Outdoors Column | New fishing tournament is good for the competitive spirit
With fewer fishing tournaments occurring in 2020 anglers have been chomping at the bit to get their competitive juices flowing. May’s Crosthwait Memorial was canceled and the June Fire Charity Fishing Tournament was pushed back into August.
But last weekend was a new yearly tradition that went off without a hitch. Organizers Art Shiver, Lee Blenker, and Ricky and Dea Gullet never considered canceling the Big Art Memorial Fishing Tournament for the year, despite the potential lack of funding to host the event.
“I thought it would be a bad time to ask people for money or sponsorship, but that didn’t matter as probably 15 people or more made a cash or monetary sponsorship!” Shiver said.
“I like the competitiveness among everyone whether you’re full time charter captain or just an avid snook fisherman ready to compete with the best of the best!”
Heading into the tournament the best of the best is considered to be one captain’s team. Captain TJ Stewart is the one to beat with his consistent ability to put together a great catch in just about every format of tournament. For this tournament, the rules were simply to catch the biggest four snook and video release them.
“So many of the other tournaments require those other fish,” Stewart explained. “When you’re snook fishing and the bite is slow you can go after others. But in this that isn’t an option. When the snook weren’t biting I was kind of down and out for most of this thing.”
Stewart and team Richardson-Stinton Roofing powered by Skeeter spent nearly the entire tournament without a snook worth measuring. After leaving the captains’ meeting Friday night, teams were sent off to fish until Saturday afternoon.
Their first spot was covered in 10 anglers wading in the water making fishing difficult, so they went to plan B. It seemed to be better but a pulled hook left them still empty handed. Plan C resulted in them hooking around three tarpon as bycatch.
Stewart fished all around Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island into the early Saturday morning hours before running up to Clearwater in-spite of the poor weather. There they would catch a first snook around 32-inches, but Stewart was still down.
“The tide was so slack we had nothing going on. We couldn’t even get bait at Ft. DeSoto Pier or the Skyway. Finally we got some bait on the flats when chumming. I decided to head back down to Sarasota where I had seen some fish, but the water down there hasn’t been very appealing.”
They arrived at 8:30 a.n. and started fishing. Soon a big fish finally came tight on the line. The tense Stewart netted a 42-inch linesider, a sign that things might be turning around. Thirty minutes later a second big fish was hooked, this one at 39 inches.
Sliding down the bar they were fishing would pay for one last opportunity in the form of a double header of huge snook.
“At 9:30 we hooked two fish, one 43 inches and the other 41 inches,” Stewart recalled. “Once we got those in the boat I thought it still wasn’t going to be good enough. A lot of people went south and there’s been some good fish down there with a lot of big fish around. I didn’t think everyone would struggle. That was some of the toughest fishing I’ve ever had in a tournament.”
The Saturday afternoon weigh in would spread stories of teams that also struggled to find and hook any fish. Stewart’s team would hold on to win with 165 inches total, narrowly beating team Mermaid Vodka’s 161 inches. Team Long Shark would place third with 152 inches.
The Junior Division title would be claimed by team Wreck ‘em with 144 inches (39, 38, 34 and 33-inch snook), while the Ladies Division would go to team Lady Xterminator at 110 inches (39, 26, 23 and 22-inch snook).