Rachel and I signed up for the 102.5 Bone Fishing Slam this week in hopes of just enjoying our first fishing tournament together and having fun. Fishing in the same Tarpon120 we were against a huge crowd of 308 power boats. We didn’t expect much, but came up with a game plan and followed it. The tournament started at 12:01AM June 15th and we hit the water right on time. We paddled across to our target point and within an hour had our first fish on the line. To our surprise it was a tarpon! A first for both of us, we went on an hour later to land yet another one securing a limit of tarpon within the first two hours.
After a quick nap, we hit the water at daylight. We went back into the mangroves to a small spot in hopes of a gator trout, but had no luck other than a small mangrove which was much needed for our limit. So without our trout we hit the flat and within 45 mins we filtered through half a dozen trout to get a nice two fish limit of upper slot fish. With time running out Rachel said she wanted to hit her favorite spot on the way back to the truck. It paid off with our 6th fish! We arrived early to the weigh in just to sit and watch boat after boat come up short. With 269.81 points we held on the win by just 5 points! It was nice surprise pay day of $1500 dollars, custom rod from Bull Bay Rods, a necklace, and a nice set of plaques. It turned out to be a great day, winning the first tournament with Rachel and getting our first tarpon each!
Tight lines,
Ben Adrien
