Bradenton team wins historic 4th Crosthwait fishing tourney in a row. See all winners

When it began in 1983, the Crosthwait Memorial Fishing Tournament was established as one of the most competitive fishing tournaments of the time.

The format rewards consistency and variety, with big fish needed to bring in big points. Winners came from all backgrounds, but good teams always seemed to remain near the top.

As the format has changed and shifted, allowing for more divisions and more winners, the most competitive have remained the Offshore Unlimited and the Inshore. But both saw the crowning of familiar champions for 2022.

Three-time defending champion Capt. T.J. Stewart and team FL Fishing/Richardson Stinton Roofing powered by Skeeter were always going to be the inshore team to beat. But this year he wasn’t as prepared going into the tournament.

“I’ve been doing the tarpon thing down in Boca,” the Bradenton-based captain said. “There were no expectations, I was looking forward to going fishing with my buddies. Some of them went and scouted a little, but that stuff all changes. We just wanted to go and try to catch big fish, something I don’t always get to do with customers.”

Stewart and his teammates James Kitchens, Steve Cucci, Chris Cucci, Vinny DeCarbo and Joe Medred took off north when the shotgun blasted Saturday morning.

“We ran past the Gandy. We were fortunate enough to get a decent snook and big snook within the first two hours,” Stewart explained, with the first of their two 42-inch snook on the board. “From there it was tough. We fished everywhere, trying for big redfish but couldn’t get anything going.

“There were no tarpon for a wildcard, so I said lets go get trout to at least have four fishing going into the night. We got a 20 and 21-inch, which were decent but nothing great.”

Needing six fish to fill out their catch, they went back to redfishing. Fishing a pass Stewart finally hooked a big one.

“The water was so clean I went down to real light tackle. It took a while, and after a few jacks I finally hook into a big redfish. When it was close we had a good look at it, it was a 36- to 38-inch fish and then a dolphin came and grabbed it! We started backing down and taking waves over the back of the boat trying to get the fish up and that dolphin ended up taking the redfish right off the line, I was pissed.”

Overcoming adversity, the team hooked a smaller red to get their first on the board at 31 inches. As night set in, they ended up in southern Sarasota Bay, where a dock gave them what they wanted, a 36-inch redfish. Fishing through the night they got second at 35-inches around 3 a.m.

Their final upgrades came in the morning, when a 25- and 24-inch trout gave them a solid six fish total of 420 points that would better team The Marin Mae and captain Ryan Denton by 10 points for the victory and $10,000.

The victory was their fourth Crosthwait in a row, an extension of a historic streak.

Third place in the inshore division went to Signzoo-Suncoast Fishing Charters with 384 points.

The offshore division also crowned a champion for the fourth time, as team Seaveeche used a consistent catch to bring home the crown.

“We started a little differently for us with the way the points were switched up,” explained team captain Brian Beukema, who’s team previously won in 2008, 2011 and 2013. “We started shallower knowing what red grouper and other grouper species were worth and then kind of bounced our way out from there.”

After leaving following a Friday afternoon captains meeting, offshore teams are given two nights of fishing time before the Sunday weigh-in. With good weather, the team pushed deep Friday night to target one of the most difficult catches in the Gulf, swordfish.

“It was a productive night. We got a keeper-sized swordfish in the boat, which was amazing. We reset the drift then hooked into another one and fought it for 90 minutes — it was a big fish. It came to the surface three times then sounded. Unfortunately on that last run it must have gotten wrapped up because when it broke all we had was Power Pro left.”

They went back to bottom fishing early Saturday morning, which was also Beukema’s 48th birthday.

“We came back inside to about 200-300 feet. We were able to get just the right sized warsaw grouper, a Kitty Mitchell and some other nice fish. We had to bounce around a lot but made it work. Later Saturday, we were running along and saw birds and bait so started trolling. We could see tuna busting and every pass we got fish, eventually getting the right-sized ones.”

With the warsaw just over 70 pounds, a 20-pound Kitty Mitchell and a 30- and 32-pound blackfin tuna to go with their swordfish, they bounced around through Sunday morning looking to upgrade one more fish. Eventually they settled with a 16-pound red grouper, replacing their other options of 60-pound amberjack, mutton snapper and black grouper.

Their total of 522 points would bring home their fourth title, beating team PPT Florida’s second place 465 and Bad Habit’s tie with team Big Game at 422 points.

Winnings of $10,000 would help their fuel bill after they left with 570 gallons and returned with 10 to spare!

The junior division title would go to team Sweet N Salty W/Lil Dirty and captain Cooper Duquette and teammates “Lil Grass” Turner, Derrick Taylor and Aiden Boquin with 246 points.

With 242 points, second place went to team Poon Shiesty captained by T.J. Stewart’s son, Jackson Stewart.

The offshore limited division title went to team Wake N Bait with 327 points while team Nauti Flags took second with 304.

And with the catch of the tournament team Heintz Law put up a whopping 717 points in the spearfishing division. Their catch of an 86- and 87-pound black grouper went along with a pair of African pompano, an amberjack and a hogfish.