Schurr Thing!

Redfish Tour Winners Ron Schurr and Jim Chalkley

Click - that's the sound of the bar being raised. As I said in previous posts, the big fish bite is on here in Jax and Capt. Ron put up the first over 15lb bag we have seen yesterday in the Redfish Tour's season opener. Everybody who knows Ron is excited for him - he has thrown darts all around the bullseye and finally got a pro tour win and the big paycheck he deserves. Now, he can sell the Banshee and his boat and get the Egret he has been talking about ;). lol

Speaking of Egrets, the one good thing that happened to me and Capt. Jamie Havard yesterday was that my new boat proved to be a great tournament machine - aside from the fact that we only had a barely legal redfish in the well by 3:00. The boat honestly floats a bit shallower than my old HPX, runs 52 with 41 gallons of fuel, and has the backrest and soft ride which allowed us to be comfortable all day long aside from bruised egos.

I had made a prediction that the FLA club would pull 5 of the top 10 places but would miss the win so don't count on me for predictions anymore. In looking at the results, a lot of our club guys that had been on fire came in with zeros. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of zeros and a lot of big weights which is pretty strange - I guess those who found fish that would eat were rewarded.

Our day didn't even yield much of anything. I don't feel bad because JD Nobles and Randy Hartley (who I personally consider the best team in Jax) had similar results fishing similar areas as us. Leading up to the tournament there had been a lot of fish south of Palm Valley and they had been there for a long time. JD commented that he literally had 5 spots that were each holding 2-3 dozen top end fish and he had checked them all during the week. On Saturday, every fish was gone - it was like the redfish rapture of Palm Valley. I can see one or two groups getting pressured from prefishing and moving out, but to have all of his fish and all of our fish suddenly disappear is strange for sure.

From a mental standpoint, it is pretty much a crusher that we couldn't recover from. That's one thing about making a long run - if you get shorted you are hung out to dry without many options for recovery. We ended up coming back and beating the ditch to death and only had one barely legal red and one 14" flatty which were honestly our only two bites for the whole day. To top it off, in a show of bad sportsmanship, I refused to go weigh in our barely legal red and we put it on the trailer. Now, I see that that dink would have gotten us some points so I am kicking myself for being a poor sport. Lesson learned.

I'm still not sure what to make of this bite but it has me spooked because I don't have 15lbs in my float plan - for that matter I don't have 13lbs in my plan. At launch yesterday morning I was talking with Fred Rounsaville who has been bringing in 12 lbs solid for months and he said the same thing - how do we get over the hump? I'm hoping things will return to normal soon and that 12lb bag will be a top 5 instead of a top 20. For my sake, let's hope the next FLA draw tournament does not have a redfish in the bag....