“Hard headed and patient”

Travis McKee and Leroy Navarro, were winners of the Baffin Classic, with a reported weight of 21.87 lbs. Second place winners had 21.03 pounds. Round two of the Classic is this weekend.

McKee said he and Navarro have been fishing tournaments together for probably about six years. They won the Baffin Bash in 2011. Last year in the Baffin Classic the duo placed third in the first weekend and fourth in the second weekend. “We have been fortunate,” said McKee.

He described the fishing this year as tough. “The tides have been so high throughout the winter. We had been catching really good fish, but they have been scattered,” continued McKee.

“They (fish) weren’t congregated and we have had to move around a lot. We were still catching quality fish, but they were just not all in the same spots.”

In the tournament, McKee and Navarro only moved one time. “We caught one 3 pounder on the first wade, first thing in the morning, catching a few other good fish also. We had seen a monster the day before, and we knew they were in the area. It was just too cold for them were we started on tournament day. We made another move about 9:30 to our second spot and stayed there the remainder of the day. The first fish caught was about 25 miles from the marina.”

Before moving the duo had managed to put three other good fish in the live well. In the afternoon they finally caught a good fish that they could upgrade the three pound fish caught earlier in the day. “That helped a lot,” said McKee. The team could keep a limit of four speckled trout, but only one angler could have a fish over 25 inches. “We could have two fish over 25 inches, but each angler had to catch one at that size.”

Their biggest fish weighed 6.1 pounds. The other fish weighed individually from 5 to 5 1/2 pounds. “I think our smallest fish was around 4 1/2 pounds,” said McKee.

Most of their speckled trout were caught on suspending lures, (Corkys) fished real slow. Fish favorite color was clear. “We were just throwing natural colors, something that looked real, clear, nothing very crazy looking about it.”

At about 3:15 p.m. they finished their last wade and climbed back into the boat for the ride back to the weigh-in and their tournament win award. “You had to be hard-headed and patient.”