PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – Weighing 14 pounds, 14 ounces on day one of the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series event in Punta Gorda gave Roger Crafton and John Ochs no guarantees. Posting a nearly identical score on day two of the Eastern Division event ensured them a spot in Saturday’s top-five finale.
Hailing from Boca Grande and Englewood, Fla., respectively, Crafton and Ochs fished south of Punta Gorda and caught a second-day limit of 14 pounds, 8 ounces for a solid 29-6 total. Fishing Berkley Gulp Shrimp over grass beds yielded action aplenty, although their heaviest reds kept them waiting.
“We caught probably 40 fish today, but we got these two right before we came in, about 2 o’clock,” Ochs said. “We were going to bring in about 12 pounds, but we got these fish at the last minute.”
Crafton said opportunity presented itself early, but the fish they wanted played hard to get. “When we pulled up on this flat, we could see that there were some big fish up there, but we didn’t catch any for 
the longest time. We caught several 5- and 6-pound fish, but then in the last half-hour we caught our two largest fish.”
Day two saw a strong south wind blowing 15 to 20 mph and pushing a high volume of water into normally shallow areas. With rapidly advancing brine, redfish will follow the flow in what Ochs described as a tournament angler’s dream.
“This is the situation I’ve always wanted,” he said. “With the incoming tide and a south wind, the tide comes in twice as fast and gives fish access to new feeding areas. Fish will move out of places where they’ve stayed for months just to get on these south wind shores.
“We fished four different spots today. We fished our low water spots early, and then we were just waiting on the tide to go to our money spots.”
Using the wind to their advantage, the anglers made long drifts through the target zone. They used their Power Pole to stake out and work particularly appealing areas.
“It was stop-and-go fishing,” Ochs said. “We’d fan-cast an area, and if we didn’t get bit, we’d ease up, catch as many as we could, and when they stopped biting, we’d ease up a little more.”
Girle and Harris stay afloat
Tragedy nearly stymied hope for Warren Girle of Longboat Key, Fla., and Billy Harris of Bradenton, Fla., 
but the anglers dodged a bullet and improved their day-one, eighth-place position to second on day two. Bolstering their first-round weight of 12 pounds, 13 ounces with 15-2 – the tournament’s heaviest limit so far – Girle and Harris qualified for Saturday’s finale with a 27-15 total.
Their accomplishment was nearly precluded about 15 minutes after the morning takeoff. “We got about halfway out of Charlotte Harbor, and I’m watching our speed on the GPS go from 54 mph down to 48 mph and wondering, `What the heck is going on?'” Harris recalls. “Then it dawned on me that we’re full of water.”
One of the boat’s livewell pumps intakes had broken from its fitting and was shooting seawater into the hull for several minutes. Fortunately, the anglers were able to shut off the valves and pump out the water before the situation worsened. “The rod lockers all the way up front had water in them. That’s how much water we had in the boat.”
In a sense, the boating mishap stood as a strange parallel to the day’s high-water conditions. Harris recalls: “A lot of the places we had been fishing this week with a foot to a foot and a half of water had 3 to 4 feet of water today,” Harris said. “The way that the wind was blowing into our first spot, it was a mess. We stayed there about 45 minutes and left – we knew it wasn’t right.”
Girle and Harris found a backup spot in better condition and caught their weight fish within 30 minutes of arriving. Girle said they ran about 80 miles north to Tampa Bay and fished a grass and sand patchwork known as “broken bottom.” Berkley Gulp Shrimp, worked slowly across the bottom, produced all of their fish.
Harris said he’d like to fish the same area on day three, but a long night of repair awaited him and his partner. “We ran the beach this morning, and that’s why the boat’s all torn up – the trolling motor is bent, that pump blew out again. We’re going to try to make it back to our spot, but we might have to run (the Intracoastal Waterway).
“We’ll have to go through a lot of idle zones and deal with weekend traffic, so it might be a long ride that will leave us with only an hour to fish, but we’re a pound and a half out of (first place), so it’s a go-for-broke situation. If we can get there, I think we’ll really have a chance. The key is just to get there.”
Arsenault-Coffrin recovers, retains third place
The Sarasota, Fla., team of Eddy Arsenault and Jason Coffrin despaired as they watched their top-five hopes swim away, but rejoiced when another chance materialized.
“We had the golden opportunity that we always wish for,” Arsenault said. “The water was perfect, we
found our fish, we got in position with our boat, made two casts, Jason hooked, and then I hooked up. While I was getting the net for Jason, I was still fighting my fish, but he actually bent the hook out.
“From there, we thought we were heading back – it didn’t happen. We tried a couple of other spots, but the rising water started coming in on us, it was windy and it was getting tough. We started blind-casting an area where we were confident some fish were still around, and we got our (second weight fish) to eat around 11 o’clock.”
The anglers worked a leeward area of grassy bottom with scattered sand holes in Lemon Bay. They fished Berkley Gulp Shad on weedless worm hooks slowly across the bottom.
Best of the rest
Randy Hendrick of Clearwater, Fla., and Chris Wittman of Fort Myers, Fla., weighed a 12-pound, 10-ounce limit and finished fourth with 26-6. Miles Meredith of Cape Coral, Fla., and Ozzie Fischer of Fort Myers, Fla., caught 13 pounds, 3 ounces for a 25-15 total worth fifth place.
Rounding out the top 10:
6th: Eric Holstman and Sonny Granger, 25-15
7th: Jeff Hagaman and James Goodwin, 25-14
8th: Brandon Naeve and Patrick Mason, 25-10
9th: Timothy McGee and Josh Reager, 24-10
10th: Jay Withers and Michael Manis, 24-8
Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series action in Punta Gorda continues with Saturday’s takeoff, scheduled for 7 a.m. EST at Laishley Park, located at 100 East Retta Esplanade in Punta Gorda. Weigh-ins start at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart store located at 3811 Tamiami Trail in Punta Gorda.