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Gulf Coast Boat Owners Tournament

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Ken J

Posts: 98

5/4/2009 7:33 AM

This past weekend Craig N, Brad V, Jason T, and Ken J fished in the Gulf Coast Boat Owners Tournament, out of Craig’s Boat. The Tournament was based out of the East Matagorda Bay Marina. There were 52 Boats, 208 Fishermen entered in the Tournament.

How shall we describe our Tournament Day experience? Wind blowing 30 mph; boat stuck hard on sand bar; engine break down; only one legal trout. Friday we all joined up to pre-fish East Matagorda Bay. Clear fishable water located on the South Shoreline. Brad strung two trout in one hour. The middle of the bay was choppy and dirty. Lucky for us Friday evening we meet up at the Tournament Sign up desk with the Red Wing Boat Crew (Craig’s Boat Mechanic, more of this later). Friday night at our dinner planning meeting we decided to trailer the boat over to Port O’Connor and fish vs East Matagorda Bay. Saturday we start off by fishing Fish Pond, Craig strings a nice trout early, which turns out to be our only fish in the cooler for the Tournament. We move on and fish a couple more places which held good water, no luck. We decide to focus on finding a Flounder, we try our luck fishing the Matagorda State Park dock area, we strike out. It’s now 1 PM, and the weigh-in cut off is 6 PM. We head over to Pringle Lake and we run the boat up on a sand bar sticking the boat hard in the Pringle channel. An hour later we finally get the boat off the bar. We turn the boat around to exit Pringle and the engine won’t start. We all become left handed engine mechanics. Engine cover is removed; fuel filter is tinkered with, fuel lines checked. An hour later we are still dead in the water blocking the Pringle Channel. A call is made to the Tournament Organizers to connect us with the ETech Boat Mechanic on the Red Wing Boat. The Mechanic trouble shoots in the blind. It is determined that we have done all the right things, but the engine won’t start. Another hour later we finally get the engine started. Brad works/pumps the fuel line primer ball and the engine starts. We’re off to try a few more places looking for the elusive fish. Each time we shut the engine down, it won’t restart. Brad works/pumps the fuel line primer ball and the engine starts. Brad got real good at playing with the primer ball. At our last stop Craig lands a few fish but nothing good enough for the Tournament stringer. We make it back to the Tournament Weigh In exactly at 6 PM. Needless to say we didn’t have a fish that made the Leader Board. Even with the wind pumping in excess of 30 mph, fish were strung.

Tournament Winning fish:

Trout: 8 lbs

Flounder: 2 lbs

Red: 5 lbs

Of note, two Snook were landed and strung at the Matagorda Jetty’s by one of the boats, but the boat didn’t land a trout.

Team PACKRat all got skunked when it came to stringing winning fish. Our luck wasn’t all bad; we did come away with door prizes. What can I say, we all did what we love to do, fish; we grinded out twelve hours of hard core fishing; all got sunburned; and a good time was had by all.

Tight Lines