Fishing The AMI Kids Tournament

 Team, Uno Mas, funded by Drillformance, made up of myself, my son, Michael Middleton and his wife, Jeanette competed in the annual AMI Kids Fishing Tournament on Saturday, April 23. We prefished on Friday and were worried about Saturday. We were on the water by 6:30 and had decided to wade an area that has produced an almost uncountable number of good trout. Winds were forcast at 15-20, with gusts up to 26. I think the minute we hit our bar, the winds were at 20 and it never let up. We managed to pull a one man limit of small 15 plus inchers from two different spots. We were in by noon.
I had decided on another game plan for Saturday.

We hit the water at 6:00 and headed for the old causeway flats. This has always produced some exceptional reds and trout. We were met with lighter winds and clear water. We all started with topwaters, but after about thirty minutes of nothing, decided to change our offerings. I had instructed Janette to toss a gold spoon. She anchored herself in one spot and quickly hooked up. It was an undersized red. I connected on plastic and also landed a 19" red. Janette hollered and I turned to see her rod bent and stripping line. The good red run lasted for about a minute and the spoon came out.
Two more times as I waded away I heard her holler and two more times saw her rod bending. She managed another lost red and an undersized one.
We decided to go and try for a flounder, as we had entered the calcutta in only the flounder division. Michael is a good flounder fisherman. We spent about 30 minutes in an area that has produced in the past.No luck.
We moved on to Mexiquito flats and made several drifts without a single hit.
Game plan change again. It was now pushing 10 and we did not have a single fish in the box.
I headed north toward the drumboat. We stopped on the East sand holes and managed a few undersized trout. Moved to the gaswell flats, where there were 15 plus boats drifting. We joined them and in the next hour did manage four 16 inchers. From there we headed to the drumboat flats and drifted for another hour hoping to find a lost redfish. They were indeed lost!
At around 2:30, I was really frustrated and decided to go back to the area we had fished on Friday. I had a hunch that just maybe the water was in better shape than we had left it the day before. As we made the five mile run across very ugly water, I began to see a hint of blue on the horizon. As we got closer, we were welcomed by beautiful green waters being pulled in by a strong tide. Quickly into the water, it did not take long to connect. Normally I like to wade in chest deep water, as I feel the bigger school trout are in deeper water. Today I was in shoulder deep water and connecting on almost every cast. Michael had moved down the bar and was also connecting. Janette tried hard to wade out to where I was, but being a little shorter ran into difficulty. But she did manage to hook and land a couple.
The weight in was at 4pm, but we had no fish that would compete, so we just kept on fishing.
At about 4:15 we reeled it in. Between the three of us we had a stringer of fifteen solid trout that ranged from 19" to 23". All were taken on plastics.
We didn't win any prizes, but we supported a great cause in AMI and managed to secure another one of those memories for our data bank.
Thanks Michael, Janette, and Drillformance.