How a Bradenton angler caught the winning 5-spot redfish at Sarasota tournament
At the tail of many fish lies a black spot, meant to act as a false eye for predators who look to attack their prey head first.
This evolution can vary on fish, leading a few to having more by chance.
On local waters, redfish have one of the most pronounced spots at their tail along the lateral line. The vast majority have one on each side, but the occasional fish with multiple spots can appear.
And thus began a unique format of fishing tournaments where anglers search for not the biggest or longest redfish, but the one with the most spots. Meaning one lucky fish could win it, but of course catching more would increase the odds.
“We had never done a fishing tournament before, so that seemed like a good one to start with being a more laid back and fun format,” said angler Garrett Iker, who resides in Bradenton.
“We had been talking about it so decided to go out a week before the tournament and see if we could find any. We bought bait, and the bait guy told us an area people had been catching them. We looked around and found a load of fish!”
Their scouting trip was successful. Fishing for four hours, Iker and his friend caught redfish after redfish.
“We left because we got tired of it! I never thought I’d say that or have it happen. Seven days later, we went back for the tournament and sure enough the fish were still there, it was pretty awesome.” The scouting trip also produced a redfish that had seven spots on a side.
With the fishing time starting at 7:30 for the late October tournament day, it didn’t take long before Iker and his twin brother Matthew caught fish non stop with teammates Garrett Houge and Dylan Dean.
They were fishing in 15 feet of water in Tampa Bay, drifting live baits down with a split shot a foot above the hook. Most redfish came up with one spot on each side, until a unique one caught their eye.
“One came up and gave a tail splash and we could see there were two extra spots on the tail. To that point, everything else had one. When we got it in the boat we realized it had two more spots so we were excited for that!”
The team got a picture of their five spotted redfish, which was just over 30 inches, and let it go to live another day. That would be their submission at tournament’s end. After catching and releasing a total of 39 redfish they headed for the weigh in.
There they would find out they not only had the redfish with the most spots winning $2,500, but their three biggest redfish calcutta of 85.75-inches would take home first place as well for another $1,500.
Taking home the snook calcutta was team Pure Flats with a three fish total of 97 inches, while team Starfish Co. would win the trout calcutta at 62 inches.
The Sarasota Redfish Spot Tournament was also able to raise more than $40,000 for the Gator Wilderness Boys Camp School.