How a Palmetto team won big at Rough Rider fishing tourney during tropical weather

When Palmetto resident Jason Woodman prepared for last weekend’s 27th Annual Rough Rider Andy Brown Memorial Fishing Tournament, he had a feeling bait would be tough to get.

As a result, he brought along three boxes of frozen threadfin to prepare for that scenario.

“With that storm in the Gulf, we knew it was going to be rough,” Woodman said. “I told the guys I wanted to fish the sunrise bite. If it was tough with dead bait, we could go to catch live bait after that, but luckily we never even needed to do that.”

The tournament had simple rules: Six fish with their own category with a catch and release format. The largest of each snook, mackerel, snapper, trout, redfish and grouper would win or place.

Two divisions, a guided and non-guided, had between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. to fish. Woodman, along with teammates Tom George, Jesse Albritton and Jeff Albritton, would compete in the non-guided division.

“We were running in the bay around 5 a.m. and it was rough. I knew we couldn’t get to the Skyway for bait,” recalled Woodman. “The spot I wanted to fish had four foot waves at it, so instead we went around the corner to some protected water. I figured the fish also didn’t like the rough water so hoped they’d be eating with the stormy weather around.”

Woodman told his team he felt the fishing would be good. The development of what would become Tropical Storm Alex on Florida’s peninsula, and dropping pressure, timed with the fishing day.

“We started fishing in the dark, and at first light it was good. The first fish we got was a 32-inch redfish on a dead threadfin. I was going to move us a bit but then we got another bite, a 41-inch snook. It was before 7 a.m., and we already had two big fish I didn’t think we’d be able to upgrade!”

From there, the team’s goal was to fill out the other four categories. Moving to a nearby bridge, Woodman pulled a 13-inch mangrove snapper off the structure, checking off their third category.

Running back into the bay they ended up catching a 24-inch trout on a topwater lure fishing grass flats. The last two fish, mackerel and grouper, meant fishing in rough water was probably required.

“It was four-footers in the bay, but we fished some shallow structure and had a few big break offs on grouper,” said Woodman.

“Eventually, one of the baits that was out for a while was eaten and the fish pulled me into the structure. I finessed it for a while and eventually worked it out, a 28-inch grouper!”

Only needing a mackerel for all divisions covered they tried all options, but came up empty handed.

In only 10 hours of fishing time with no live bait, the team would take victory in snook, redfish, trout and grouper divisions out of the 29 boats.

Their snapper would lose by only an inch, but still take second place.