PORT ARANSAS, Texas – Tadd VanDemark, of Key Largo, Fla., and Kevin Shaw, of Corpus Cristi, Texas, caught a two-redfish limit weighing 16 pounds, 4 ounces to lead day one of the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Western Division event in Port Aransas presented by Evinrude, where teams are competing for a top award of as much as $50,000 cash.
Fishing in warm conditions with unseasonably calm winds, the leaders ran about 50 miles south of Port Aransas to the Lower Laguna Madre. They decided to forego traditional shallow water patterns in favor of deeper areas with three to five feet of water. VanDemark said that targeting undisturbed redfish proved productive.
“Everyone has a tendency to jump out of the Intracoastal Waterway and run right across the flats,” he said. “That scares the fish, so we elected to stay away from all the traffic and so far it’s worked out.
“We’re just finding fish that are moving up through deep troughs and feeding on local crustacean forage.”
The anglers worked 1/8- and ¼-ounce DOA C.A.L. jigs dipped in Lunker Sauce fish attractant. Silver mullet and sand colors worked best. They caught approximately 10 redfish with their heaviest coming at 8 a.m. and 12:15.
“We caught fish most of the day,” VanDemark said. “When we got to our spot, we caught one right off the bat and then we had a lot of boat traffic around us. When the bite slowed down, we decided to pull up and try another area, but that didn’t work out.
“I told Kevin `Let’s go back to our first spot.” So we went back, pulled up to the same spot and on the first cast, we hooked up maybe 50 feet from where we caught our first (weight fish). We’ve been marking all of our fish on the GPS.”
VanDemark said intense practice fishing has provided valuable insight into the Laguna Madre fishery. “We’ve worked very hard for the past two weeks to find out what these fish would eat. We’ve gone through a lot of lures and we finally came up with something that they like.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Travis Holeman and Peter Young, both of Luling, La. (two redfish, 15 pounds, 5 ounces); Kurt Koliba, of Port Lavaca, Texas, and Michael Shimek, of Bay City, Texas (two redfish, 15 pounds, 3 ounces); Brett Caron and Bart Caron, both of Corpus Christi, Texas (two redfish, 15 pounds); and Jeff Clarkson, of Austin, Texas, and Fred Lynch, of Corpus Christi, Texas (two redfish, 14 pounds, 15 ounces).
Teams caught 133 redfish Thursday weighing 730 pounds, 1 ounce. All were released alive.
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.
Boats will launch from Port Aransas City Marina each morning at 6:30 a.m. Friday’s weigh-in will be held at Port Aransas City Marina beginning at 3 p.m. The final weigh-in will be held Saturday at the Wal-Mart store located at 2501 West Wheeler in Aransas Pass, Texas, beginning at 4 p.m.
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 241 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.