Young Bradenton-area anglers win Manatee tournament with 4 giant snook

As one of the youngest fishing teams participating in adult divisions, Shrimpin Ain’t Easy have quickly become one to look for on the leaderboard.

“We’ve fished three tournaments this summer. The Crosthwait, Fire Charity and Big Arts. We made the leaderboard for the Crosthwait, ninth place, and got first in the Fire Charity amateurs division,” said Klae Hochstetler, captain of Team Shrimpin Ain’t Easy.

“Every tournament we do lots of pre-fishing, but we’ve only been a team for one year, so we are still learning more and more,” he added.

Hochstetler, 20, fishes with friends Aiden Behringer, Baden Wallace, Ryan Pawalski, Ethan Cuahante and Harrison Molesky. The teammates went to school between Manatee High and Braden River.

Held the last weekend of June, the Big Art Memorial Fishing Tournament is a unique challenge for local anglers. Most tournaments require teams to target a variety of species with combinations adding up to bigger points or total inches.

But the Big Art is focused on big, and small, snook. Paying out $7,300 for the largest snook and $200 for the smallest, as well as first place teams in Men’s, Women’s and Junior’s divisions with four fish combined totals.

Hochstetler was confident in his team’s snook-catching abilities.

“I personally like fishing for strictly snook because that’s my specialty in fishing. I felt the most confident in this tournament compared to the rest,” Hochstetler explained.

“Our game plan was to get to our spot first with a well full of bait and catch our fish during the night,” he added.

After leaving the Friday captains meeting, Shrimpin Ain’t Easy put their plan in action. As nighttime set in, they knew they were on big fish. Slowly but surely, they pulled in nearly a dozen big snook.

“The fishing was honestly not crazy good, but we just made our bites count. We caught 10 fish over 36 inches, and our biggest four submitted were 40, 40, 40 and 41 inches.”

Specializing in nighttime fishing, the team rested a bit during the day when morning came. While happy with their catch, Hochstetler wasn’t sure how they would finish. The tiebreakers for this tournament were the first team to weigh in, which played into their decisions near the end of fishing time.

“I knew we had amazing competition,” Hochstetler said. “I was not 100% positive we would win with what we had, so we decided to go to the weigh-in early to be one of the first people to submit our fish, and it turns out that was very smart.”

Posting their 161-inch total for their four biggest snook put them immediately at the top of the leaderboard. Not long after, another team, Craft Plumbing, posted the same 161 inches. After all boats were weighed in, their total claimed first place via the first to weigh in tiebreaker and the $6,075 prize for winning the Men’s division.

“We did it!” Hochstetler happily exclaimed. “Arguably one of, if not the hardest, tournament to win in Manatee County.”

The largest snook, 43 inches, was also won with a tiebreaker by Team Richardson Stinton Roofing. The smallest snook, needing no tiebreakers, was won by Team Gill Grippers.

The Women’s Division was won by Team Mother Fishers with the largest women’s snook going to Team V. Partner Solutions.

The Juniors division was won by FL Fishing Fleet with the largest junior’s snook going to Poon Shiestys.