SARASOTA, Fla. – Jeff Hagaman of Lutz, Fla., and James Goodwin of Palm Harbor, Fla., will forever remember March 5, 2005 as a very special fishing day. Today, the professional redfishing team made history by winning the first Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series event, pocketing $37,500 in the process.
What’s more, the team didn’t just win the Sarasota event, they dominated it.
Normally, redfish tournaments are won by mere ounces because of the slot limit, which requires that all fish under 18 inches and over 27 inches be released immediately.
With 125 redfish teams all hunting just-under27-inch redfish, it doesn’t take long for the top weights to bunch up and form a kind of ceiling that’s hard to rise above.
This week that weight ceiling formed at the 26- to 26 1/2-pound mark, with most top teams topping out at 13 pounds per day. Each team was after a limit of two redfish a day, with the winning team determined by the heaviest total over both days.
But Hagaman and Goodwin not only had the heaviest two redfish on day one – 13 pounds, 14 ounces – they blew the field away Saturday with two redfish weighing 15 pounds, 5 ounces. Their combined two-day total came to 29 pounds, 3 ounces, giving them a 2-pound, 11-ounce margin of victory.
“This is incredible,” Hagaman said. “I’d rather win this one than any of the others down the road. This is the first one and no one can take that away – we will always be the inaugural Redfish Series winners.”
“It’s been a week of firsts for us,” he added. “We weighed in first yesterday and took the lead right off the bat. We had the biggest bag again today – it’s just been unreal.”
“You have to realize the competition we’re up against out here,” Goodwin said. “These guys are the best in this business; winning redfish tournaments is not easy.”
The key to the team’s win was a 63-mile run to Charlotte Harbor, where they had located a huge school of redfish during practice.
“We found them on Monday,” Goodwin revealed. “We knew then it was a matter of getting down there and getting back each day.”
“We played it safe yesterday,” Hagaman said. “We ran all the way down there and caught two 26 1/2-inchers and left at 9 o’clock. Today, though, we went down there and really worked them over. We knew we were on good fish, but we had no idea that many fish were in there – we probably saw 500 reds up sunning. We caught 15 fish and some of them were 10-pounders that were just a hair over the (27-inch) line.”
Their best area featured a 5- to 6-foot pothole located between two flats. Hagaman and Goodwin cast Berkley Gulp Shrimp and Jerk Shads in a “new penny” color rigged on 1/8-ounce jig heads.
“If you moved the bait too fast, they wouldn’t eat it,” Goodwin said. “You had to really slow it down and just bump it through the mud to get the bite.”
Girle and Harris fish new water for second
For the second day in a row, Warren Girle of Longboat Key, Fla., and Billy Harris of Bradenton, Fla., 
brought in a pair of redfish topping 13 pounds. Their two-day total of 26 pounds, 8 ounces gave them a second-place finish in the inaugural Redfish Series.
Girle has been fishing Sarasota Bay for 30 years, and Harris has fished it for the better part of 15 years.
One would think that with a collective 45 years of fishing experience between the two, they would have fished every nook and cranny in the bay. But today, they ended up fishing in a place upon which neither one had ever laid eyes.
“We started in the little cove where we fished yesterday,” Harris said. “Then we noticed there was zero fish movement around us. Between the intense fishing pressure in the area and the water dropping about 4 inches, we figured the fish must have pulled out of the area altogether.”
Instead of picking up and running elsewhere, the two experienced saltwater guides put their heads together to figure out where the fish might have gone.
“We had fished our way out of the cove and out into open water,” Girle recounted. “Then Billy noticed a tiny ripple on the surface, just behind a little island. Neither one of us had ever fished on the back side of this island, so we went in there to have a look. Sure enough, the ripples Billy had seen turned out to be redfish pushing.”
The team staked out and waited for the fish to come to them.
“We’re now convinced that it was the same school of fish that was in the cove the day before,” Harris said. “We think those reds had been moving in and out of the cove and were headed back to it when we staked out in front of them. The way it all came together was pretty cool.”
The team reported catching their fish on Mister Twister Exude soft jerkbaits.
Van Horn and Richardson moved to third
After posting 13 pounds, 5 ounces on day one, the team of Ray Van Horn and C.A. Richardson, both of Tarpon Springs, Fla., moved to third today with two more redfish weighing 12 pounds, 15 ounces for a two-day total of 26 pounds, 4 ounces.
The team made a 30-mile run to the Tampa area where they had located a large school of redfish.
“You can’t win these things on the first day, but you can sure lose them on the first day,” Van Horn noted. “So our strategy yesterday was to get 12 or 13 pounds, play it safe and get back on time. Our goal is to be in striking distance on the last day. We went out this morning and hammered them pretty hard, and that’s all we could come up with.”
The two anglers worked Berkley Gulp natural shrimp on 1/8- and 1/4-ounce jigheads tied to 10-pound-test Spiderwire Stealth with a 25-pound-test Vanish fluorocarbon leader.
“We were dead-sticking the shrimp in potholes around the turtle grass,” Richardson said. “We would make a long cast to a pothole and just let the shrimp sit there. That Gulp is like live bait, it puts out so much scent that the redfish find it by smell and come over to eat it.”
Fuller and Cox `stake down’ in fourth
Moving to fourth place today with a two-day total 26 pounds, 4 ounces was the team of Wayne Fuller
of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., and Dennis Cox from Edgewater, Fla.
Fuller and Cox chose to stay inside Sarasota Bay instead of making a long run. They located a shallow cove where the water was so skinny they had to wait for the tide to come in so they could float into their area.
Once they had enough water to fish, they used Berkley Power Baits and Captain Mike’s Flats Candy plastics to catch their reds.
“Occasionally we could see fish, but that was not our intention,” Cox said. “If we could see the fish, then the fish could see us and they would spook off. So we tried to stay off the fish and make ultralong casts.”
Page and Zyak finish fifth
Geoffrey Page of Venice, Fla., and Ed Zyak of Jensen Beach, Fla., added 12 pounds, 15 ounces to their day-one weight of 13 pounds, 4 ounces to finish fifth with a two-day total of 26 pounds, 3 ounces.
Page and Zyak stayed in North Sarasota Bay the last two days.
“I treated today just like I was running a charter,” said Page, who guides in the bay. “I thought about making a long run this morning, but instead I took it easy and went north to fish where we caught them yesterday.”
Page reported catching his fish on DOA CAL lures in avocado red glitter with a Norton 1/8-ounce jighead.
“There was trench or depression, about 3 feet deep, in the middle of this cove,” Page said. “When the tide starting coming in, the current would pour into this hole and that turned the fish on. Fishing slow was the key. We had to bounce the jigs along the bottom with the current to get bites.”
Watts and Watts take sixth
Redfishing’s power twins, Greg Watts of Eagle Lake, Fla., and Bryan Watts of Lithia, Fla., finished sixth 
with a two-day total of 25 pounds, 13 ounces.