by Lee Padrick, June 15, 2015
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| Checkout |
Dwayne and I finished in 6th place at Carolina Redfish Series Event #2, held out of Chasin' Tails Outdoors on June 13, 2015.
We checked out that morning as Team #14, and tried something different than last tournament. We took Dwayne's Shallow Sport 18' Bahia, and it performed beautifully in the 15-20 knot southwest winds that greeted us that morning. We ran about 15 miles from the checkout, and while the conditions over open water that we had to cross were some of the roughest I can remember in a tournament, the Shallow Sport earned its keep and did a fabulous job getting us there safely.
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| Early morning hookup |
We got to our spot and it was dead high tide. After putting 3 fish in the boat early, our bite slowed down. We had a 5 lb fish, and another fish that was around 3 lbs, for an 8 lb aggregate weight. Not enough to compete against the caliber of competitors in this tournament. We boated 3 more fish, but every fish was 2.9 lbs, cookie cutters.
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| Upgrade |
We decided to stick to our best spot throughout the extreme low tide, and we averaged a bite about every 45 minutes. Finally, as the tide started to fill in, we found our school and put 8 fish in the boat in a chaotic flurry. Dwayne caught a 6 lber to upgrade our bag, and we thought we were around 11 lbs. Given the windy conditions and low tide, we figured we were in the top 5. Our fish weighed 11.07 lbs, good enough for 6th place. Apparently, the top teams on the day caught some nice fish in rough conditions. Good job to all of those teams!
Congrats to Captain Tom Roller and his partner, John Hadley with a big winning bag of 13.30 lbs. Jake Gainey and Jerry Burns finished in 2nd place with 11.99 lbs. Captain Rick Patterson and John Hislop finished in 3rd place with 11.59 lbs. Big congratulations to all the teams that weighed fish on a tough tide.
We want to thank Chasin' Tails Outdoors, PointClickFish.com, Crystal Coast Graphics, and Hook and Bones for putting on a great tournament.
We also want to thank Salt Life Optics, Grunden's, Salty Bay Baits, Deep Creek Lures, Captain Gary's Marine Care Products, Fins Superbraids, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, Bubba Blade Fishing Knives, Tsunami Air Wave Rods, Bimini Bay Outfitters, Buccaneer Bait Company, and Power Pole Swallow Water Anchors.
Check out Randy Nelson and Explore Inshore for footage of the event. We're going fishing with Randy and his video camera at the end of June and we're excited about the trip.
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If you like what you see here, check out The Redfish Guys on Facebook and Twitter
by Lee Padrick, June 1, 2015
Dwayne and I finished in 3rd place at Carolina Redfish Series 2015 Event #1. We had practiced in all the spots we knew between Drum Inlet and New River, and the biggest schools of fish were south of the Highway 58 Bridge. So we planned to fish the biggest schools of fish we found.
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| First fish |
We drew Team #25 out of 26 teams, so we were next to last at checkout on May 30, 2015. The tournament was held out of Chasin' Tails Outdoors in Atlantic Beach.
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| Upgrade fish |
Dwayne and I arrived at our first stop after a hard run. It took a little while, but we figured out the pattern of our fish, and started putting fish in the boat. We caught a few smaller fish and had two in the livewell, but we didn't have much over 7 pounds. Then Dwayne stuck a nice fish, close to 6 lbs, so things were looking better. I stuck a nice fish on a gold spoon, and we upgraded to a little over 10 lbs. Then Dwayne put another nice one in the boat, a fish around 6 lbs, and we had an aggregate weight that was close to our target weight. A few minutes later, I made a cast to where I thought the fish were, but no takers on my gold spoon, so I was retrieving it pretty fast so I could cast back to the spot. A fish hammered the spoon close to the boat, and after we netted it, we saw it was a thick one. We measured it a few times, but couldn't get it measure under the 27" mark but once, so after flipping it a few times, we released it.
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| So close, but too big |
We had around 12 pounds in the livewell, so we went to another spot to fish low tide, and found our school in some shallow water. I stuck one immediately, but broke the fish off. Big mistake on my part. We got another shot at the school, and Dwayne boated a 28" fish on a gold spoon.
Then we spent the next few hours trying to find our school, which disappeared with the extremely low tide. Still have no idea where those fish went. Ended up catching 15 fish on the day, just not the right ones.
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| 3rd Place with 12.12 lbs |
We headed back to the scales with what we had, and ended up with the 3rd place weight of 12.12 pounds.
Congrats to Captain Mike Taylor and John Roberts with a big winning bag of 13.42 lbs. Captain Jeff Cronk and his wife Kellee finished ahead of us in 2nd place with 12.45 lbs. We ended up in 3rd, just ahead of our Hook and Bones teammates On Point Fishing, the team of Garrett and Littleton that finished in 4th place with 11.77 lbs. Big congratulations to all the teams that weighed fish on a tough tide.
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| Leaderboard |
We want to thank Chasin' Tails Outdoors, PointClickFish.com, Crystal Coast Graphics, and Hook and Bones for putting on a great tournament.
We also want to thank Salt Life Optics, Grunden's, Salty Bay Baits, Deep Creek Lures, Captain Gary's Marine Care Products, Fins Superbraids, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, Bubba Blade Fishing Knives, Tsunami Air Wave Rods, Bimini Bay Outfitters, Buccaneer Bait Company, and Power Pole Swallow Water Anchors.
Check out Randy Nelson and Explore Inshore for footage of the event. We're going fishing with Randy and his video camera at the end of June and we're excited about the trip.
We had a lot of fun and look forward to next event in the series on June 13th.
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If you like what you see here, check out The Redfish Guys on Facebook and Twitter
Congrats to Captain Tom Roller and his partner, John Hadley with a big winning bag of 13.30 lbs. Jake Gainey and Jerry Burns finished in 2nd place with 11.99 lbs. Captain Rick Patterson and John Hislop finished in 3rd place with 11.59 lbs. Big congratulations to all the teams that weighed fish on a tough tide.
