This past weekend I attended my third AFWC held in Delacroix, Louisiana. This year I was teamed up with Casey Brunning once again. Both of us looking for a repeat of last year. I left Sarasota Thursday morning and started my 11hr drive to Louisiana. This was the furthest I have ever driven to compete in a tournament. After a long day, I arrived at Casey’s home where I was greeted with some cold beer and platter of Cajun Crawfish. I had been wanting to try crawfish a long time and they did not disappoint.

The next morning we woke early and drove another 1 1/2 to Delacroix. We met up with the AFWC film crew and made our way to the marsh. Before launching I had to stop and take it all in. It was beautiful.   This was a different fishery than I was used to. Looked like I was going to be fishing a swamp. This was my first time fishing with a film crew. It puts a bit more pressure on you. It didn’t take long for us to start catching fish. The water was very low and the Redfish made it very easy for us to find them. I missed a dozen fish the first 30 min. They were rolling over and smashing my top water plug but just couldn’t get one stuck. At one point I actually looked at my hooks to make sure they were not made of rubber. I decided to move on and scout another area. I couldn’t see Casey or the film crew in sight. I picked up my cell phone and stood up in my kayak to get a view over the grass. I started to pole my way in their direction when I was greeted by a nice large tail waving at me. I took a second and thought , should I take photos or catch this fish? This was a beautiful sight. I looked around for the camera crew but they were a bit to far away and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity so I took the shot. My Spook Jr just landed just past the fish and as I got closer I saw the fish turn and at that moment I knew what was about to happen next. The fish blew up on the plug and it was on! I was standing up in my Jackson Kraken fighting my first Louisiana Redfish. My first thought was, where is the film crew when you need them? They did make it over to me just as I was landing the fish. The fish was a donkey! About 29-30″.  A great fish to start with.

The fishing was good. I posted up on a point with the camera man for about and hour  where we watched at least 50 fish swim by. Had a few follows and blow ups but couldn’t stick one. After a while they shut down. We moved over roughly 100 yards and noticed a good push coming our way. My first cast was no good. Wind caught it. Second cast was on the money. The fish blew up on a Bass Assassin jerk bait. I’m hoping the camera was rolling for this catch. Another big Redfish.

  The winds started to pick up and we decided to head in after this. On the way back we caught a few reds in the 20-25″ range.

Casey was having a good day as well.

Tournament Day 

It was a typical tournament day. Weather was horrible and the winds were blowing 25+ mph. We opened our map and made our way to the first check point. We avoided the mad rush to the ramp where most people were launching from. We portaged down the road and we were the first team to check in. We received our token and headed out to fish. The wind had blown out the water. Much less water than the previous day. I remember paddling through the mud into a strong wind as it started to rain. I thought to myself,yep just another tournament day. Casey caught the first fish and we headed back to the checkpoint. It was a good fish at 27 1/4″. This was a double point checkpoint. We were sitting good at 54 1/2″ and on our way to the next checkpoint.

The day never got any better for us after the 1st checkpoint. We made a couple decisions as a team that didn’t work out. We hit 4 checkpoints and turned in 3 fish. Our second fish jumped out of the kayak before he got his photo taken and it took 3 hrs to replace it. Must have been photo shy.The fish we replaced it with was very small. a 12″ bass. Our 3rd fish was a decent 17″ Trout. We ended up with 84″. Which was no where close to being in the top ten. We landed in the 20th spot for the day.

Many good fish were caught in tough conditions. Congratulations to all who placed in the top 10. Will be looking forward to next years event.

Great day with family & friends

A little late getting to this post but better late than never. Gonna make it short a sweet. My buddy James and I drove down to Everglades National Park to attend the 2015 Boondoggle. We arrived at the Flamingo campground midday. The weather was a bit chilly but we launched just after lunch time. The fishing was extremely slow for us so we moved several times. Trying some new locations. The wind and weather just continued to work against us. We decided to wrap it up early sand head back to camp.

After a rough night (aka having a few to many) we woke up ,broke down camp and decided to do some Peacock Bass fishing in South Miami. We launched late morning into the small canal system that runs through the Kendall area. I didn’t take long before we were catching fish. Using rattle traps and paddle tails we caught some decent fish. If you have never done a south Miami Peacock Bass trip you are missing out. The canal system is full of different species. Many exotics live in these waters. And the Iguanas will keep you entertained all day.

Great day on the water fishing with a JK team member Mark Radcliffe. Mark was in the Sarasota area visiting from the UK. We launched on the east side of Sarasota Bay to try to hide from the hurricane force winds. Great plan but didnt work. The winds were terrible. We fished the flats for a couple hrs catching a couple Flounder,1Redfish,1Trout and Mark was on a solid lizard bite :p.  We switched gears and headed up into creek to escape the wind and target some Snook. It didnt take long for Mark to catch his first Snook. Wasn’t huge but still a first. He caught a couple more as well as lost some better fish. I lost a monster boat side. Mama snook came out head shaking and tail walking in between our kayaks before spitting my plug. So Mark got to see how much fun they can be.

This past weekend we fished the annual Suncoast Saltwater Shootout benefitting the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association.

The weather was not favorable. And the forcast wasn’t looking any better. After a quick Capt meeting at Marina Jack we were release to fish around 5pm. We were allowed to fish through the night and had to be back at weigh in by 4pm the next day.  We stayed south dodging the heavy rains but our luck eventually ran out. After only catching a few decent Trout and Mangrove Snapper we decided it wasnt worth staying out in the heavy down poor. We called it a night and headed home to regroup for the next morning.

The picture above is what we woke up to the next morning. Believe it or not it was an improvement. It was a bit wet and nasty getting bait first thing in the morning but it cleared just enough to get some fishing in. Again we stayed south and hit one of Porters go to Redfish holes. Porter quickly hooked up with a nice Redfish that would end up being our only Redfish for the day. It was a good fish we estimated to be over 7lbs so it went in the well. We caught small Trout and some decent Snook the rest of the day. We stopped at one last spot for a last ditch effort which produced a donkey red that came unbuttoned at the boat. It just wasnt our day. Team Certified Hogleg only weighed 1 fish which put us just outside the $. We had a fun day on the water and our $ went to a good cause, so it was all worth it in the end. Congrats to all the winners!

Thanks to Capt Doug Fisher for letting us destroy his boat with stinky bait :p And thank you to all the sponsors that make this event possible. Team Certified Hogleg will return next year!

We also got to meet Capt Tred Barta at this event. I really enjoyed watching his fishing shows.

Doug, James and myself loaded up the kayaks and headed over to the east coast for the Help Emily event.

Once we made it to Titusville Fl we stopped at Kayaks By Bo where the Captain’s meeting was taking place. We checked in and hung out for a while talking with some good people.

After we decided to head to the hotel to get some rest. We stayed at a Days Inn hotel. It was horrible. Dirty would be a understatement. Spiders on the walls and human feces outside our door. Yes you read that correctly. Pretty shady hotel. After a horrible night of sleep sleeping with what sounded like a grizzly bear aka Doug , we woke up just after 4am and headed to the lagoon. This was my first trip to the Mosquito Lagoon. I have fished the east coast many times but never made it to the lagoon. And it lives up to its name. The mosquitoes were out of control.
It wasnt long before we started seeing signs of fish. Our topwaters were getting blown up on at first light. My first fish was a nice Trout caught on a bone spook jr.

This was a great fish to start the day with. I threw the spook for a while after but it just wasn’t happening. It was time to switch it up a bit. We were fishing huge mullet schools that kept getting blown up on but getting our baits noticed was a problem. Doug was the first to throw dead bait into a school and as quick as it hit he water he got ate. So we all switched over to cut bait and whole finger mullett. I had 5 of my 6 fish caught, photographed & released by 9:30am. My first Redfish hit the 30″ mark.

Red #2 at 27″

My second trout ate a whole finger mullett on a jighead. It measured just under 25″

I was able to get my last Redfish at 29.75″ 

I worked hard the rest of the day for that 3rd Trout but just couldn’t get one bigger than 12″ 

In the end I ended up winning first place largest Trout and first place over all total inches.

This was a great event for a great cause. I have fished this event for the 3 years now and plan on doing it again in the future. They were able to raise just under $10,000 to help Emily stay in her school. I hope to see this event grow every year. For more about Emily go to helpemilynow.wix.com
Special thanks to all the sponsors and Kayaks by Bo for hosting the event.

With the recent move into our new home/neiborhood came some new fishing opportunities. The neiborhood has a few parks and golf coarse ponds that seem to be very well stocked with fish. Our first trip to the main pond was a success. We fished from shore catching many large mouth bass. The bass were schooled up about 100 ft off the bank feeding on shad schools. The rattle trap was the go to bait for this. The bass couldnt resist them.

We caught and released many bass this afternoon.

The next day was even better. The bass were stacked up on the shoreline which made it great for site casting. Brought the fly rod out for this. Again we caught many good bass as well as a few Bluegill. This pond is very healthy. Cant wait to slip the kayak in there and really do some work

The evening started off a bit slow. We were fishing the pass on the incoming tide just before dark with live bait. We missed a couple fish with some breakoffs in the dock. Rory started off the evening with his normal trash can slam. While Doug and Rory were concentrating on the rock ledge I decided to throw a good size live mullet into the middle of the pass. After about 15min I heard the drag and watched a huge boil around the mullett. The fish ate the bait and made a very short run before cutting me off clean. Probably a shark but we will never know. We moved out of the pass and into the canals after the sun went down. We fished many lighted docks and we got some decent Snook and 1 Trout. At our kast location for the night we found the meat! They werent huge but they were stacked and eating anything you would throw at them. There were multiple double hookups on fly and spin tackle. Almost had a triple hookup but I screwed that up by getting my leader tangled up on my fly line. O well. It was a great ending to the night. Thanks again to Capt Doug Fisher.

Another good trip on Sarasota bay with the little man. We met up with Capt Doug Fisher with plans to hit the beach for Tarpon. After a rough ride out the pass we made it to the area where we wanted to target these fish. I really wanted my son to experience what the Silver King was all about. But mother nature had other plans. After 2 hrs of sitting in the lane taking waves over the bow we decided to switch gears. We headed back in and stopped at the bait shop just inside the pass. After loading up the livewell with some shrimp we pounded some docks. I had forgotten how much fun it could be just free lining shrimp into the docks. Jacob caught a number of different species and we limited out on Mangrove Snapper. We finished out the day with a traditional after fishing lunch at The New Pass Grill. Special thanks to Capt Doug Fisher for the great morning on the water.

2009 Custom Gheenoe LT. Not original gel coat. has been repainted This gheenoe has the rear Raptor platform set up with stick steer.4 rod holders, side control box with motor controls, tachometer and water gauge. water gauge not working. havent even looked at why not. New top rails and nose cap ,False floor ,New front shark eye nav lights, New Battery ,New bildge pump New shifter cable , New throttle cable ,New Fuel water separator filter includes 5 gallon gas tank with all new fittings, New T-bag with 2 life vests, 1 throw cushion New fire extinguisher 2001 Mercury 40hp 3cyl 2 stroke , power trim & tilt , electric start , new fuel filter , new spark plugs, New Thermostat , new impeller, Perfect Compression, New Bob’s Machine manual Jack plate boat runs high 30’s with a full 75qt cooler and two guys weighing 550lbs combined. solo it will run high 40’s. This is with a 4 blade ss prop at 4800 rpm. Also included is a 3 blade ss vengeance prop. perfect shape. has been rehubbed. This boat jumps up on plane very quick. motor cowling has some scratches on it. 2009 continental trailer New Bunks New leaf springs New wheel bearings with ss bearing buddies Tires have a lot of life left ,I may take a AR 15 or 1911 in trade towards my gheenoe as well. call or text 941-256-5833 $6800