SARASOTA, Fla. – Captain Jeff Hagaman of Tampa and James Goodwin of Palm Harbor caught a two-day total of four redfish weighing 29 pounds, 3 ounces and won $25,000 plus the $12,500 Yamaha Bonus for a grand total of $37,500 in the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern Division event in Sarasota. Hagaman and Goodwin bested 125 teams to win the two-day event.
“I’m still shaking,” said Hagaman, who, along with Goodwin, led day one of the tournament. “We made the same run, and went to the same school of fish. We ended up keeping a two-fish limit and culling several more. The two we kept were 26 1/2 inches long.”
Hagaman said the team caught around 20 total redfish today along a grassy drop-off on Berkley Jerk Shads in new-penny color. “It was a great day. There was a low tide starting out, and the tide just got lower,” Hagaman said. “But our spot was a low-tide place, so that worked out well. The wind started blowing really hard out of the northwest this morning, so we figured that would hurt the bite for other anglers. We were done fishing by 10 this morning.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Warren Girle of Longboat Key and Billey Harris of Bradenton (four redfish, 26 pounds, 8 ounces, $9,000 plus $1,000 for the Genmar and $1,000 for the Yamaha Bonus awards); Ray Van Horn and Craig Richardson, both of Tarpon Springs (four redfish, 26 pounds, 4 ounces, $4,625 plus $1,000 for the Genmar bonus award); Wayne Fuller of New Smyrna Beach and Dennis Cox of Edgewater (four redfish, 26 pounds, 4 ounces, $3,625 plus $1,000 for the Genmar and $1,000 for the Yamaha Bonuses); and Geoffery Page and Ed Zyak, both of Venice (four redfish, 26 pounds, 3 ounces, 3,250 plus $1,000 for the Yamaha Bonus).
FLW Redfish Series qualifying tournaments are two-day events. The entire field competes Friday and Saturday, and the winning team is determined Saturday based on the heaviest two-day accumulated weight.
The next FLW Redfish Series Eastern Division event will be held April 29 in Mayport.
The FLW Redfish Series consists of two divisions – East and West. Each division is comprised of four events with a $200,000 purse for each event. The top 100 teams – 50 from each division after four qualifying events – will qualify for the three-day, no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Championship to be held in Mobile, Ala., Oct. 27-29. The championship winner will take home as much as $100,000.
Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and seven other national tournament circuits offering a combined $30 million in awards through 214 events in 2005. The 27-year-old organization is the purveyor of America’s largest and most prestigious fishing tournaments, including the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, EverStart Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series.
For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, call (270) 252-1000.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as title sponsor of the FLW Tour in 1997 and today is the title sponsor of all FLW Outdoors events. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.