[Reel Tune]

Friday we woke up again around 3:30am to head back to Jacksonville. Sarah had a business lunch arranged, and I need more sleep. We get Sarah to her lunch in time, and I head to Boris’s house to unload clothes, clean gear, prep all the gear for tomorrow’s tournament, and take a nap. I get everything ready and I lay down around 3pm and I get a text message (its Sarah saying to pick her up in 15minutes). Well so much for the nap. I get Sarah and come back to Boris’s so she can get ready for the Captain’s meeting that starts at 6:30pm. We head over to the Captain’s meeting with no doubt where it is. There are at least 100+ kayaks in the parking lot. We get in line to fill out the waivers, and get our Captain’s bag inside were all kinds of goodies like a hat, Columbia Blood N’ Guts shirt, Bomber Badonk-A-Donk, our measuring devices, tokens for pictures one of which was a real nice Hobie Bottle Opener, and tickets for raffles. While waiting in line we get a surprise Drew Gregory comes up and talks with us. We buy some more tickets, and take the bags to the car. Then we see Tommy Sammuels (Too Busy and chat with him briefly. We go back in and had some Sticky Fingers BBQ which was catered in and complementary. They had some great raffles Friday with 3 kayaks, Costa Delmar sunglasses, landing nets, rods, Navtronics cards and many other items. We were supposed to have dinner and beers with friends downtown, and it was getting to be around 8pm and we had to head. We went to the Burrito Gallery http://www.burritogallery.com/ a place we used to frequent. We hung out with our friends until 11pm or so and they wanted to go out but we had to decline due to the tournament the next morning. We got to sleep around 12a.
Saturday we woke up around 3:30a, and on the road by 4a stopped by a gas station for snacks, breakfast, and drinks. We got to the bait shop and there was a line of about 12 people and a parking lot with a lot of kayaks. We jumped in line, and by the time we had our bait the line was 25+ long. We headed to our spot which was empty the week before while I was pre-fishing. Now there were 6 vehicles in the parking area and 10-11 kayaks. I thought to myself oh crap. We’ll we are already committed so the only thing we can do is rub elbows and try to have fun. I started out with a Skiiterwalk, Fluke, and Lucky Craft SP110. Early I had two blow-up on the Skitterwalk, and then nothing. I tried throwing flies, and everything I could think of. The tide starts falling so we start heading back to the ramp, and decide to fish a bridge which produced no fish and then kept moving down stream to where we are alone around some docks. I threw the fly and Sarah opted for a shrimp fished off the bottom. Sarah ended up picking up a 14” Flounder her personal best, and I was so happy she caught something. Then shortly afterward she picks up a 16.5” Flounder. The skies are looking nasty, and at first I’m thinking it’s going north of us, and then I realize it’s not and decide to head back to the launch. Not 5 minutes later the storm hits heavy rain, lightening, and winds approaching 60+ MPH. We both get back to the ramp safely, and decide to wait it out in the car to load up everything. After 15minutes and finally catching our breath we decide it’s not going to let up, and we are already soaked, and the lightening has stopped, and wind has died down to around 15-20MPH, but still raining. We go ahead and load up, and decide we are not going directly to the awards ceremony. We go back to Boris’s house and shower and get into dry clothes and then head over to turn in Sarah’s pictures. On arrival she is in 6th place in the Flounder Division so that was cool. We get our beer and sit down and talk with some other people. During the meantime they are having raffles and serve Sticky Fingers again. The judges go back in the back to finalize the results, then come out and proceed with the awards. There were some really nice fish caught and Upthecreek’s son took 2nd in the Redfish Division which was really cool. Sarah finished 10th in the Flounder Division which I’m very proud of her. After the awards there were more raffles and auctions of 2 pieces of Guy Harvey artwork with all proceeds going to the Down Syndrome Foundation of Jacksonville. Sarah won the Snook busting baitfish in the Mangroves piece. It was very memorable for her being that she fished the Naples area earlier this year and had a nice Snook on. It was great seeing all the other fishing teams in their apparel my favorites were the Wilderness Systems, and Hobie Team Members they all looked very clean and represented their companies well. We left the awards ceremony around 7/7:30pm.
Boris cooked some steaks, and baked potato on the grill for us. We hung out that night with him and his son Chase which is the smartest 3 year old I have ever met.