My friend Patrick and I fished the Bayliss Triple Crown tournament yesterday (5/26). This was the second time I have fished in the tournament. It is a great event with great people, and all for a great cause. This year, the typical trout, flounder, drum slam was replaced with a bluefish, flounder, drum slam. Trout season can open back up as soon as June 15th.
We started off the morning looking for a puppy drum. We managed to put one in the boat pretty quickly. Since it was a decent fish that we knew we wouldn’t be able to improve on a whole lot, we decided to try and get the bluefish.
I’ve never fished so hard for a bluefish in my life. When you don’t want to catch one, you can’t keep them away. We trolled the inlet, fished sabiki rigs, casted spoons, you name it. Everything I knew about catching a bluefish – we tried it. After almost 2 hours of chasing a bluefish, we decided to run back inside and maybe try and catch a flounder.
Somehow, I managed to catch about a 7 inch bluefish on my gulp. I watched him following the bait all the way to the boat. Im not sure he was even hook because right when I pulled him in the boat he flopped right off into the bottom of the boat. Ive never been so happy about catching a bluefish.
Now it was time to get the flounder. We ventured back to a flounder hole that I usually only access by kayak. It was very shallow getting in, and I had Patrick on the front of the boat and my Outboard trimmed way up. Finally got a flounder to hit – and put a 16″ in the box.
I can’t say our slam was a very impressive one, but it was the ONLY one. We took home the crown and a cool $200. The softshells and grilled tuna at the weigh in are just the cherry on top of a great day. Big thanks to Bayliss Boatworks for putting on such an awesome event!
