Elites

Recently on a local message board several members called out other members for being "elitist". Their reasoning was that several of the more accomplished fishermen in the club did not publicly share their "secret spots" on a public forum. The members also got upset that some of these guys had sponsorships that they "chased". Another member brought up the fact that since the beginning of time man had been hiding his secret fishing spots. I agree with this and would like to add that the fisherman who obtain sponsorship from companies don't get paid to fish. They still buy the products and, more times than not, just receive a discount. The individual is responsible for producing content (photos, articles, and videos to name some) in exchange for the sponsorship. These sponsored guys also go out 12 months a year, even when they don't want to, and fish hard, even taking sick days to chase fish. Its hard to explain how hard they push themselves. I have seen Kayak Kevin go weeks fishing certain points in a tide. Then rest for four hours just to go back out for two, and so on for weeks to get his trophy. As a matter of a fact, it took him weeks until he got the trophy stripers patterned and ended up catching more than anyone else that year. He was successful because of the amount of time and effort he put in, not because he feels he is better than anyone. Ill tell you right now there are a ton of fishermen in the area who can out-fish me, but the almighty equalizer is that I push myself until I reach my goal. If that is "elitist", then so be it.

Pictured above: Myself, Lee Williams, Rob Choi, Jim Sammons, and Kayak Kevin on the end.

I had been out of town with the Marines, saying my goodbyes to family but I kept seeing trophy trout posted by my friends, Richie (Hookline-sinker.net), Kevin (KayakKevin.com) and Billy (CoastalKayakFishing.blogspot.com) to name a few. Going back to "secret spots", I don't know where any of them caught their fish. I brought up the idea of heading for tog at the island, but it ended up being trout week. I waited and the winds picked up until it wasn't feasible to paddle the 3 miles for my quarry. I sent Kev a text and we decided to head out and scout for some fall specks. I immediately began hooking spike specks as did all the boaters around me. I moved on but Kevin stayed in the area. I found a boat sitting on anchor and he called out to me to come join in on the fun. I anchored and began catching a spike every other cast on the mirrO he told me was hot. I just so happened to have a blue back with green belly. After a while I thought Id go see how my partner was doing when I hooked into a solid red out of the blue. I measured him at 21". I then hooked up to a baby flounder on the same MirrO, I had my slam!

I pulled anchor, got his name and found Kevin who was having a good day himself. We continued to fish the flat and found some keepers but all were released. I got a bite and drag ripped off as I set the hook, a sign that it wasn't another dink. She immediately rolls on the top and I yell oh $h!t, its a big one. He asked how big and I yell maybe a citation. After trying to get her on the boga Kevin gets impatient and yells leg her in, get her in the boat! I did and boy was I happy to share the cockpit of my Wilderness Systems Ride 135 with her. She wasn't a citation but a trophy trout in my book, 23 1/4". We got some pics and I let her swim off for the next lucky angler.

What a great day, I hadn't been out in months and this was my welcome home present! If you want it bad enough get out there and make yourself elite, your the only one who can do it! Tight lines everyone!