Shallow Sport Tourney Recap

Tons of preparation and planning goes into even the smallest of fishing tournaments so you can imagine what kind of horsepower it takes to organize, prepare, and execute one of the largest ones on the Texas Coast. This year Shallow Sport/SCB Boat Owners Tournament had just over 250 registered teams totaling over 1000 anglers. Just days before the event South Padre encountered some extreme weather causing extensive damage to the convention center where the venue for this big tournament was to be held. With dedication and commitment from Shallow Sport staff and SPI officials, they were able to put a bandage on the damage and we were all set. The highly anticipated “shotgun” start was on everyone’s minds, but Mother Nature had something else in store for the take-off.

At the eleventh hour, based on a multitude of weather forecasts, Shallow Sport President, Wes Hudson made the call to remove the historic shotgun start from the equation and left it up to the anglers to engage in safe fishing at their discretion. Early Saturday morning boats started to trickle out despite lighting and thunderous conditions throughout the bay system. Water levels rose and winds cranked to the likes of which I’ve not seen often. Fishing was tough and our team struggled to get any fish to eat as they were days before, prior to the severe storms rolling in. We were on em; we saw em but just couldn’t get those heavy reds to eat. With all that said, while searching for trout we had a few take tops to include a solid eight pounder as noted in the photo. Not too shabby and this in and of itself made the day worth it. We had another oversized trout that couldn’t be weighed, and we only managed one “legal” trout that put us in 5^th place for that category. Additionally, there were just over 100 boats who weighed in fish and thanks to the new incentive program for weighing in live fish we successfully released just under 60 back to the bay to fight another day, now that is awesome.

The weather didn’t back down whatsoever all day and winds only increased in strength, we stayed wet all day and quite chilly to be honest. Throughout the day controversy and critique started making its way through social media, some of which was discerning to say the least. So, what was the right call for Shallow Sport to do? Was there a right call? Some say the right call was made while others say they should have cancelled the event. Who’s to say what’s the right or wrong call - in my opinion the wrong call wasn’t made. There were zero injuries or incidents on the water and anglers who participated had a challenging but great day on the water. For those who elected not to fish, well, they still had one heck of a time at the awards ceremony/event, and someone walked away with an $80,000 Shallow Sport Boat.

Till next year…