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The adventure kayak fishing is a unique tourney. The usual kayak fishing tourney is you go out and catch the target or number of targets, take a picture of them on a measuring stick and biggest fish or fish’s wins. On this tourney teams of two have to navigate to checkpoints, get a token, then fish. After you catch a fish the team takes the pic on the ruler and token. Then turn the token back in and paddle to the next check point. And not the entire course is on the water and teams have to catch fish at three checkpoints in order to finish.
 This is the third year for this tourney and I really wanted to do the next one. Irish jean McElroy who is on the ocean kayak pro staff with me has done all of the AKFT messaged me and told me about it for this year I worked on getting down there. I secured a ride with friend’s willyrags and Macinii and it was on. Jean and I represented ocean kayak and our team name was "Adventure on the water"
 Willyrags and I left Norfolk on wed evening and got down to our friend  Macinii house who use to live in VA but now lives in lower north Carolina. We headed to La in the morning.
 I drink a lot of water so we stopped every 200 miles. We watched as the temps rose and the trees got greener. Luckily we passed thru the pollen belt in Georgia and on the other side it was like May in VA with trees full of leaves and warm.
 We got to the New Orleans area well past dark so we couldn’t take in the scenery.  We approached what at first looked like a bridge, as we got closer the reality of the area came into reality, it was a sea wall. As we passed thru the gate to the outside it felt like we were leaving the safety of the compound and interring the untamed outside world on the other side of the walls.  Then as we got on Delacroix Island the small fishing shacks, trailers and houses where on 20 foot stilts. We rented cool little lodges along with other teams from our area the Lozier’s and team Angler management with Amy Angelopoulos and Andy McKnight and Jean and her boyfriend Tony.
 The next morning jean and I had a charter to scope out the area and get some local fishing knowledge. We had it scheduled for 8 but we pushed it back till 10. The Delacroix Angler Guide Service gave us a tour of the area inside the boundary for the tourney and I got a good idea just from those two hours. We got back ate lunch and me jean and tony paddled out for some pre fishing.
 First these marshes felt like east coast marshes so I felt comfortable. The vegetation was different and the water had a low salinity to the taste. The water was shallow and I was looking for deeper wholes by looking for the crab pots. I let the wind push me to a marsh bank and I made cast in the deeper water. I had a grab and a run but it let go then I set a hook on my first fish of the year a 16" bass. Not only my second bass ever but my first bass was caught with jean 4 years ago at stone MT Ga.
 I put the bass on the lip grips, put em back in the water and set my camera up. I take the shots and release the fish all with my leg in the water. I start casting again. I inched up along the edge with my feet and started casting out further then I notice a 10 foot gaters head looking at me 15 years away. I got so comfortable; I forgot I was in the land of dinosaurs, sea walls and 20 foot stilts. I was ok till I saw him dive then I paddled away. Jean and tony were finding reds in the swallower water. I stood to get a look but the water had a brown haze to it and the wind was pushing me.  I headed back to the gater hole, didn’t have an anchor so I attached my lip grips to a crab pot buoy to hold position and cast.
 I was using a weighted weedless hook with a small spinner blade and a new penny with a chart tail. I tried many different retrieves and settled on what I do at home, a bouncing a jig retrieve, but with a light hook. I let it drop into the grass and taking note on when drew camp said, rip it thru the grass. That was the retrieve that gave me a red bite. I missed the first one then the second I hooked and landed my first Louisiana red.
 We paddle in to make it to the captains meeting then back to the lodge to prepare for the next day.
 The next morning as we moved the boats down to the staging area a full lunar eclipse was happening and a hard wind shifting front was coming. We get our maps and at 7am we open them. To my surprise, the checkpoints where fairly close together, I thought they would have been spread out over the entire boundary area. We got our game plan and launched. We headed south first to a double checkpoint. 5 mins in the wind moved in and pushed us to the checkpoint. We got the token and paddled across the creek and started casting. The wind was blowing 20mph with gust in the 25mph range. Soon we started to see teams paddle to the checkpoint to give back the tokens. We started to feel low without having a fish yet. So we decided to make a move, as we paddled by the checkpoint the Lozier’s were landing and Kris had a big smile on her face, and the check point guy said "a nice one" I felt happy for them but bad for us we paddled to our spot. What I was looking for was the beeper water 4 foot or so. And jean was getting in the shallower water I paddled till I found the depth and the long grass to rip my lure thru. Since I didn’t have my anchor tony let me use his yakattack push pole. I found my grass and depth, poled off and started ripping. A few cast in and I hook up to a 22"er and whew we both were released to have a fish. In hindsight with that being double point checkpoints we should have fished for a bigger red. But we were happy and wanted to get to the next one.
 We made our way on to the next checkpoint. The wind was at our back and we were talking and I almost missed our turn into the area to the next checkpoint. Jean caught it on here GPS and we headed into a shallow lake and a headwind. We got to the 2nd checkpoint and just paddled a few yards away and started fishing.  Jean hooked the next red and it was a good one. As I got to her it took a good run and I smiled. Then jean got it to the surface and I saw it was a good one. Then jean got it in her net and it was a really good one just under 28"
 Two down and we were off to the third and we were feeling good. Our path had us heading north in a pipeline channel as we started heading we saw an obstacle across the canal. We got closer it was a stone wall about 4 feet high, jean wanted to stop and find a path around. I said we are gone speed up and dukes of hazard this M-effer. We got to it along with a team using pro anglers and they are big boats. They made it up and over with some effort. Me and jean make it up and over and as we paddled away felt like we accomplished an obstacle with team work. Another angler crossing the wall, who was a local, said the next wall was just wood and our kayaks could fit thru the open planks.
 The next checkpoint was just past the wood wall which we slid right past. We got the token and jean started heading to the shallow water. I followed and as soon as I started scraping bottom I yelled to jean "this is waaaaaay to shallow" I was eyeballing across the flats and saw crab pots and headed that way. I was looking for the grass and found it. I stuck out and started casting and jean went in shallow and started casting. She hooked up to a mid-teens bass got the measure shot and we kept casting. Then I hook a 22" red and we used that at that checkpoint.
 We had 4 hours left and we were going to paddle to the far eastern checkpoint the winds had died out a bit. It was a long paddle but we had time to do it. We started then 2nd guessed that idea to go for the double check point and portage. We landed to look at what we would have to cross. We didn’t have our wheels so whatever we had to cross we were doing it by hand. We went ahead and made the comment to the double and the portage.
 We unloaded all the heavy stuff to our backpacks and started hand hauling the boats the 200 yards across the island to the dich on the back side. We got half way caring our kayaks when we realized there was grass beside the gravel lot. We got to the other side were a team was on the berm behind the ditch looking for checkpoint, it was down the ditch on the berm.  My enthusiasm dropped a little hauling across the island not we are in a ditch. After a little portage across the mound we launched into a back bayou. My motivation dropped lower as I realized that the water had been dropping all day with the wind and there was barely a foot of water. I was totally discouraged but jean was on it. This was the depth she was use to fishing and kept on casting. She started to work a slightly deeper area between two points and she’s finds some bass, with the biggest being 13” but this was a double pointed checkpoint so that was a 26”er.
 We scraped bottom back to the checkpoint and up and over the berm back into the dich, then one more grass drag to the staging area and we were done, completed the AFWC and thinking we placed pretty good. We ended up in 8^th which I was hopein for the top 5 but that’s something to shoot for next year. When team Adventure on the Water go to GET ON’EM!