LKFC’s Marsh Madness Tournament – Cocodrie, LA

I arrived the day before the tournament and didn’t like what I saw. On the way down to Cocodrie, LA many home’s front lawns were flooded. It rained cats and dogs friday morning, seeing this I knew the water would be muddy!

My new GoPro Hero2 arrived just days before the tournament, and I made a few last minute rigging upgrades to the Cuda to support the camera. When I purchased the camera I thought about buying some of the anit-fog packets that GoPro offers, but I later decided against it. This was a huge mistake being that the majority of my footage was unusable because of fogging issues.

This tournament was a 5 slot redfish tournament. All redfish had to be within Louisiana’s length requirements 16″ – 27″. I planned on using my phone to help me navigate this area, but shortly after launching I noticed that I had left it in the truck! So I paddled 3 or 4 miles from what I remembered seeing on google earth the night before!

I had a tough day on the water. I caught 9 redfish, seven of them were way too big for the tournament (30-32″). It was a blast to have my Cuda towed around by these big fish! The last fish that I had on I lost, this fish fought like a nice size redfish back towards my kayak, but took off peeling drag when it noticed the Cuda. I tightened the drag, but this fish was too much for my light setup. After a minute or so the fish got off.

I ended up with a 16 1/2″ redfish to weigh for the tournament which placed me in 15th place out of 30 anglers. I remember fishing tournaments where I couldn’t find fish, or the fish were too small, but never too big. Now having this experience I would definitely say that it’s more frustrating.

I still had a great time and left thinking “man, Cocodrie has some huge fish!”

Here’s a short video of what I salvaged of the footage. It was shot the day before the tournament. I was out looking for redfish, but found the trout stacked on points…hard to pass up!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0pfdElIPBM&context=C4fa66f7ADvjVQa1PpcFPGMXP_1heMFcTXW5Am8Xt28xCfM9SQiNY=[/youtube]