Two familiar faces were missing from this morning's final day launch. Mike and Michael Frenette, leaders after Day One, failed to weigh in a fish yesterday, dropping them from the top five and therefore eliminating them from title contention.
What could have prompted such a dramatic turn of events, when the two were seemingly on a solid school of fish? The answer is nothing more than bad luck. The father/son duo returned to the same spot they fished the day before only to find dramatically changed conditions and fish that weren't biting. And just when things couldn't get any worse, one of Port Arthur's ever-present oil tankers passed by their spot, sucking water from the area and creating reported three-feet waves that threatened to capsize them.
The team persevered however, and did manage to pull in one fish they estimated at about eight pounds. But by then it was literally too late. They returned to the weigh-in site eight minutes past the cutoff time and were therefore penalized - you guessed it - eight pounds. With one fish in the well and nothing to show for a hard luck day on the water, the pair was forced to call it quits.
But the consequences from their tough weekend extend far beyond fishing on Sunday. Going into the event the Frenettes stood in 13th place in the race to qualify for the Championship. Their results here will drop them out of contention in the Western Division, where you must be in the top 15 to fish in Pensacola.
But all is not lost. There is still one event to go in the East, where they currently stand in 17th place. If they can do well in St. Augustine they might still have a shot at making the 30-team field for the Championship.
Undercover Fishing
"There's a fine line between moving redfish and spooking them," noted Tim Young in explaining how he and his teammate Jason Catchings caught their winning redfish in the Louisiana marshes. With the fish sunning themselves near the surface in the marsh grasses, the anglers could catch them easily with soft plastics or spoons, but there were plenty of redfish down in the darker lake water the two pros couldn't see.
"It was a case of very slow use of the trolling motor to simply make the fish move," continued Young, "because when they did swim away they usually came up and we could get them with a spoon. If we spooked a fish, it fled in a hurry and we couldn't catch it."
'Til the Whistle Blows
"We fished every second of every minute, all day long," is how Blaien Friermood described the difficult final day he and Robert Scherer had Sunday in the Port Arthur Redfish Cup. The two anglers had finished the first two days with a total of four redfish weighing 31.14 pounds, leading all 76 teams, but they only caught one red weighing 4.25 pounds the last day.
"The wind really hurt us," noted Scherer. "We had concentrated on fishing slicks and surface feeding activity, and we just couldn't see anything with the rough water and whitecaps."
Early, But Not Often
Between 7 a.m. and 7:33 a.m., David Christian and Charlie Paradoski caught four redfish, including two keepers over 20 inches long, as well as a speckled trout. That was basically as long as their action lasted. Christian caught one additional redfish at 10:10 a.m. but released it because it was too small. The rest of their day was spent casting topwater lures in Lighthouse Cove where they had fished all week, and searching for schooling fish in Sabine Lake. To top off their tough day, at 1:30 p.m. they checked their two keepers and discovered the larger one had died. With their penalty assessed, their weight for the day was 7.73 pounds.
Every Trick in the Book
Charlie and Jack Barton returned Sunday to the school of fish in the Calcasieu marsh that they'd found the previous day but those fish did not bite, despite seeing every lure in the brothers' tackle boxes.
"Then we went to another nearby spot and those fish did bite," laughed Jack, "but not the right ones. We only caught small ones (they weighed in 11.77 pounds), whereas the day before we caught six fish over the 28-inch size limit.
"The first day we caught 100 redfish from one area, and on day two those fish didn't bite at all so we went to another spot and caught our limit. Today those fish didn't bite, and we had to try still another different area. I'm glad the tournament is over because we'd run out of areas pretty soon, I'm afraid."
Better Late Than Never
"I think the key is to never stop looking," Keith Hartsell explained to the weigh-in crowd the final afternoon of the Port Arthur Redfish Cup where he and his father John finished second with 13.06 pounds. "We had been fishing schools of redfish in the middle of Sabine Lake when they came to the surface feeding on shrimp.
"Today with the wind and waves we couldn't see any activity at all but we never stopped looking. Finally, with just 30 minutes of fishing time remaining before we had to check in, we found them. We had a quick double hook-up on keeper fish, and that was basically our day."