Good fortune placed us in Grand Isle, Louisiana for the IFA tournament early giving us 8 days to prefish. The extra time proved to be essential in finding a good school of fish for tournamrnt day. The weather was odd, to say the least, for the majority of the week. A rare August cold front brought cooler temperatures, strong westerly winds, and frequent severe thunderstorms. But, despite the weather, redfish were found and caught in most locations.
Water covered during prefishing extended east to the Empire area and all the way to Golden Meadow to the west. During prefishing when the sun broke and gave the opportunity, sight fishing was at a premium. Large schools of fish to the west around Leeville and Golden Meadow were found, but not the right size for tournament day. One school of fish found back to the east had some nice sized reds with the potential to produce some 8 pounders. So, the decision was made to go for broke and head east in hopes of a larger bag.
Tournament day: Temp - 87 degrees, mostly cloudy, 70% chance of rain and thunderstorms. High tide - 9:30 Am, Low tide - 7:00 pm
The takeoff and 55 mile run to our spot was uneventful. Arriving at our canal and ponds we found the water high and moderatly dirty, which we expected. There was still a little current from an incoming tide which immediatly got our spirits up. After 45 min. of pounding the grass we finally saw a fish waking in the back of an isolated pocket. We presented a spinnerbait in front of him and he hammered it! First fish in the boat 7 1/2 pounder! After putting the first fish in the boat the incoming tide was slacking and we did not produce another fish for about 3 hours. The decision to sit tight and wait for water movement paid off. From 12:00 to 2:00 we boated about 10 to 12 fish (all good fish). We culled to our best two with a total weight of 14.49 # giving us a respectable 16th place finish. http://www.redfishtour.com/tournaments/grandisle08.html
To make this trip even more memorable, we were fortunate to have our wives and some of our kids down the entire week of prefishing and on tournament day. With Crystal even putting in some time helping us with scouting. Ramsay and I can not express how nice it was to have our families there supporting what we do. My son Ben and stepson Alec could not make the trip due to the start of the school year, but I am sure they will not miss the next one.
Gear and Tackle: All fish were caught on spinners with cocahoe trailers (black and chartreuse), shimano calcutta 100B casting reels, shimano stradic spinning reels, G-loomis GLX and G-3 rods, 8/30 power pro line, costa del mar 580 sunglasses, and ranger 183 Ghost with 150 Yamaha 4 stroke.
Thank you to our sponsors: Frontline plus, Chickenware.com, Shimano, Costa del Mar, and G-loomis.