Triple Challenge Tournament History

Click picture to enlarge these results

I started this blog with the intent to do some historical analysis of the organized inshore saltwater tournament activity in our region and until somebody tells me differently it started with the Triple Challenges back in 1996.

Grady Warren developed this idea around some of the Keys flyfishing tournaments where they targeted the "Keys Slam" of permit, bonefish, and tarpon. Since we don't have those kinds of fish in Jacksonville, he looked toward which species locally could be considered "striking fish" that could be caught on lures and that turned into redfish, trout, and flounder. Since catching all three species on any given day can be difficult to say the least, the name became the Triple Challenge.

The format was pretty simple - go out and catch all three fish to compete for the slam payout or pick an individual species and try to win money on that fish. The rules were pretty relaxed and aside from the '07 VIP tournament anglers could use live bait or artificial lures. These tournaments were designed to be focused on family fun but they ended up being very competitive and spawned a whole legion of Jacksonville fishermen who went on to bigger and better things when professional level redfishing evolved.

In 1996 I personally wasn't doing much more than putting around the Tolomato River in my jonboat so I don't have anything on the inaugural Triple Challenge but I do know that my good buddy Frank Gregg aka The Mayor of Chicopit won the tournament with a nice slam. Knowing Frank, I can guess he fished Chicopit Bay, Mt. Pleasant Creek, and Sherman's Creek using live shrimp and float rigs to win the event.

1997 marked the arrival of the Jacksonville Jaguars in town and Grady formed an alliance with them to create the Jacksonville Jaguars Triple Challenge which I'm pretty sure drew the most anglers of any Triple Challenge event with 173 boats entered. A guy named Souriya Khadphachan pulled in an 11.23 lb flounder to win and was never heard from again. If you check the results by clicking on the photo above you will see some familiar names in there.

Thursday before the event was a VIP challenge that was artificial lures only - I thought that Mike Phillips had won that tournament but if he did it was as Raymond McCauley's teammate. Also, note the nice redfish weights in the days before the pinched tail measurement.

In 1998 the tournaments started running in fall and spring but between JD Nobles and myself we could only scrape up about half of the results in our archives. Thanks again JD for letting me use your portfolio when putting this together. If you check the results you can see a few guys who were always cashing a check - some of whom are still hardcore tournament anglers today.

Sadly, with the birth of the IFA Redfish Tour, Grady lost interest in running our local Triple Challenges in 2002 and they have been missed. Fortunately, with the development of the Anglers for a Cure, the Clay Roberts Memorial, and the Young Life tournaments there are still some 3 fish tournaments available but none have quite captured the magic of the original Triple Challenges.