On Saturday, I fished with friends Marty Slade, John McLay and his son Gavin in the St.Petersburg Yacht Club Inshore/Offshore tournament. We fished on Marty's 24 Ranger Bay boat with a tower for the event.  With two livewells full of bait, we started fishing at 6:00am.  There were four target species to catch for the inshore side of the tournament. They were redfish, snook, trout and flounder.

 
While trying to catch a snook first thing in the morning, Marty and I ended up catching a flounder each.  With the tide going slack, we headed off to an area for trout.  There, I was able to bring in a 17&1/2 inch trout.  Good enough to get a second species in the bag.  We shifted gears and went to an area where Marty knew we'd catch redfish.  Marty pulled up a distance away, dropped the trolling motor to put us in position and slid the anchor quietly off the side of the boat.  Gavin caught the first redfish.  I had the second well over slot sized and third just a hair under the slot max of 27 inches. With a pinch, this fish was literally a hair under the 27 inch mark.  Marty and John we confident that this was a first place fish.  Marty and John each brought in a slot redfish to add to the bag.

 
Our final fish was the snook.  We fished up to the last 10 minutes until needing to pull up the anchor and  leave for the weigh-in.  With those minutes to spare, I started  chumming with the last of the baits while Marty and John fished.  Shorty after, Marty yells, "I'm on" and brought a 31 inch snook to the boat. Done! All four species accounted for.  A quick clean up of the boat and off to the St.Petersburg Yacht Club to weigh our fish.  The surprise species that Marty caught prior to his snook was a 23 inch gag grouper.  Knowing that it was one of he species in the offshore event, we added it to the bag as well.
 
 Since I had 3 of the 4 species, I took the snook in to weigh-in along with the redfish, trout and flounder in attempts to win the Master Angler award.  In the end, the team took 1st place Snook, 1st place Redfish, 4th place Redfish and 1st place Flounder.  We missed master angler by a third of a pound.  That was won by Chris Wiggins.  It was a fun event enjoyed by all.
 
Special Thanks to Deep Glow under water lights for sponsoring us in this event.  Please see their products at www.deepglow.com