This past Saturday I woke up at 5am to the sound of heavy rain and thunder wondering if the Tamoka Marine tournament was going to take place. I went and got the newspaper had a bite to eat and turned on the weather channel. The radar looked as if it was going to clear soon so I hopped in my truck with boat in tow and headed to Hershal King Park to participate in the tournament. There I met my fishing partner for the day, Capt. Chris Herrera.
The tournament started cloudy without any rain or wind. We headed south in search of trout. We threw topwater plugs for the first hour without a single hit. We moved to another area and found trout almost immediately but nothing with any substantial size. We did manage to put a couple in the livewell to weigh in. The winds started to pick up so we moved on. At the next spot Chris picked up a flounder on his first cast. By now the winds had gotten so bad we had to look for a more sheltered area. We tried a couple of places but couldn’t raise a fish, mainly because the tide went slack. We needed to find moving water so we headed north.
By the time we reached our destination the flats were unfishable, whitecaps with all that wind. That’s how the rest of the day went for us and everyone else who fished it. Fish were caught but not in great numbers.
Here’s the results: Chris Atansoski took first place in the blackdrum division with the only one weighed in – 2.36 lbs. Trout – 1st Randy Homer – 2.20 lbs, 2nd – Jesse Schaster – 1.75 lbs, 3rd – Chris Herrera – 1.58 lbs.
Redfish – 1st – Brian Carr – 7.42 lbs, 2nd – Geoff White – 5.91 lbs, 3rd – Shawn Page – 5.75 lbs.
Flounder – 1st Melissa Page – 2.43 lbs, 2nd – Craig Williamson – 1.97 lbs, 3rd – Chris Herrera – 1.55 lbs.
Randy homer weighed in the heaviest fish of the tournament but the species wasn’t included. Randy landed a 7.74 lb snook that he caught at 3:330 in the afternoon using a black top dog topwater plug.
Beach fishing was hot last week with blues and spanish mackerel tearing up bait in the surf. People tossing plugs were scoring all day long. The blues and Spanish are still around and flounder have begun to move in, also look for the flounder to start to turn on around Matanzas inlet this month. Thanksgiving week is usually the most productive.
Flagler Beach Bait and Tackle reports Ralph Lowery with a 5.10 lb flounder. Joe LoConte had 9 flounder and James Hampton landed a 16 lb – 41” king mackerel. Jake’s Highbridge Bait and Tackle repots blackdrum to 28” around the bridge and snook at night.


Photo: Randy Homer with a 7.74 lb snook caught on a topwater plug