PFTS #2 "The Old Fashioned"

[Heywood]

Saturday, October 31st
We had 45 anglers show up today to fish the waters of Ft Desoto and South St Petersburg. Called “The Old Fashioned� this was the second event of the Paddle-Fishing.com Tournament Series 2009-2010. The format allowed the anglers to bring whatever artificial lures they would like to fish with, with the exception of no scented lures such as Gulps.
I started out fishing a nice shallow flat just off Pinellas Point. We had a good incoming tide and once I got on the flat I noticed tons of activity. I hit some docks early in hopes of picking up my snook first, in these Catch, Photo and Release tournaments, it seems that the snook are the deal maker. Having no luck on the docks I moved out to the flat and soon enough I had a nice 24 inch snook on. Good way to start the morning off. A little bit later I caught a small 16 inch redfish and I thought to myself that things weren’t going as planned. I picked this area to fish based on the bigger redfish moving in. I won another event at this same location earlier in the year, so I was pretty confident that the bigger fish would show up. Well, they never did. I did pick up another 25 1/2 inch redfish later, but still not what I was hoping for. So I committed the cardinal sin, “Never leave fish to find fish�. Needing a sea trout to complete my slam, I took off to another area that had some deeper potholes in search of the trout. Well, I had no luck at all. I only had one trout follow my spoon, but it wouldn’t take it. With little time left in the fishing day, I returned back to where I had started the day, but things had slowed down and I couldn’t find my trout. Off to our version of a weigh-in, we call it the “Pic and Sip�. The day’s pictures are reviewed over some nice adult beverages.

There were no slams caught and in total only 4 redfish and 9 snook were caught by 45 anglers using whatever lure they wanted to. The top three slam winners took home cash and their choice of a Wang Anchor, a print from Finatic Designs or a Polar Bear Cooler.

First Place-Bill Howard (Heywood) of Team Malibu with a snook/redfish combo of 45.5". He took home the Polar Bear Cooler and $225.00.

Second Place-SilverK (No one knows or can pronounce his name, so we call him Doom) with a snook/trout combo of 44.5". He took home the print from Finatic Designs and $135.00.

Third Place-Nick Coumea with a snook/trout combo of 42.5". He took home a Wang Anchor and $90.00.

We had 6 division winners. They had their choice of gift certificates from-
Bill Jacksons
Masthead Enterprises
Canoe Country
Hook1
Holy Mackerel Tackle
Bluewater Fishing Supply
Dogfish Tackle

Trout
First place-RayH with a 24.5" trout.
Second Place-MikeB with a 23.5" trout.

Snook
First Place-Vlap with a 24.5" snook.
Second Place-Seeinred with a 22.5" snook.

Redfish
First Place-Josh (Part of Paul's Posse) with a 28" red.
Second Place-Blindmullet with a 22" red.


It was a tough day for sure, great conditions but just one of those days. This was my third win in a row, so I’m looking forward to the next PFTS in December.