Tampa Bay fishermen continue historic tournament-winning streak. Here’s how they won
Team Richardson Stinton Roofing powered by Skeeter Boats has had the most successful run in tournament fishing history along the West Coast of Florida.
After the first leg of this year’s Manasota Flooring Triple Crown series, they sit where they’ve been since the yearly event’s inception, at the top. Having won the Suncoast Saltwater Shootout once before in 2021, they looked to regain that spot again last weekend in the shortest tournament of the Triple Crown, starting 7 p.m. Friday and ending at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“We’re still having so much fun. We’ve been fishing together since we were kids. We still love that part,” said team captain for the event, Joe Medred.
“Just being older we don’t have as much time to prefish anymore, with family activities going on with all of us. But we get along so well at tournament time. We make decisions as a team and vote on everything we do. It never goes how we want it to. We have spots A through D and don’t look back and regret what we could have done differently.”
When normal team captain TJ Stewart had to step out early Saturday morning following the Friday evening start, the team wasn’t in the best position. Chris Cucci also had obligations, leaving Medred with teammates Steve Cucci and Vinny DeCarbo for the remainder of the tournament.
“We had one decent bite from after the start of the tournament until the sun rose on Saturday,” Medred described. “We started fishing Friday night after the captain’s meeting and were excited to get a good outgoing tide. But the fish just weren’t biting.”
The one fish they had was a good one — a 40-inch snook, but they needed two more to fill out the required three-fish slam, which combined the biggest single snook, redfish and trout in inches.
“We regrouped Saturday morning and said let’s go catch some fish. We got bait at the bridge and went to a trout flat and waded along. We slowly worked our way up from a 22-inch to a 23- and then finally a 25-inch trout.
“We started to walk back to the boat to try to figure out what we’re going to do next. It was foggy in the morning and I looked over and saw what I think is a big red tail. I couldn’t believe it. It then came up again, so I ran over and threw a bait on it!” Medred said excitedly.
While talking about where the next move would be to find redfish, their target showed up in front of them. The small school appeared where they had never seen any before, and before he knew it Medred would round out the team slam with a monster 36-inch redfish for 101 inches total, a new tournament record, and a first-place prize of $3,000.
It would top the 22 competitors and beat second place ($2,000) Prime Environmental Landscaping’s 96 inches and team Godzilla ($1,000) with 93 inches.
“At some point, we know it will come to an end as we all seem to have more responsibilities. But for now, we’re just having so much fun, and that’s the hard part about wanting to stop. We’re always looking for an excuse to go fishing, and it might be time to be done after this year. We’ve all got sons and we’re excited watching them fish,” said Medred.
Next up for the team, they will look to defend their Crosthwait Memorial Fishing Tournament win from 2022, 2021 and 2019 with only the COVID-19 cancellation year in 2020 keeping them from another potential title.
The 2023 Crosthwait will be held Friday May, 19, through Sunday, May 21. For more information and to register visit the Crosthwait Memorial Fishing Tournament page on Facebook.
