Tide: -0.19ft low at 1:30am, 1.8ft high at 5pm
Today was the IFA Kayak Tournament (sponsored by Hobie) out of Punta Gorda, FL. The tournament called for most combined inches of one trout and one redfish. There was a pretty good turnout of around 30 anglers with the majority of them from the Tampa Bay to Fort Myers area. Tim, Kyle, and I opted to fish on Sanibel which is about a 2 hour drive from the weigh-in site in Port Charlotte. Since we were on a bunch of fish last monday we thought it would be worth it to make the long drive and take the risk of shortening our fishing time. There was a strong northeast wind that was blowing all night so by the time we arrived to the flat at 7:30am the forecasted 0.5ft tide turned out to be more like a -1.0ft. Basically the flat was only a couple inches deep and since the wind was still blowing all morning it never came in til noon. We struggled to find fish all morning although I did get a nice 24" trout off a deep shoreline. With time running out, the water started to rise so we pedaled back to the flat knowing that we were cutting it close. We drifted the flat and I saw ONE redfish..but he saw me first and spooked. We hurried back to the truck, loaded up, and left the parking lot at 1:31pm. Weigh-in was at 3pm, we arrived at 3:15pm. When we pulled in they were announcing the winners..largest trout was 21.5" ($200, dang it!) and my buddy Josh won the grand prize (Hobie Pro Angler) with 46.5". Apparently a lot of people had trouble locating the fish today, perhaps from the past two 40 degree nights. In any case it was still a fun tournament and I am looking forward to the next IFA Tournament in May up in Sarasota.
