Big Ugly in Matagorda

Captain Scott Reeh

http://www.assaultthesaltfishing.com/

Kaylin @ IFA / Rockport, TX

Hi Lane and Glynn!

I fished last Sunday (4/18) in the first Texas IFA kayak tournament. The IFA has been around a long time doing boat redfish tournaments but they finally decided to explore the dark side. We had a field of 44 kayakers, not too bad for the first one. The set up was a little different from the boat tournaments in that we needed a red-trout combination and it was a CPR tournament, that is - catch photo release. It was originally supposed to be a port Lavaca tournament but ended up being Rockport.

The weather was typical for a kayak tournament although not as nasty as it can be. It was stormy in the morning, windy, rainy with the wind being indecisive and changing directions a bunch of times. Then it got sunny later, calm, misty at times, sprinkling at times…always something different. I lived in my rain gear the whole time.

The water was murky and I was fishing about 2 feet deep over mud. I tried several different lures including topwaters but the mojo was the ticket with the wind and murk. I put on the mojo with a DOA shrimp and found a little area holding trout. Trout are always the hard one for me in these kinds of tournaments so when I pulled a 21” early I thought I was golden, lol. Unfortunately when I started looking for reds with my mojo and gulp combination, all I could find were undersized.

I ended up weighing in the trout…or photo-ing in anyway which was good enough for 16th overall but sure wish I could have found that magic redfish. I dont have any pics of the mojo with the trout but I do have an awkward picture in the bottom of my kayak of my trout on the measuring stick. We had to also have the IFA badge in the photo. They will be giving away 3 Hobie kayaks for the top 3 stringers at each tournament this season...maybe next one I will win a kayak :) I am attaching a photo of the 3 kayaks on display at the captains meeting in Lavaca the evening before.

I remembered to sunblock at some point but forgot the ankles :) You can see in the trout photo right were I ended up sunburned, lol.

Kaylin Barlow aka MsAddicted

Team Midcoast Products

Three generations of Arkins

I had the pleasure of fishing with three generations. A grandfather, Retired Dr. Murray Arkin from Savannah, his son Jonathan and grandson Adam Arkin from Atlanta. Today was all about 6yr old Adam who was on his first trip on a boat and first time fishing. Adam really impressed me with his endurance and had the patience of Job and truly has an angler inside of him. Adam started the day off catching a flounder followed up by his very first Redfish and a whiting. The fish bite was not on today, but thanks to the Evolution cork and Adam"s angling skills he kept the boat from getting skunked today!! Way to go Adam!!!

Captain Jerry Boaen
Captain Jim Edenfield
www.bendarodfishingcharters.com