first trip to Montauk - derby day

[Troutjig.com]

I made my first trip to Montauk on Saturday. What an awesome park! Great scenery and all kinds of places to fish. I can't wait to get back there.

We started off at the buzzer standing on the concrete dam that created somewhat of a waterfall. We caught fish within the first hour, but it was nothing like Maramec Springs. As the sun slowly came up, we could see the fish better and better, which helped land a lot more fish. My father-in-law spotted a large rainbow from the bank and followed it to that grate that some guy cleans off every hour or so. After messing with it for 10 minutes, he hooked the 6lb 6oz. on a black rubber lig with gold head jig.

We walked around to different parts of the park and then headed up to weight in Roy's fish and put it on ICE. We headed back out to fish near the back side of the store. There is a road that leads right down to an opening to get into the water. Just up-stream there was some rocky structure and a few logs in the water. We started fishing that and my wife spotted a nice rainbow. Her second cast at it, she had the 4lb 2oz. hooked using one of our gold tinsel jigs. Her and I went up to weight it in and put it on ICE as well, then headed back down to the same spot. After a few we decided to walk down stream. There was a pretty long stretch where we couldn't see a single fish in the water. Then we got to a point where the water made a left hand turn and started searching for a lunker in current. There was a log laying out above the water, and just behind it deep in the water we spotted another nice rainbow. I was to the left of Roy and couldn't really get a good cast at it. The water was too swift to drop the jig between the tree and the fish. I did get one shot at it, but just as he went for it, I jerked too soon. In front of the log on top of the water, there was another log in the water down at and angle. Roy put the same gold and black jig in between the two logs and the fish just nailed the jig like you wouldn't believe. It took awhile to get the 4lb 2oz. out from between the 2 logs and in the net, but we got it. This fish had an amazing set of teeth. We got down to the bridge and figured it was time to eat.

After lunch we went to a totally different part of the park and spotted a couple more lunkers, but weren't able to get one to bite.

All in all, we had a great time. We caught plenty of smaller fish, but the big ones kind of took precedence

I don't think I'll miss a derby day from here on at Montauk. They put in a large amount of HUGE fish.

We'll see how we fair at Bennett this weekend.

[10pointer]

sounds like you had a great trip! I was real gungho about the trip but once I was down there I could barely keep my eyes open lol. I had two 6lb+ on that broke off which wasnt a suprise on 2 lb. but I spent the morning with my dad who isnt the lunker hunter kind of guy anymore and likes as much room away from crowds of people as possible, so i didnt get to do much fishing really. I did real good so far this year with lunkers so i wasnt worried too much about anything but relaxing and really enjoying the weekend. We ended up going back to licking about 8:30 am on saturday to eat breakfast then back to the room to sleep. I slept like a baby then watched the cards game only to watch them lose:( Two of my buddies caught 3 lunkers apeice, and another 2 lunkers so they gave me all kinds of hell, but i told them working 40 hours a week and taking 19 credit hours of school can really take it out of you lol. Last year i caught a 4 lb right at that log jam you are talking about where your dad caught that 2nd lunker. Its a really hidden spot and it seems they do drop one big fish in per tournament. Next year hopefully i wont be on the verge of exhaustion and will get a little more into it.

congrats to your wife and father! Sounds like their first montauk experience was a blast! Hopefully ill run into you guys next year. Montauk is my favorite of the parks by far!

[Watcher]

This is one of the better lunkers that was caught at the Derby.

[10pointer]

that u in the pic watcher? Thats a nice fish, i was there when the pic was taken up at reed's. Did u end up going down if that isnt you?

I knew that the winning fish would be around 12 lbs from a source, i wonder where the big one was caught, i never heard? I cant wait till opening day now!