Florida Lure Anglers Championship Recap

Club Championship Victors Bill Lamb and Terry Sturgeon Display Their First Day's Winning Limit


Florida Lure Anglers Championship Recap
Familiar Names Ascend to Top of Leaderboard
By Bob Morris

July 9-10, 2011
Jacksonville, Florida

The Florida Lure Anglers fishing club wrapped up its 8th season over the weekend where the top teams competed in a challenging two day inshore tournament. When the dust settled, club president Terry Sturgeon and partner Bill Lamb had bested the field to claim the Club Championship title.

FLA members fished monthly tournaments from September to June where redfish, trout, and flounder were targeted in a variety of different formats using only artificial lures in a “catch and release” format. To qualify for the Championship, which was capped at 30 boats, a team must have finished in the “top 20” in the Team of the Year point race or earned one of the final ten spots through a one-day qualifying tournament. When the field was set, the diversity of the FLA was shown as the makeup of teams included fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, families, and all lady angler pairings.

The format for both competition days was a “North Florida Slam” consisting of one legal sized redfish, trout, and flounder. To add to the challenge, contestants arrived at the checkout armed with only rods, reels, and line – all lures would be provided by club sponsors MirrOlure and Marsh Works. Not only would teams have to perform one of the most difficult feats inshore fishing has to offer by catching a slam but they would have to do so with no previous knowledge of the lure selection or colors for the day.

Saturday morning offered calm conditions and cloudy skies at the launch where teams were provided a MirrOlure tackle pack which would cover the water column. Topwater plugs included a Top Dog and MirrOmullet, a MirrOdine XL and MirrOdine were shallow running suspending baits, L29 lipped divers probed to depths of 5 feet, and the classic TT sinking twitch baits were effective 8-10 feet deep. Six ABT jig heads were tendered with one package of MirrOlure Lil’ John soft plastics to bump the bottom – which was a relief to the deep water flounder fishermen. Of course, it would end up being a challenge to see how many baits they would end up with at day’s end – one of the facets of this format that teams either love or hate depending on their normal strategy and type of structure they target.

Terry Sturgeon and Bill Lamb began the day in Mill Cove targeting areas they felt the opportunity to catch any of the three species was possible and ended up connecting with the largest trout caught by any team using the Top Dog surface walker. A move toward downtown yielded a flounder using the Lil’ John soft plastic jerkbait – “We were happy to have two in the livewell!” said Lamb. “We had a long time to catch a red so we ran north toward Nassau Sound and worked a school of 20-30 fish.” After finding these fish were unwilling to take a lure they relocated to a nearby spot and completed their slam with a nice keeper redfish that fell to the Lil’ John.

The winning aggregate weight for day 1 was 10.92 pounds, Brad and Noel Perry claimed second place with 9.40 including the day’s largest redfish, and Bryan McGowan and Ron Schurr took third with a weight of 8.18 pounds. To keep things interesting, the Club set up the format where there was a payout on Saturday, a separate payout for Sunday, and then a bonus for the overall champion.

On day two, things became more challenging for some and easier for others as the tackle packs from Marsh Works were unveiled at the launch. Many club members have confidence in soft plastic baits and Marsh Works didn’t disappoint when they provided a great color pallet in their Ripple Shad jerkbait and Bayou Thumper paddletail. Anxiety rose, however, when anglers found they only had three Bull Red and three Shorty jig heads to use for the day – a factor that certainly made fishing around heavy structure a gamble.

Fred Rounsaville and Patrick Galloway earned their way into the Championship via a high finish in the qualifying tournament and finished the first day’s competition with a nice redfish and flounder but were unable to land a keeper trout. They did locate some fish, however, and carried forth that knowledge which was a key to their winning limit on Sunday. “We just didn’t get a trout on Saturday but returned to the same spots in Mill Cove today and were on a better bite. We knew where to fish and ended up catching around 10 flounder, 5 reds, and 8 trout using pretty much all of the lures they gave us,” said Rounsaville. Their slam weighed in at 8.62 pounds and was followed by Allen Flowers with 7.44 pounds and Carl Hardy and Jeff Holland with 7.34 pounds.

Unfortunately, not getting a limit on Saturday took Rounsaville and Galloway out of the running for the Championship title which was reserved for Bill Lamb and Terry Sturgeon for the second year in a row after they managed a fifth place finish to back up their win on Saturday. Terry remarked, “We basically followed the same plan but were a little worried because we didn’t have a topwater bait for the trout. But, by 7:00 we had our only flounder for the day and a keeper trout so we could spend some time on the red. We ended up getting about 15 reds and 12 trout and found that the chartreuse colored baits were working best.” When asked how it felt to be repeat champions Terry said, “We feel pretty lucky but being in the FLA naturally make us better anglers – there are so many good teams and the competition is so high that we really get trained during the year for opportunities like these. I was joking with Bill that we should start leaving our tackle boxes at home and just bringing a few new lures because it seems to make us really focus on the fish which seems to be the key.”

With the Club’s competition season completed, the last event of the year will be the awards banquet held at the St. Augustine Rod and Gun Club on July 30, 2011 and then the 2011-2012 season will kick off in August. For more information on the Florida Lure Anglers, check their website www.flafishingclub.com.