I've been talking for a few years now about fishing this tournament and this year I finally took the plunge. Me and my good friends Matt and Javier(Samsiam and Optimum7) Headed out at 5:30am armed with 2 dozen live Blue Crabs and headed for the Inlet! We headed out extra early to beat the mad dash to ensure a good spot.
We staked up in deep water, 70-80 feet. Our hopes were to find a "Big Birtha" Female on the deeper structure where the water temp is a tad warmer. We went with a four rod spread rigged with hand tied dropper rigs made up of 40 pound mono leader, 4/0 Mustad J-Hooks and 8-10oz bank weights. Our Blue Crabs were halved and the legs were trimmed off using stainless steel poultry sheers to keep the leg joints in tact. I run the point of the hook through a leg joint and back out of a neighboring leg joint. This buries the hook well enough to help ensure a decent shot at getting a solid hook set on a Sheepshead. This also helps to keep the hook hidden, increasing the odds of getting bit.
Once we got situated, we cracked open a few beers and spent some time catching up. It wasn't more than maybe 10 minutes before the first rod got hit. In comes the first fish of the morning, a 25" slot Red. A couple minutes later and I bring up another one just over slot. We do this several more times and every time, we bring up either another Red, Drum, Sea Bass or Oyster Toad. Not what we were after but hey, we'll take it. We got a few obvious Sheepshead takers but just couldn't get a hook in them. 2:30 comes around and Javier decides heck with it, and proceeds to target some Porgy's. In the next 30 or 40 minutes he boats 14 or so and we decide to call it a day.
We headed in to watch the weigh in and enjoy some fried fish and beer. What a great event. The raffles were a blast, the food was excellent and the boat came home slimy. Lots of laughs, jokes and screaming drag.
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Danny Pardue