TEAM CASTAWAY

Team Castaway has been a major player on the tournament scene in Texas since 2005.  We've never had the opportunity to get outside of Texas until this year.  With visions of hungry, fat Redfish, in the ponds and marsh of Louisiana, we headed out with a full truck of clothes, rods, tackle, gear, and boat in tow on Easter Sunday.  All the way up on the drive Jason and I discussed many times over how much fun we were looking at and talk of how confused we were probably going to be.  We were not far from the truth, that's for sure.

We started out first thing Monday morning with the sun fully up so that we were sure to see just where we were going and how we could avoid from losing a lower unit in the dreaded marsh.  With areal maps in tow, we headed out to find out that everything, I mean everything, looks the same and it all looked good to us.  So where do we start?

We started out fishing in lakes, ponds, and marsh that was nearest to us.  We fished for nearly 6 hours without a bite or even seeing a fish.  We began moving around all over the place when we started finding a few fish that were near deep water inlets/outlets.  This was at around 2:00 PM that afternoon.  We were yet to catch anything, but we were honing in on them for sure.  After taking what we were seeing, we went back to the map and started targeting areas with deep water access not far away.  Guess what we found..... Redfish and lots of them.  We also ended up finding some Black Bass along with them!  How crazy is that we thought!  Not only did we catch a few, we ended up catching a total of 23 Black Bass during the entire week.  Who said Bass won't eat a spoon?

Well, we rolled through the week hammering fish on Copper Spoons.  Everyone told us you have to throw popping corks, if you don't throw those, you better throw swim baits.  Well, with the grass the way it was and the water so perfectly clear you'd think you were in South Texas or Florida, why not a weedless spoon?  They worked and worked flawlessly all week long.  Take a look at some of the pictures of the studs we caught while pre-fishing all week.  99% of these fish were seen and sight casted to.  These fish attack a lure like it might eat their little sister!  I mean, some wrist breaking strikes and runs. 

Over the week we were averaging 30-40 fish per day.  We really got honed into what, when, and where they liked to be.  The problem that we were finding, like many of the other teams were that the fish were extremely fat at 27-1/2" long or more.  We were catching fish that were 27-1/2" long that would weigh 8-1/2" lbs!  These fish were thick.  The same went if they were even longer.  I personally caught two fish that were by Texas regulations and were total PIGS, weighing in at over 10 lbs a piece.  The problem was that the fish that were in the Louisiana slot limit were skinny at 25" - 27".  These fish for the most part barely reach 6-1/2" lbs. with a few making the 7 lb mark.  Solid fish, but they were not going to win any tournament for us, that was for sure.  We were there to win it, so we kept on trying and moving to new areas.

On the final day of practice, Jason took my boat and and went a spot a long distance from where were fishing all week long.  I went out in another boat with Captain Kevin Shaw to validify what we'd been seeing all week long.  He too was having the same issues that we were having with the weights of the fish.  Kevin and continued to catch fish as we did all week long, but we had the same results with getting 13-14 lbs.  Jason called us around 12:00 and had not caught a fish at that time.  He was going to continue on for a few more hours and would call back if anything changed.  Well it did, Jason called back about an hour later to tell us he had located the fish we were looking for and that he quickly had 15-1/2 lbs and good easily get more. 

That night we made the call to pass up hitting our ponds and ensuring at least a 13 lb weigh in to go for broke or as many call it "Hero or Zero!".  We headed out that morning straight for a spot we only had a few hours to practice on.  After many, many windy turns and some near misses with a few Alligators, we made it to the spot.  Immediately when we pulled up Jason said, "My spots open, hurry up there before someone gets on them!"  Well, we pulled up and the very first cast Jason makes, he's hooked up.  I follow in right behind him with a cast and hook up.  My fish comes off and Jason get's his in.  He's waaaaaayyyyy to big at nearly 36" long.  As Jason is handling his over sized fish, I hook up again.  This time I get my fish to the boat and it too is over sized.  This would be the story for the next 30 minutes.  It was one fish after the other, only to find nothing in our livewell.  Everything was 28" - 36" in length.  As quickly as it started, it ended as well.  We trolled up and down the area trying to find the group of fish Jason found just the day before.  I hook up on what would be a very small slot fish, weighing maybe 3 lbs if we were lucky, but hey, it's a fish in the livewell.

As we are trolling around I get another bite, the fish is right near the boat when he bites and begins to shake his head as would any Redfish.  There was never a doubt in my mind that I had a Redfish on.  After about 2 minutes of fighting, what I thought was a Redfish decided he wanted to take me home and took off for Texas!  I couldn't stop him even if I tried.  Jason immediately tells me, "You've got a big Jack!  They showed up in here yesterday, a whole damn school of them!"  I'm worried now.  You see, we were throwing Norman Lures, DD22 deep diving crank bait.  We only had two in the white color that was the only color that we could catch them on.  I did not want to thumb the spool and break him off, I wanted my crank bait back.  Jason agreed, so he turned the trolling motor to chase the fish down.  After nearly 20 minutes of fighting the fish, we get him in the net.  Wow!  This Jack weighed over 40 lbs!  If you've ever caught a Jack that goes half his size you've got a series long battle on your hands.  Take a look at this monster!  Notice that my nostrils are flared out!  I'm out of breath and about to pass out!  Yet, I got my crank bait back and that would prove to have been a good move later that day.

After the battle with the big Jack, it would be the last fish that we caught for hours!  The tide stopped moving and the fish just quit.  We almost left to hit the marsh and get some fish, but about the time that we talked about it, Jason hooked up.  It would prove to be a bad move to stay.  I ended up finding the sweet spot and had everything going my way.  I was literally putting a clinic on.  The problem was that all of the fish proved to be too large for the slot.  We were running out of time and we didn't have the luxury of fighting fish.  We cranked our drags down on our Daiwa reels as tight as they would go.  We were horsing fish in like it was a speed contest.  Take a look a this 38" Redfish that I put in the boat in less than 20 seconds!  Of course, he nearly broke every rod in the boat when he got once he was on board.  You could say he was "a little green"! LOL!

With very little time to get back in time to put our one fish on the scales, we headed in.  We made the mistake of not accounting for two no wake zones and it cost us dearly.  We showed up at the weigh in 6 minutes late.  With a 1/2 lb deduction per minute penalty looming over us and a 3 lb fish in livewell, we elected to not weigh in as a "0" is a "0".  We were wrong.  That decision cost us 20 points from the last place team.  Weighing in would have gotten us another 20 points, which probably will be the difference in us getting back to the top of the field for the Team of the Year.  A very costly decision on our part.  The bottom line is that we had an ubelievable time during our stay.  We would like to thank Captain Freddy Dietz for allowing us to stay at his lodge for the week.  We had awesome ammenaties and the rooms were cold at night.  If you ever go to Delacroix, LA to fish, I highly recommend staying with him and booking him to charter you while you are there.

Now, it's on to Freeport, TX for our next stop where we will be looking to redeem ourselves at this weigh in.  Anyone who makes it to the event on May 1st, be sure and look for us.  We'd love nothing more than to talk about fishing.