CLEARWATER, Fla. (Feb. 24, 2007) – John Henninger, of Jacksonville, Fla., and John Eggers, of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., caught a six-redfish total weighing 37 pounds, 1 ounce to win the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern Division event in Clearwater, Fla. The top prize of $50,000 included a $12,500 Ranger bonus and a $12,500 Yamaha bonus.
“This is the most unbelievable feeling I think I’ve ever had,” said Eggers, who has been fishing redfish tournaments for about eight years. “I’ve won before, but nothing of this magnitude. This is just great.”
Henninger and Eggers made a 65-mile one-way run to Sarasota to fish they had located. As if a rough run wasn’t enough, the team found their day was going to get much more interesting once they arrived.
“We finally got down there and the trolling motor didn’t work,” Eggers said. “We hoped we weren’t jinxed for the day. My partner was push-poling the boat around all day and was just shot. Things didn’t seem like they were working out for us, but it turned out great.”
Although Henninger caught both keepers, the team caught 10 fish throughout the day. The pair fished four-inch Berkley Gulp! Molting Shrimp to boat their fish.
“We knew where they were staging in this little spot between two sandbars,” Eggers said. “They were just sitting in there with the mullet. We backed way off of them and made really long casts because they were really spooky.”
Henninger and Eggers had a tough first day of competition and weighed only nine pounds, seven ounces.
“We thought, `There’s no way we can come back from a small stringer like this,'” Eggers said.
However, on the second day, the team hooked into two fish over 7 pounds in the first 10 minutes of fishing. They finished the day with 14 pounds, 6 ounces for a two-day total of 23 pounds, 13 ounces. They stood in fourth place – more than four pounds behind the leaders.
“Everything just came together for us,” Eggers said. “It looked bad, but we had another big stringer today.”
The team leading after the second day of competition, Bo Johnson, of Cape Coral, Fla., and Richard Hudec, of Naples, Fla., gambled again on the final day of competition and made another long run of 120 miles to Pine Island, but their strategy didn’t pay off. Johnson and Hudec did not make it back in time to weigh-in and had to settle for a fourth-place showing.
Rounding out the top five teams are Cody and Kyle Chivas, both of Belleair Bluff, Fla. (six redfish, 34 pounds, $8,744 plus a $1,000 Yamaha bonus); Troy and Jill Sapp, both of Odessa, Fla. (five redfish, 31 pounds, 7 ounces, $3,934); Johnson and Hudec (four redfish, 27 pounds, 15 ounces, $3,496 plus a $1,000 Evinrude bonus) and Ken and Jeff Mullett, both of Sarasota, Fla. (four redfish, 26 pounds, 5 ounces, $3,058 plus a $1,000 Yamaha bonus).
The teams caught five redfish Saturday weighing 30 pounds, 1 ounce. The total number of fish caught during the tournament was 224 for a total weight of 1,037 pounds, 11 ounces.
Qualifying tournaments in the $1.9 million Wal-Mart Redfish Series – the most lucrative redfish tournament trail in the world – are three-day events. Up to 150 teams compete 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.
The FLW Redfish Series consists of two divisions – Eastern and Western. Each division is comprised of four qualifying 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 Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 18-20. 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, Ranger Owners Tournament Championship Series, 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 of nearly $43 million through 238 events in 2007.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most-respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 1997 and today is the world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information about Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.