FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. (June 2, 2007) – Daniel Benson, of Brandon, Fla., and Steven Howie, of Saint Cloud, Fla., caught a five-redfish total weighing 30 pounds, 10 ounces to win the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern Division event in Fernandina Beach. The top prize of $50,000 included a $12,500 Ranger bonus and a $12,500 Yamaha bonus.
“We’d been so close to the top five so many times, to finally get a top-five finish is great,” said Benson, who, along with Howie, ended the year in fifth place in the Land O’ Lakes FLW Series Eastern Team of the Year standings. “And to win it makes it that much better.”
Benson and Howie started their second day of competition by running to Jacksonville in search of fish on a topwater bite. After that tactic proved unfruitful, they ran back to Fernandina Beach and caught 10 fish on a Pearl Shad Berkley Gulp! Jerk Shad. The team planned to duplicate their strategy on the final day of competition, but instead started the day in Fernandina Beach.
“We fished our first spot in Fernandina and caught the only fish we weighed in there on a five-inch Blue Pepper Neon Berkley Gulp! Jerk Shad,” Benson said. “We made the run to Jacksonville, but the weather didn’t cooperate for us there.”
Benson said wind gusts of 30 to 35 miles per hour and driving rain made fishing almost impossible.
“We had the trolling motor on high, and the wind was just pushing us right through our spot on the west side of the shoreline into the bank,” Benson said.
Benson said he’ll savor the win until his next FLW Series Redfish event – the championship at Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 18-20.
“We’ve got some time off until the championship,” Benson said. “It’s so far away for us, we’ll only make one trip down there to prefish, and that’s the week before the tournament.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Jason Swensson, of Key Largo, Fla., and Troy Mell of Islamorada, Fla. (six redfish, 30 pounds, 2 ounces, $8,108); David Walker, of Sevierville, Tenn., and Jeff Simms, of Punta Gorda, Fla. (five redfish, 29 pounds, 8 ounces, $5,198); Al Keller and Bill Faulkner, both of Naples, Fla. (four redfish, 24 pounds, 5 ounces, $3,842) and Scott Guthrie, of Jacksonville, Fla., and Rick Murphy, of Homestead, Fla. (four redfish, 23 pounds, 5 ounces, $3,486).
Three teams caught four redfish Saturday weighing 18 pounds, 4 ounces.
Guthrie and Murphy’s fifth-place finish at the Fernandina Beach event tied them for the lead in the final standings of the Land O’ Lakes FLW Series Eastern Team of the Year race with Cody Chivas of Belleair, Fla., and Kyle Chivas of Belleair Bluffs, Fla. Both teams ended the season with 540 points.
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. 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 Walmart.com.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.