Coastline Marine Galveston Trophy Trout Powerboat Tournament

Tournament Location      :   
Galveston, Texas
Angler Participation        :
Vincent S. Rinando Jr., Clint Barghi
Date                                        :   
February 6, 2010
Conditions                           :   
Temp 40'  Moderate Winds very low tides
Tournament Results        :
 
    Clint and I entered Capt Brent Juarez's trophy trout tourney sat. Conditions were horrible...cold front blew in Friday nite with NW winds around 15 that really tore the bay up in areas. Not to mention took about 3' of water with it. Hard to game plan when we had flood tides Fri and super low tides sat.   We had to abandon our game plan and make a new one at 4am.   We decided to fish the open bay as many of the coves were almost dry.   That put us out in the fray with the powerboats, yaks, and waders.   Tide was super low at 4am and still pouring out.   Tide too strong to fish 5am-7am was a bust.   We finally found a couple fish in one area.   When the bite died instead of staying put we paddled against the wind north to make a long drift. Good timing as the wind and tide switched and our paddle back to the truck was rough.   We got our head right, ate a snack, and reloaded.   We launched and paddled back into the marsh to a boat channel that has been holding fish, but there were only dinks so we paddled back out into the open bay to our original spot.   Remember we drove to spot #2, but didn't have enough time to relaunch so we paddle to it.  Oh into the wind and tide.   This gave us 45mins and we picked up an upgrade for our 3rd trout.   All in all we did great, but we could have won if I had followed my own advice.   Winter time, when you find fish stay put.   They are there for a reason. T  hey will come back.   All that moving and paddling cost us 1st place.   We lost some nice fish at the yak, a couple that would have definitely put us over the top.   We weighed in 3 live 23" trout that weighed 12.80lbs. T  hey were nice and fat and outweighed the east bay trout that were brought to the table.   Those 23" trout outweighed 24-25" trout from east bay.   A bit disappointed we couldn't fish the fish we've been on lately.   I really wanted to weigh those fish in at a tourney.   But the weather wouldn't cooperate.   We got bumped from 1st place by less than a pound and took 2nd place.  Not bad for our first powerboat pro trout tourney.  We were the only kayakers entered and the only kayakers that I know of that has placed in professional trout tournament from a kayak.  This was a live weigh in tournament with three trout, only one of which
could be over 25 inches long.   All three of our fish came to the weigh in alive, proving once again that kayakers can keep fish alive.  This series is made up of mainly professional guides in the Galveston Bay complex and the competition
is fierce.