May 13th, 2012 :

Team Pivothead gambles in the marsh.

The 2nd stop of the 2012 HT Professional Redfish Series was this past weekend in Lake Charles, Louisiana @ L'Auberge Du Lac Casino & Resort. Kyle & I were definitely looking to improve on our 14th place finish in Chalmette & break into the top 10. The weather was outstanding during our entire week of prefishing. We were able to locate good numbers of fish in half a dozen different areas & we caught 15 lbs or better everywhere we went. It was really looking like we could do no wrong during practice & our confidence was sky high going into the first day of competition.

There is an old saying down here in south Louisiana... If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes & it will change. Needles to say ,tournament conditions were completely opposite of those sunny calm practice days, much like the 1st event of the year in Chalmette. On the morning of day 1 we were greeted by a cool front which had dropped temperatures into the low 60's. Knowing that the north winds would drop the water level in the marsh, we made the decision to take the tower boat & chose the 6" draft over 70mph speed. Getting to your spot fast is always a good thing but we still need to move around in the marsh once we get there. It's really nice to have these types of options with the same boat builder & that is exactly why we run Majek boats.

Anyhow, off we went to roll the dice in the marsh. Within the first 15 minutes of getting to our "A" spot, we had already boated 6 fish! The fish were eating everything we threw at them & they were feeding very aggressively. The only problem we were having was that the larger fish that we had seen in this area all week long seemed to have disappeared. We were catching 5 pounders one after another but the big ones were no where to be found. I decided to make a few blind casts in some deeper water with a crankbait just to see if I could figure out where the larger fish had moved to.

1st cast, wham! Fish on... As soon as he hit the bait I knew he was a better fish but when he came up to the top Kyle & I knew that we had a huge decision to make right then & there. As it turns out the fish was just over 25 inches long & nearly 7 pounds. That was the good news. The bad news however was that the fish was tounge hooked & was bleeding very badly. Tournament rules state that no dead fish can be culled, so if this fish went belly up on us, we were stuck with him for the rest of the day along with a 1/2lb dead fish penalty. We put the fish in the live well & did all we could to nurse him back to health but no matter what we did, he kept turning over on his side & showing his white belly. Decision time... Keep the fish & risk the 1/2lb penalty if he doesn't make it or throw him back & hope to catch another fish this size or better. Kyle & I decided that with the quality of fish we had seen in the area during practice, we should let this guy go before he kicked the bucket. Well as if to add insult to injury, as soon as I set the wounded beast back in the water, he took off like nothing was wrong with him @ all. Imagine that.

As it turns out, shortly after releasing that fish, the fishing pretty much shut down on us. We saw very few fish after 10AM & we knew that it was going to be a tough day. When we arrived back at the scales our day 1 total was 12lbs even putting us in 15th place overall for the first day of competition. After taking a look at the leaderboard, we knew that the majority of the teams ahead of us had been fishing the jetties. Jetty fishing is a fine art & it's very inconsistent for those anglers who don't do it very often. We knew that if we could duplicate our day 1 results on day 2, we were in the money.

Day 2 began the same as day 2 in Chalmette. Rain, rain & more rain. The official launch was moved back to 10AM due to the weather but we eventually made our way back to the marsh although it was much later than we would have liked. The rain along with a stiff 25 mph wind had churned up the marsh into something that resembled a yoohoo drink. Our experience fishing these conditions in the past had taught us that the click clack of the trusty old popping cork & a scented gulp soft plastic would be the thing to throw today. To say that day 2 conditions were tough would be an understatement. We didn't have the 1st fish in the boat until 4PM. With things in the marsh not panning out as we would have liked & needing a small miracle to salvage our day, we headed to uncharted waters in hopes of better fishing. In the last 30 minutes we somehow managed to catch 4 more redfish giving us a small glimmer of hope for a shot at the top 10. We headed in to the scales hoping that everyone else had done as poorly as we did.

It seems that almost everyone struggled on day 2. The weights for most teams were much lower than day 1 & several teams didn't bring in anything at all. Our day 2 total was 10.85 lbs giving us a 2 day total of 22.85 lbs. When it was all over with, Kyle & I finished in 12th place a mere 1.04 lbs out of 10th place. Once again, so close but yet so far away.

On a brighter note, I was asked to stick around & host a few of the casinos high rollers in a small tournament the next day. I am happy to report that the 3 guys on my boat finished the high rollers event in 1st, 2nd & 3rd place netting them a cool $5,000 for their efforts.

All in all it was a great week on the water & another tournament under our belts. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our title sponsor Pivothead Video Recording Eyewear for all their help as well as Mercury Marine, Majek Boats, Cajun Outboards, TFO Rods, Spillway Sportsman, Motorguide, KC Kayaks, Coastline Trailers, Side Porch Daiquiris, Superstick Push Poles & FINS Fishing Line.

Our next tournament is in Port Aransas, Texas on July 19th, 20th & 21st.  For more information on this event please visit the tour website @ www.theredfishseries.com.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Tight lines,

Team Pivothead

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