This was an unpredictable week full of ups and downs in preparation for the Bricks and Sticks fishing tournament. It started with a tropical storm coming from the south through the gulf giving us a ton of rain and wind for the first half of the week. Bait was plentiful all week long but the fish were not. The first half of the week consisted of a lot of moving to avoid the rain and catching smaller sized snook. On Friday the weather finally broke and got very nice with no rain and light winds. Friday consisted of catching bait for Saturday’s tournament and scouting for redfish.
Saturday, tournament day, I had a 3 person charter with a 630 AM pick up time at South Seas Resort. I began the day well before sunlight catching even more bait for the day. While making my run from getting bait back to pick up my clients my fuel pump stopped working. I was now only able to run 3000 RPM’s before the motor would starve for fuel and shut down. I made it to the marina and picked up my clients on time. We slowly made our run across Pine Island Sound to a 4′ deep flat where we began throwing jigs and spoons.
The tournament consisted of catching two snook, two redfish, and two ladyfish. We immediately started catching ladyfish, trout, and jack. After about and hour of having fun catching fish we made our way to the Fishermans Coop where I had a new fuel pump being delivered. 15 minutes later we were back in business with everything running properly. We made the run crossing Pine Island Sound again and back to Redfish Pass. We stayed in that area for a couple of hours catching snook after snook trying to upgrade our size.
While there we had an up close and personal visit with a friendly, but hungry, porpoise. Scott had a Go-pro and was able to put it under water and get some excellent up close footage of the porpoise. Now with a great high tide, we once again make the run crossing Pine Island Sound in an effort to look for redfish. With no luck at the first stop we go to move, get on plane and then the motor cuts out completely. We were now dead in the water. It was time to call Sea Tow and start fishing right where we were. Sea Tow arrived a while later and towed us back to the ramp, our day was done. We had four out of the six fish that we needed and were disqualified because we did not make it to the weigh in by 4pm.
It was a disappointing and unexpected end to a crazy week. Sunday’s trip had to be cancelled and the boat was able to be repaired without going into the shop.
