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Continuing on with the birthday theme 
Thomas and I fished the HT Cup redfish tournament in Freeport on Friday and Saturday Sept 17 and 18. This was a new format for us, being a two-day tournament. The field was pretty small, only 15 teams, but many of them were very successful pro redfish anglers and several had come from other gulf states for this stop of the series. I even got to meet Cajun Phil finally since he was there to be the fish bumper. Cool.
Thomas had been able to do some prefishing in the weeks prior to the tournament so with several shallow water spots in mind, we elected to load up the beavertail and stay local to Freeport. The water level had been coming up daily with the hurricane in the gulf so we were a little alarmed when we got to the launch and saw how high it was but we had committed to our A spot so we proceeded with the plan. The ticket for this spot on regular water levels are big noisy topwaters and popping corks so we felt that would hold true with a foot or two more water anyway.
The weather, on the other hand, was a different story. We got to the spot Friday morning and had about 3 hours of fishing time and then had to RUN! It was looking downright nasty. We ran a short distance up the ditch and managed to find an empty boathouse to take shelter under. Thank you to whomever it was that provided us the lightning free zone. We hung out there for about an hour and a half and then when it cleared we went back. By the end of the day, we managed two slot reds for 10.5 lbs. Not thrilling but better than none. Unfortunately we weighed in right after the Barton’s weighed in their massive 17lbs which made ours feel that much smaller, lol.
The horror stories from Friday were something else! One boat had dumped out a teammate at 60mph, one had been zapped by the electrical storm and knocked to the floor of the boat for 15 minutes, one sheared a prop blade and a couple didn’t even think it worth the risk to run back in through the storm (wise decision!)
Saturday wasn’t much better fishing, the water was higher and weatherwise it was worse! We were out about an hour when the nasty stuff rolled in. I had managed one red for the livewell, a little bigger than yesterday so at least we had one fish early. This time it looked clearer to the north so we tried a run that way to keep fishing. We couldn’t go very far in the beavertail but we thought we had gone far enough. The wind was howling and we fished one shoreline for about 15 minutes when the storm was all of a sudden right overhead. We ran back toward the marina and had to drive about 15 minutes in sideways stinging rain and white out. It was a relief to putt into the marina where we sat soaking wet under their overhang for about 2 hours and ate our lunch. Nasty lightning and 50 mph winds!
Eventually we made it back out with time for one more pass through our fishy spot where Thomas pulled another red to match mine. We finished Saturday with the second biggest weight at 12.08. Everyone had struggled. That weight with Fridays was enough to put us in 5th for the tournament and we actually won about half our entry fee back! The HT Cup was a very well run tournament. I liked the two day format and if the weather had been cooperative it would have been spectacular. All in all, a good tournament series, great bunch of people and well run weigh in.
Thomas and I fished the HT Cup redfish tournament in Freeport on Friday and Saturday Sept 17 and 18. This was a new format for us, being a two-day tournament. The field was pretty small, only 15 teams, but many of them were very successful pro redfish anglers and several had come from other gulf states for this stop of the series. I even got to meet Cajun Phil finally since he was there to be the fish bumper. Cool.
Thomas had been able to do some prefishing in the weeks prior to the tournament so with several shallow water spots in mind, we elected to load up the beavertail and stay local to Freeport. The water level had been coming up daily with the hurricane in the gulf so we were a little alarmed when we got to the launch and saw how high it was but we had committed to our A spot so we proceeded with the plan. The ticket for this spot on regular water levels are big noisy topwaters and popping corks so we felt that would hold true with a foot or two more water anyway.
The weather, on the other hand, was a different story. We got to the spot Friday morning and had about 3 hours of fishing time and then had to RUN! It was looking downright nasty. We ran a short distance up the ditch and managed to find an empty boathouse to take shelter under. Thank you to whomever it was that provided us the lightning free zone. We hung out there for about an hour and a half and then when it cleared we went back. By the end of the day, we managed two slot reds for 10.5 lbs. Not thrilling but better than none. Unfortunately we weighed in right after the Barton’s weighed in their massive 17lbs which made ours feel that much smaller, lol.
The horror stories from Friday were something else! One boat had dumped out a teammate at 60mph, one had been zapped by the electrical storm and knocked to the floor of the boat for 15 minutes, one sheared a prop blade and a couple didn’t even think it worth the risk to run back in through the storm (wise decision!)
Saturday wasn’t much better fishing, the water was higher and weatherwise it was worse! We were out about an hour when the nasty stuff rolled in. I had managed one red for the livewell, a little bigger than yesterday so at least we had one fish early. This time it looked clearer to the north so we tried a run that way to keep fishing. We couldn’t go very far in the beavertail but we thought we had gone far enough. The wind was howling and we fished one shoreline for about 15 minutes when the storm was all of a sudden right overhead. We ran back toward the marina and had to drive about 15 minutes in sideways stinging rain and white out. It was a relief to putt into the marina where we sat soaking wet under their overhang for about 2 hours and ate our lunch. Nasty lightning and 50 mph winds!
Eventually we made it back out with time for one more pass through our fishy spot where Thomas pulled another red to match mine. We finished Saturday with the second biggest weight at 12.08. Everyone had struggled. That weight with Fridays was enough to put us in 5th for the tournament and we actually won about half our entry fee back! The HT Cup was a very well run tournament. I liked the two day format and if the weather had been cooperative it would have been spectacular. All in all, a good tournament series, great bunch of people and well run weigh in.
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