LAFITTE, La. (Sept. 8, 2006) – Blair Wiggins of Cocoa, Fla., and Tadd Vandermark of Key Largo, Fla. caught a four-redfish total weighing 32 pounds, 4 ounces to lead day two of the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Western Division event in Lafitte presented by Evinrude, where teams are competing for a top award of as much as $50,000 cash.
Fishing a Ranger 2200 bay boat with an Evinrude 250 E-Tech outboard, the leaders ran south of Lafitte, and fished near Venice. They targeted deep water in a pass linking the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. With depths ranging from four to 16 feet, the spot was a redfish paradise.
“We just found some extremely clear water with some grass and a lot of baitfish,” Vandermark said. “If you get too far out in the Gulf, the water gets too dirty, so we stayed in the area with clear water because we’re sight fishermen.
“We were blind casting a lot into the deeper water, but when we’d hook a redfish several others would come up with him. The clear water allowed us to see the fish, so we’d just try to pick the biggest one and cast to it. The guy who wasn’t hooked up had two jobs to do, he had to net the (other guy’s) fish and he had to have a rod ready to cast at the other fish that came up with him.”
Vandermark and Wiggins boated their heaviest redfish later in the day, as a group of larger fish moved into the area. “About 1 p.m., here they came and it was on,” he said. “For about 30 minutes, it was total chaos.”
The leaders caught approximately 30 redfish Friday. A sinking DOA Baitbuster in the mullet pattern and a DOA C.A.L. jig with a purple and chartreuse tail fooled their top two fish.
Having spent the previous two and a half weeks in Southern Louisiana, Vandermark said his prefishing and observations from another recent tournament told him his team had found the right spot. They got the weight they needed to reach the final round without overworking the fish.
“We decided not to beat on them too bad today because they were coming in droves and if they keep doing that tomorrow, we have a really good chance at winning,” Vandermark said. “We got here because of this spot and we’re not leaving it.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Ray Chagnard and Edward Adams, both of Metairie, La. (four redfish, 31 pounds, 7 ounces); Mike Patterson and Brett Phillips, both of Rockport, Texas (four redfish, 30 pounds, 12 ounces); Todd Adams of Rockport, Texas, and Tommy Ramzinsky of Fulton, Texas (four redfish, 30 pounds, 11 ounces); and John McGill of Slidell, La., and Andy Mnichowski of Marrero, La. (four redfish, 30 pounds, 9 ounces).
Teams caught 204 redfish Friday weighing 1,269 pounds, 5 ounces.
FLW Redfish Series qualifying tournaments are three-day events. The entire field competes Thursday and Friday, and the top five teams, based on heaviest combined weight, advance to Saturday’s final round. The winning team is determined Saturday based on the heaviest three-day accumulated weight.
Boats will launch from Lafitte Harbor Marina Saturday at 6:30 a.m., and the final weigh-in will be held at the Marrero Wal-Mart located at 4810 Lapalco Blvd. beginning at 3 p.m.
The FLW Redfish Series consists of two divisions – Eastern and Western. 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 Pensacola, Fla., Oct. 19-21. 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 Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Abu Garcia, Stratos Owners’ Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series. These circuits offer combined purses exceeding $37.9 million through 249 events in 2006.
For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, visit FLWOutdoors.com or 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 world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.