Outdoors Column | Success in fishing tournaments is not just about luck
To be as successful as Capt. TJ Stewart has been fishing inshore tournaments, it’s not just luck. Stewart’s team continued their reign as the anglers consistently at the top for redfish, snook, and trout slam tournaments with another victory at last weekend’s Suncoast Saltwater Shootout from Whiskey Joe’s in the Manatee River.
“It went OK,” said Stewart, whose expectations are high when tournament fishing. “I hadn’t been fishing for big fish at all on charters, so we were just kind of going with it. At one point we were past Big Pass and close to Venice before ending up all the way across the bay around St. Pete and Clearwater. You kind of just have to go try stuff, we burn a lot of gas and weren’t just sitting there waiting for a bite.”
After Friday evening’s captains meeting anglers took off fishing. Stewart and teammates Joe Medred, Chis Cucci, Vinny Decarbo and James Kitchen with team Richardson Stinton Roofing powered by Skeeter Boats started fishing for snook. They were able to get a 39-inch linesider early in the fishing hours before switching their target to redfish, which Stewart thought would be the most difficult of the three slam species needed.
“We had hopes of catching big redfish at night and making it a lot easier for ourselves but that didn’t work,” he said. “We fished passes, docks, everywhere. I knew weather was coming so wanted to get one early but it didn’t happen. We kept catching snook or jacks we thought were redfish. We also had some trout around 22-inches at night, so I was happy with that.”
Around 4 a,m, the weather turned for the worse. Winds picked up to about 30 miles per hour and made fishing difficult. To regroup, they showered off and waited for sunrise to start fishing again.
“After getting bait the wind died as the sun came up. It was pretty crazy. It let us run across the bay where I saw a school of redfish while looking for bait a couple weeks ago. We got there and I found a school of fish that all looked 25-27 inches and said let’s give it a shot.”
The redfish started to eat and the team would get a fish every few minutes. They slowly upgraded, getting one at 30 inches. Staying with it they would eventually end up with a bigger red coming into the boat.
“It was a big, long fish,” Stewart described. “It was like it didn’t fit in with the fish we were catching, and I was happy with that! For me I would have a better shot at upgrading a 39-inch snook than a big redfish, I was pumped.”
The redfish, at 37 inches, gave his team the ability to move on and focus on upgrades.
“We went trout fishing around a deep grass edge and caught a lot from 23 to 25 inches. I haven’t been trout fishing at all so was great to see that many big ones out there.”
With a big trout and redfish secured, Stewart went back to trying again for a 40-inch snook before the afternoon weigh in. The wind picked up again ahead of afternoon storms and the fishing slowed leaving them with the 39-inch snook, 37-inch redfish and 25-inch trout for a 101-inch slam total. That would best 2nd place team Double Bounty and captain Peter Smith by 10 inches. 3rd place went to captain Billy Alstrom and Suncoast Fishing Charters.
Up next Stewart and team Richardson Stinton Roofing will be heading to the Crosthwait Memorial Fishing tournament, May 14-16, for the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown.
“My teammates really carried my weight in this one and caught most of the fish, so I’ve got to give them a lot of credit.” Stewart said. “Winning the first one I got to hope we can do decent in the Crosthwait. I like doing this tournament stuff, it’s different from what I get to do when running charters and I enjoy it.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2021 at 6:00 AM.