over 30 fish hooked at high water. The fish were taking off keeping their nose down and breaking us off on the bottom of the marsh grass. We were using 15 lb braid and 20 lb fluorocarbon leader and the fish were breaking the leader like it was butter. Finally after numerous break offs and running out of weighted hooks I tried something different. When I made a hook set I flipped the bail and allowed the fish to swim out of the grass and then went after him. This proved to be a very good tactic. We landed several slot and over slot fish this day and headed to the scales w two good 22 plus inch reds. We knew these two fish would not put us in the lead for day one but would put us in good shape for day two w just over 8.25 pounds (keep in mind the SC upper slot limit is 23). On day two we had a 3 fish bag limit which was a first for a SC redfish tourney. Day two started out much colder but wasnt quite as windy. We had ice on the deck of the boat at check out. After blast off we headed to our low tide bank and managed one keeper just like day one. We caught a couple more over slot reds there and headed to the next flat. We found fish all over this bank by the hundreds but couldnt convince even one to take a swing. We hit another flat as the tide rose with the same result, then we hit the flat where we broke off so many fish on day one. It didnt take long to get our second fish of the day on this flat. I cast into the grass and my lure was dangling on top caught by the spartina grass from sinking and a reds popped and missed, I twitched the lure and it popped out of the grass and the fish smoked it-a near perfect slot fish. We felt much better at this point but only had two upper slot fish and needed a third to take the pressure off. A couple casts later and we were hooked up w an under slot. Then we had a pulled hook. I hooked up a few casts later and broke off a nice one, very frustrated at this point. Just as I was getting ticked off for breaking my fish off, Shannon hooks up in same spot. She flipped the bail after hookset, learning from my mistake 5 seconds earlier and we went in the grass to get him. This fish zigged and zagged to the point he had knotted himself to the chutes of three pieces of marsh grass. We finally get him up and hes a near perfect slot. Excited and pressure off we fished hard up until we had to run in and culled out our smallest fish from the first flat and caught a few more good fish. After day one we were sitting in seventh place and had to make up a lot of ground on day two to have a chance. With 3 near perfect slot fish we were optimistic. We weighed our fish and felt pretty good as our three fished averaged 4.5 lbs per fish, really good fish for SC. In the end we came up a little short as we took second place for the championship. Congrats to Ricky and Bruce for bringing it home w some stud reds on day three. Also congrats to everyone that made the championship, those were impressive weights from everyone.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 03:42:34 +0000
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