BILOXI, Miss. (Oct. 31, 2008) – Team Berkley anglers John Henninger of Jacksonville, Fla., and John Eggers of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., weighed two redfish weighing 19 pounds, 4 ounces Friday to take the lead in the Walmart FLW® Redfish Series Championship in Biloxi, Miss., with a two-day total of four redfish weighing 35 pounds, 11 ounces.
“We couldn’t get to Venice today, so we made a stop about a quarter of the way there,” Eggers said. “We had never fished there before, but we had heard people were catching fish there. We knew we couldn’t make our run, so we gave it a shot.”
Henninger and Eggers hold the lead after their second day’s weight was the tiebreaker over the second-place team, Team M&Ms anglers Dwayne Eschete of Mandeville, La., and Blake Pizzolato of Montgomery, Texas, who also had a two-day total of four redfish weighing 35 pounds, 11 ounces. Eschete and Pizzolato’s Day 2 weight was 18 pounds, 3 ounces.
Henninger and Eggers’ Day 2 weight as well as Eschete and Pizzolato’s Day 2 weight both broke the previous record for a single-day catch in an FLW Redfish Series event. The previous record was 18 pounds, 1 ounce.
Henninger said he and Eggers culled through about 20 fish to get their two weigh fish. The team fished open-water islands where the sandy bottom came up shallow. Henninger spotted the fish for Eggers, and Eggers threw a Berkley Gulp! Shrimp to cruising redfish. Eggers caught both of the large fish they weighed and said the larger fish seemed to be just cruising and looking for bait.
“We didn’t even have to really get close to them,” Henninger said. “If you got to within five yards of them and they saw (the bait) hit, they’d come running for it.”
Both Eggers and Henninger agreed on their plans for the final day of competition.
“We’re running straight to where we had 19 pounds,” Henninger said. “We had a lot more time to fish there. We had four more hours to fish there than we did yesterday.”
Rounding out the top five teams who will advance to the final round are Eschete and Pizzolato (four redfish, 35 pounds, 11 ounces); Day 1 leaders Charlie Thomason of Covington, La., and Britt Ordes of Slidell, La. (four redfish, 34 pounds, 8 ounces); Robby Weyel of Comfort, Texas, and Brian Talley of Houston, Texas (four redfish, 34 pounds, 7 ounces) and Shawn Walker of Crystal River, Fla., and Fred Walker of Ocala, Fla. (four redfish, 32 pounds, 9 ounces).
The Walmart FLW Redfish Series Championship is a three-day event. Up to 100 teams – the top 50 from the Western Division and top 50 from the Eastern Division after four qualifying tournaments in each division – 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 Walmart FLW Redfish Series Championship winner will take home as much as $100,000.
Boats will launch from the Isle of Capri, located at 151 Beach Blvd. in Biloxi, Saturday morning at 7:15. The final weigh-in will be held Saturday at the Walmart store located at 3615 Sangani Blvd. in D’Iberville, Miss., beginning at 4 p.m.
Tournament anglers aren’t the only ones winning big this season. With the introduction of FLW Fantasy Fishing™, FLW Outdoors® offered anyone the opportunity to enter for their chance to land the catch of a lifetime with the opportunity to win $7.3 million in cash and prizes. Players could become a virtual pro angler by signing up for Player’s Advantage, which provided them with exclusive insider information that could have guided them to a $100,000 victory at every Walmart FLW Tour® stop and the Forrest Wood Cup. Player’s Advantage gave them an edge over the competition and increased their shot for the $1 million cash grand prize awarded to the FLW Fantasy Fishing cumulative points winner. Visit FantasyFishing.com today to find out more information and to register for next season.
Coverage of the FLW Redfish Championship will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States as part of the “FLW Outdoors” television program airing Jan. 4, 2009. “FLW Outdoors” is also broadcast in Canada on WFN (World Fishing Network) and to more than 429 million households in the United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East through a distribution agreement with Matchroom Sport, making it the most widely distributed fishing program in the world. The program airs Sunday mornings at 11 Eastern time in most markets. Check local listings for times in your area.
FLW Outdoors, named after Forrest L. Wood, the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, is the largest fishing tournament organization in the world. In 2008 alone the organization is offering more than 90,000 anglers the chance to win over $40 million through 230 tournaments in 10 circuits. FLW Outdoors also took fishing mainstream with the largest cash awards in the history of fantasy sports, $7.3 million.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000. For more information about FLW Fantasy Fishing and Player’s Advantage, visit FantasyFishing.com.