BILOXI, Miss. (Nov. 1, 2008) – Team M&Ms anglers Dwayne Eschete of Mandeville, La., and Blake Pizzolato of Montgomery, Texas, caught a three-day total of six redfish weighing 57 pounds, 5 ounces to win the Walmart FLW® Redfish Series Championship in Biloxi, Miss. Their top prize of $75,000 included a $25,000 Yamaha bonus.
“I feel so overjoyed,” said Eschete, who has won more than $110,000 in FLW Redfish Series events. “Ranger, Yamaha, FLW – if it wasn’t for these guys, none of this would even be possible.”
“We were in five- to six-foot waves out there today,” Eschete said. “It took us three hours to get 125 miles one way in the rough water. And we ran 48 miles per hour across that water. Our body parts will hurt tomorrow, but it was worth it today.”
“We didn’t have anything else and we knew we had to go,” Pizzolato added. “We knew to have any chance in the world we would have to take a beating three days in a row. It was worth it.”
Eschete said the team fished all three days in the waters of South Pass near Venice, La. Eschete said the team used Mango Ripple-colored Berkley 4-inch Gulp! Shrimp under a cork with a ¼-ounce jighead to target redfish that were cruising for mullet in 2 feet of water on a sandbar.
“We just staked off and waited for the fish to pass,” Eschete said.
Eschete said the team caught 15 fish in the 19 minutes they fished on the final day of competition.
“The first day we got out there and struggled a little bit,” Eschete said. “But we caught good weight. Then the second day we caught good fish and left, and we just hoped the third day would be better.”
Eschete and Pizzolato opened the tournament with two fish weighing 17-08 Thursday. They added another two fish weighing 18-03 Friday, which broke the record for a single-day catch in an FLW Redfish Series event – 18 pounds, 1 ounce – which was then broken by Team Berkley anglers John Henninger of Jacksonville, Fla., and John Eggers of Jacksonville Beach, Fla. Henninger and Eggers’ two fish weighed 19 pounds, 4 ounces. On the final day of competition, Eschete and Pizzolato smashed that record again with two redfish weighing 21-10 and capped off the championship win.
Rounding out the top five teams are Robby Weyel of Comfort, Texas, and Brian Talley of Houston, Texas (six redfish, 51 pounds, 6 ounces, $14,000); Henninger and Eggers (six redfish, 50 pounds, 9 ounces, $10,700); Charlie Thomason of Covington, La., and Britt Ordes of Slidell, La. (six redfish, 50 pounds, 5 ounces, $4,600) and Shawn Walker of Crystal River, Fla., and Fred Walker of Ocala, Fla. (six redfish, 46 pounds, 6 ounces, $6,600).
Teams caught 10 redfish Saturday weighing 83 pounds, 1 ounce.
The Walmart FLW Redfish Series Championship was 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 – competed Thursday and Friday, and the top five teams, based on heaviest combined weight, advanced to Saturday’s final round. The winning team was determined Saturday based on the heaviest three-day accumulated weight.
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.