Florida Lure Anglers/IFA Redfish Tour Tourney

Greg Suki and Brad Safreed with 14.80 lbs

Last weekend was the first of two redfish tournaments the Florida Lure Anglers will do in partnership with the IFA Redfish Tour. It is a lures only pro-style format which is open to anglers who are members of both the Club and the Tour.

Man, was it cold - low 30's I think. Forecast was worse than that and a few teams called weak and decided to sleep in figuring that the bite would be off. Those fair weather guys always make me laugh because my experience is that the worse the weather, the better the tournament. All of the weekenders are off the water and all of the community holes are wide open for the picking.

So, this tournament pretty much lived up to that axiom - even when the Redfish Cup comes to town you won't see weights like the FLA posted up on Saturday. There were 11 sacks over 12lbs and it took 14.80 to win. Several 7lb fish came in which is rare these days with a 27" pinched tail measurement standard.

Much respect to Greg Suki and Brad Safreed for claiming the win. I had the pleasure of fishing with Suki for a season on the Rick's Redfish Series and he's got loads of skill. Anybody who has followed the game locally also knows the Safreed name from the top of many leaderboards. One thing for sure is that these guys are riverboat gamblers who always shoot for the big bag - hero or zero style. Glad it paid off for them this time.

Jamie and I started out the morning right with a 6.94 slottie that ate a Slayer jig with a Gulp jerkbait - the fish was backing in spit but Jamie was able to pole me within range and a good cast equalled an aggressive strike. Then, our first disaster of the day struck when Jamie had a similar sized fish on that made 2 runs and came unbuckled. He got a "mini-redeemer" 4 pounder soon thereafter that probably got a broken jaw from the hookset. lol

Several hours passed with 6 pounders swimming all around the boat in the gin clear water but they were not interested in any of our offerings. Late in the day disaster #2 came when I started throwing a Slayer inline spinnerbait over some flooded shells. Somehow I forgot the sight fishing "rule #1" that you need to feel the fish before you set the hook as a nice top end red came chasing the spinner snapping his jaws like a pit bull. I saw him eat (I think...lol) and went for the hookset which resulted in me pulling the bait right away from him.

So, on a day when you only get 5-6 bites you had better make them all count. I don't think either of the lost opportunities would have beaten Safreed/Suki but we would have brought home a check for sure.

You may want to keep an eye on Joey Scaff and Gary Hall who are coming on strong in the FLA lately. They rolled in with 14.18 which should pretty much win any redfish tournament in the state of Florida but it wasn't their day. Joey told me in the parking lot that their dues paying from the last couple of years is coming to fruition - which is a great testament to what the Club has to offer. I have said it before and will repeat it now, any of our actively participating teams could easily go out on any of the "pro" redfish tours and be competitive because they have fished much more difficult formats in the Florida Lure Anglers monthly tournaments. I will touch more on that in future blogs.