I'm sure it comes easy for many live bait fishermen, but the West coast Grand Slam(Tarpon, Snook, Redfish,Trout in one outing) has been illusive for me. Just like most things in life, when it's hard to attain, one tend to coveted it even more.
Fishing the keys in the wind show me many things can be done in tough weather. On a mission to complete the IGFA slam before the end of the year was my goal when I got back. I've talked about with friends before but never really attempted it.
Today was the day... I gave Neil a call... told him lets do a Grandslam video. If we get the Tarpon we were going for it. I found some small Tarpon and tried to get them to eat a jig but it was a no go. I pulled out my pinn's minnow and got a Tarpon to the boat in 15minutes.
The snook was next. It being fall now the fish should be coming in from the beaches. Using the mission fishin weedless jighead with a gulp body, I worked the flats. I got the snook to the boat in short order. The redfish wasn't too far away from where the snooks were hanging out. After a jack as a by catch I had my redfish to the boat using the same lure.
For the most part I don't usually target trout unless it was to fill out slam. I must say the trout was the toughest fish to get this day. It took us over and 1.5 hours to get the trout to complete my IGFA west coast grandslam. We had by catch of snapper, catfish, pin fish.. which was quite annoying. We finally got the trout on a gulp shrimp and by 11:30am we were heading in. Mission Accomplished!
We caught 1 Tarpon, 1 snook, 1 redfish, 1 trout, zero fish lost, all in a nice orderly fashion, just as planned. You gotta love it when a plan comes together...
Enjoy the video, I was concentrating very hard on not loosing any fish to prevent any heart breakers.
Thanks Neil for filming and Will for your netting expertise.
http://marinefisheries.org/fishrecords/flaslm1.pdf
http://www.saltyshores.com/vids/gs.html
