IFA Kayak Tour Championship
Orange Beach, AL
November 12-13, 2010
 
Tournament Location      :   
Orange Beach, Alabama
Angler Participation        :
Vincent S. Rinando Jr., Captain Filip Spencer,  Clint Barghi
Date                                        :   
November 12-13, 2010
Conditions                           :   
Temp 45-75'  Calm and Sunny
Tournament Results  
Team Ocean Kayak's Clint Barghi placed 9rd, Captain Filip Spencer 11th, Vincent Rinando 14th
 
First of all we would like to thank Jerry, Mike and all the people at the IFA for a great tournament series, we had a blast at all of them.
Frustrated at a few, humbled at a couple, and wore out at the end of all of them, you guys and gals always made us feel welcome and appreciated, you are
first class group of people.
When we first started thinking about maybe traveling to this event, we were a bit overwhelmed with all the details. Both Clint and I have young
toddlers at home, and Filip just retired from the city and started a new job recently, my recent wreck that took out my kayak trailer and 2 of my
kayaks, we didn't think we'd get it all together in time. So we put out some feelers, first to respond was Fairhope Boat Company in Fairhope, Alabama.
The wonderful people there offered to provide us with loaner kayaks to use in the tournament if we couldn't travel with kayaks. As it turned out Clint
was able to schedule some business in New Orleans and load the kayaks, gear, and clothes in his truck and take them with him to New Orleans. Filip drove
to Houston and he and I flew from Houston to New Orleans and jumped into the truck with Clint for the 2.5hr drive to Mobile. Orange Beach is about 1 hr
drive south of mobile (abt 37 mi). The drive was awesome, the New Orleans marsh, a quick pass through Mississippi (if you blink you miss it, guess that
where the name comes from), and you're in Sweet Home Alabama. Marshes, Rivers, and estuaries most of the way.
We hit Mobile about 2pm, check in the Hotel, drop some gear and we're on the water by 3pm. We paddled a nice sand flat with hydrilla beds and
bayous. With limited time we pushed a few wakes, chased some fish, and found loads of adult carp. Mainly silver carp I think with a few gaspergoooos
mixed in. It took a little while to adjust to identifying these fish, but they had a distinct darker silver ring around their fin edges. shaded a little
like a channel cat with a forked tail like a mullet. The gaspergoo just look like a drum and more pale. Carp fry were everywhere, along with tons of
bass fry. Clint busted two nice reds on a popping cork that were crashing fry, tides were about as low as they were going to get for the day, so it
didn't seem like too bad of an area for a morning look.
Thursday, our only real prefish day, was about eliminating areas. We still hadn't looked for trout, and our redfish were still iffy. So we head
to the trout spot, and catch tons of trout. Tide was hauling out and the bite was aggressive. We all caught nice trout and decided to leave around 8am
to look for reds at another spot. This place was beautiful, trees in fall colors all along the banks. Clear water, tasted like Ozarka. Couldn't
believe we were a mere 5mi. from where we were catching trout, reds, and flounder and all this water was interconnected and fed with Mobile Bay.
It was too pretty of a place to investigate, a little fresh water never scared a redfish. We spotted, and site cast to several Florida bass and saw
carp that were bigger than me in a main lake. We had spotted a nice lake on the map that looked like the spot we wanted to check out, so Clint and I
paddled past a couple gators and back into this lake. It had the perfect depth, but it was full of baby bass and carp fry. The adults were rafting over
the tops of tons of fry just on the edge of the hydrilla beds. I was standing in my Vector drifting over the top of them thinking to myself, aren't
these the carp they show in a panic jumping all over the place knocking people out of their boats etc..haha wouldn't that be just my luck, gar, carp
what's the diff they all hate me anyways..I didn't make any casts and they moved out of my way. We did find some reds back there, I cast at one I know
was 35" and another couple that were in the mid slot range. But nothing that made me want to come back. As we get back to the launch some guys launch
their powerboat, start the engine, drive about 50 ft. and throw out minnows on a bobber and start catching crappie...dang wish I had know that I would
have caught one for the camera. One thing that was odd, I saw TONS of STINGRAYS. In the rivers, in the bays, on the flats, in the hydrilla, in the
sand, EVERYWHERE. Every time I stood up I could look somewhere and find one. Don't wade unless you have to that's for sure. Even in that fresh water
there were a ton of them. Back to the hotel and off to the captain's meeting, we didn't feel all that great. It's hard with one vehicle to cover an area
in one day, oh well the clock was ticking when we landed and it wasn't slowing down. we decided to go to the area we found trout, then relaunch where
Clint caught a couple reds the day before. The trout bite again was aggressive, but smaller. I think we all had keeper trout within a couple casts each.
About 8:45am we decide we need to load by 9am and look for redfish, our drop dead time. Don't you know that's when I get a big hit. I thought it was a
big flounder, Clint had caught a 4lber and a couple others, but when I got it up in the water column it was a nice trout, not huge, but 25" or so. One
thing about the trout we were fishing, they were THICK and TALL. I had caught a 17" that I know weighed close to 3lbs earlier and this fish looked like
it was pushing 6lbs. I pulled it around the bow and down current for the net and as I skied it towards the net it unbuttoned, sat there briefly as I
clambered onto the boat of my kayak I got her head and just past her gills in the net as her weight and the fast current pulled her from my greedy grasp
and returned her where she came. I think I screamed a profanity about as loud as I've ever yelled it....haha that was hard to shake. It was time to go
and all I had was a 16" trout. We pounded the water, but the reds were no where to be found. We were scheduled off the water at 1pm and about 11:45pm
just as the tide had pulled out as much as it was going to a North wind was lightly blowing the remaining tide out of this bayou on the flat and the
fry started moving out in schools. That's when the reds decided to make their move. You would see one jump over a hydrilla patch to bomb on top of the
fry. Usually you had about a basketball sized hole to try and land a lure into and hope it was waiting there. Clint quickly bagged two 23" reds, one on
a pinpoint cast into a tiny hole with a spinner bait and let it helicopter down. I had a shot at a couple made some good casts, but didn't have the
same luck. The wind switched to the south and stopped any remaining tide and the bite ended, time to leave anyways.
Fil and I only having one fish, we knew we were out of it. Hoping Clint could hang close, and rebound in day 2 we went to the weigh in.
The venue was beautiful. Just over a pass bridge, on an inlet from the Gulf, awesome. Orange Beach in a pretty place, white coral sand beaches,
beautiful blue water. Well that beautiful water and nice weather was a complete death sentence for those that didn't absolutely crush them.
Man I wish it had been 30 degrees and 25mph winds and rain. I think our spots would have been competitive, they were more winter spots. But the
weather was awesome 75 highs sunny and calm with a little wind changes at times. But that set off the fish. The guys fishing the southern areas killed
them. We kind of chose our spots based on the year's results, area tournaments, weather, size, average slams etc. I guess what we never figured on was
the surf. I could have sworn in Texas we were told that you couldn't fish the surf. Maybe I was thinking of the boat division, you know IFA Inshore
Fishing, etc...I don't know but it was a brain cramp none the less...but weather permitting I think I know where I'm getting some of my fish next year..
After seeing the results of day one 63.25" in 1st, 57.25 in 2nd, 51.75 in 3rd, and 49.50 in 4th, that was one of the funniest rides home after a
tournament that I've ever had. I don't think any of our math was good enough to figure out how many inches we were behind. Heck I don't even know if
Fil can count that high..haha...but we were looking at each other saying things like, man I'm like 40 something inches behind with two fish...I've got to
average a 50" trout and redfish tomorrow to have a chance. One of the funniest is Clint saying, "Hey it's not like I'm in 15th place"..>>Hey WTF...I'm
in 15th..what are you trying to say?..haha...
But we made a vow, we were going to fish this thing out. We didn't care how many inches we were behind. We were going to grind out our trout
spot and try and locate some better redfish in the same area. I kept telling people, every day we're here we learn something new that we can use. One of
the things we had learned is don't throw a pearl gulp at a redfish, scares the crap out of them. In our area anyways it was way too bright for anything
they were feeding on. I had thrown a top water on and off in our area for 2 days and hadn't got a sniff of a blow up. Most of what we were fishing were
river channels and deep drop offs. But one thing we had learned is that most of the saltwater bait had left, but there was still tons of freshwater bait
around, and when you used a bait with green in it to imitate a bass, you got bit. Day one was really normal, but by day two the bite had changed and
they wouldn't touch shrimp, red, black, roach, etc....they wanted green. Chicken on a Chain.....haha good thing we have a bait for that
We all busted trout early, but like the day before the size wasn't there. I bit worried about our reds we went looking for them. Clint finally
located some schooling up on a sand flat that up until Saturday's higher tides was too shallow to drag the kayaks across. He got his redfish and I
started looking for mine when I noticed a pelican flying into the area. So I decided to stop fishing and watch it fly across to see what it spooks, when
I see what I thought was a small school push off ahead of it and disappear. I turned and paddled as quickly as I could into the area and bombed my
top water as far as I could. I got it about 1/2 back when I heard the sweet sound of what sounded like a small trout pop. Look up and don't see the
top water. This was by far the heaviest slot redfish (Texas slot) I've ever caught. I've caught some hogs in the 9+ easily bigger. Tall shoulders and
looked like it had a softball in it's belly. I looked like a rook, as this fish drug me 20yds..spun me around 360, double back on my rudder and slack
lined me, and pulled just after I netted her. Man was I happy, finally that's about as good as I'm going to do in the area. SO we decided to paddle
back to the trout and tell Fil what we saw.
As we get up to Fil I see him do this little leprechaun jump thingy in the water. I look at Clint, Is he spassing out? We ask him
"You got your red"....Yep but I'm going to need help with the picture. I walk along side his yak and look at his fish. 38" freaking inches. Are
you kidding me. How the heck did you land that fish on 10lb XL mono. Fil said it hit the chicken on a chain on his 3 piece TFO travel spin rod...haha
Only Fil could haul a 38" bull red about 45 mi. from the gulf. We all had a good laugh...pounded out the trout but could never find a better trout bite
in size. Fil rallied and had the 3rd best slam of the tournament with 55.25" and awesome slam and the 2nd biggest of the day, which was a constant
source of a laugh for the rest of the time we were there. All Fil kept saying is "Man, 55.25 inches and I still got beat by like 13 inches" Again funny
cause he only got beat by like 6.5" my sides hurt by the time we got to the hotel.
We all manned up and rallied. Fil got his big slam, Clint caught a 4 fish slam both days (red, trout, flounder, bass), and I at least caught
a 28" red and a respectable 44.5" slam and we didn't quit.
 
 
 

2010 Championship Orange Beach, Al. Event
November 13th, 2010 Final Results
 
Place #   Angler LN Angler FN Red-Lgth Tr-Lth Score # Fish Slam
Total		     Red-Lgth Tr-Lgth Score # Fish 2nd Total 2day Total
1   Phillips Kelly 40.75 22.50 63.25 2 63.25     43.00 18.75 61.75 2 61.75 125.00
2   Callaghan Jason 23.00 28.75 51.75 2 51.75     23.75 27.00 50.75 2 50.75 102.50
3   Walker Timothy 40.25 17.00 57.25 2 57.25     26.25 17.38 43.63 2 43.63 100.88
4   Chapman John 24.50 25.00 49.50 2 49.5     25.25 20.25 45.50 2 45.50 95.00
5   Callaghan Liam 23.00 20.50 43.50 2 43.5     24.88 21.25 46.13 2 46.13 89.63
6   Parrott Benton 23.75 21.00 44.75 2 44.75     22.88 20.50 43.38 2 43.38 88.13
7   Bayard Brendan 22.50 15.38 37.88 2 37.875     23.00 21.75 44.75 2 44.75 82.63
8   Suber Jeff 18.25 15.75 34.00 2 34     27.50 20.75 48.25 2 48.25 82.25
9   Barghi Clint 23.50 15.50 39.00 2 39     23.75 19.00 42.75 2 42.75 81.75
10   Beltz Blake 18.13 18.00 36.13 2 36.125     23.50 19.00 42.50 2 42.50 78.63
11   Spencer Fil 0.00 17.75 17.75 1 17.75     38.00 17.25 55.25 2 55.25 73.00
12   Williamson Gairi 0.00 26.75 26.75 1 26.75     22.38 15.75 38.13 2 38.13 64.88
13   Holmes Chris 0.00 16.25 16.25 1 16.25     24.00 24.25 48.25 2 48.25 64.50
14   Rinando Vincent 0.00 16.00 16.00 1 16     28.00 16.50 44.50 2 44.50 60.50
15   Lee John 0.00 15.25 15.25 1 15.25     16.00 15.00 31.00 2 31.00 46.25
16   Lobb Wayne 0.00 18.00 18.00 1 18     0.00 20.25 20.25 1 20.25 38.25
17   MacNaughton Josh 0.00 18.50 18.50 1 18.5     0.00 18.50 18.50 1 18.50 37.00
18   Walker Norman 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     22.50 0.00 22.50 1 22.50 22.50
19   Gonsoulin Valerie 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 19.50 19.50 1 19.50 19.50
20   Jones Barrett 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     19.00 0.00 19.00 1 19.00 19.00
21   Inge Scott 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 19.00 19.00 1 19.00 19.00
22   Broach Jason 0.00 18.50 18.50 1 18.5     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 18.50
23   Neece Steve 0.00 14.00 14.00 1 14     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 14.00
24   Eady Mike 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00
25   Bulger, Jr. Thomas 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00
26   Lewis Chris 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00
27   Poole Earl 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0     0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00