Hughes, Laramy have best luck during opener
Two Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Championship berths on the line today in Redfish Nation Series Championship finaleORANGE BEACH -- The anglers in the Redfish Nation Series Championship this weekend at The Wharf realize luck has a lot to do with the outcome, which will send two teams to the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Championship in October.
It may not necessarily be the number of fish you catch -- if you catch two that is -- it's the size. The teams in the championship are allowed to weigh in two redfish between 16 and 26 inches (Alabama's slot limit). Of course, there are skinny 26-inchers and fat 16-inchers. The magic is in finding two fat fish near that magic 26 inches.
On the first day of the championship, the fat ones were hard to find for most of the teams.
However, Scott Hughes of Punta Gorda, Fla., and partner Mike Laramy of Tampa were blessed with success to take the opening round lead at 11.33 pounds.
"We got lucky and stuck a couple of good ones," Hughes said. "We could just have easily had seven pounds instead of 11.
"The bite was sporadic. We mainly fished docks in the Intracoastal (Waterway). We had done most of practicing around Pensacola. We were headed that way, but never got there. When we caught these two, we didn't go any farther east."
Laramy said they did try going west one day during practice.
"We ran over to Dauphin Island, but we didn't find enough to make it worth taking that beating to go over there again," Laramy said. "We just made a lot of casts to catch seven or eight fish. And (Saturday) was better than any day we had in practice. We had to work hard for what we got."
In the championship format, one team from the Eastern Division and one from the Western Division will advance to the Cup championship Oct. 5-7 at Morehead City, N.C.
Leading the way in the Western Division, and also second overall, is Brandon Jenewein and Mike Condit, both from Bay City, Texas.