Blake and I woke at 5am to make the 1hr trip to the launch site. After a short battle with the no see-ums and Mosquitos we launched at first light. Shortly after my blood transfusion Blake hooked up with the first fish of the morning, a big Bluefish) and I shortly followed with a 19.75” Redfish. The morning was looking good. The fishing was slow from that point on. The full moon and the high water didn’t help out at all. To top that off the wind picked up to a min 20mph out of the NE. We both managed to catch many Trout throughout the day on the Spook Jr and the DOA Cal paddle tails. Fishing the Jacksonville area was very strange for me. I am used to flats and mangrove islands. In Jax it was mud, oysters & saw grass. It took some work but I ended up with a nice 24.5” trout which put me in 1st place for largest Trout.
After a tuff day of fishing we headed back to the weigh in. The Irish Water Dogs crew did a great job with this event. The payouts and raffles were unbelievable. They raffled off a Hobie Revo, Wilderness Commander 140, Emotion Grand Slam Angler and an Emotion Spit fire. On top of that there were vacation packages to Costa Rica and Amelia Island. There were many other sponsors for this event as well. This is a must attend event for me next year!
Irish Water Dogs Invitational Overall Champion
Charlie Ganoe
Open Slam Division
1st Roger Bump
2nd Brandon Morrison
Flounder Division
1st Bob Morris
2nd Richard Mumford
3rd Scott Adcock
Trout Division
1st Steve Gibson
2nd Astrid Parker
3rd Frank Gregg
Red Division
1st Larry Wagner
2nd Gary Shankland
3rd Elizabeth “Stuck in the Mud” Saylor
Team Division
won by Team Irish Water Dogs
http://www.irishwaterdogsinvitational.com |
