Friday, February 23, 2007
 

Photo: Brad Brown Team Moonlite had exactly one keeper snook bite on day 2 – and it pulled off.

Team Moonlite Charters, captained by Capt. Brad Brown, stopped for fresh bait on the morning of day 1, during what they believed was a race for their number one spot. Did it hurt them? Short answer: no.

None of the three to five boats they thought were planning to fish the same spot were there when they arrived on their main spot – a community hole – at Estero Bay.

"We thought, Okay, we're fine, we're first," Brown said. "We set up and started fishing it, and weren't there 5 minutes when we saw one of the other competitors come around the corner. They saw us, turned and went to fish some other docks."

That's what Team Moonlite was fishing too: docks. They were pitching their fresh-caught pilchards under there and catching exactly what they came for, namely snook and reds.

"The redfish bite was pretty strong," Brown said. "We were catching reds pretty consistently. We weren't catching a lot of snook, and what we were catching was kind of small." Still, they managed to boat a keeper snook and had plenty of reds to choose from.

Nonetheless, with more weight out there, they continued to fish. They concentrated on one dock in particular. "We pretty much stayed there just trying to cull," he said. "We caught a red that was easily over 6 pounds, real close to the top of the slot, and a lot of reds over the slot. That's usually what happens in that area," he noted. "Most of the (reds) are too big."

"Staying there" is what professional freshwater bass pros often do. In tournaments, bass pros often "fish" a spot all day. Since good spots are hard to come by, after a fisherman gets his limit, he'll stick around to make sure no one else comes in and burns it out. That's pretty much what Team Moonlite did. They fished the same stretch of water over and over, throughout all tide phases. They were guarding their spot, but also didn't want to burn it out. "We were just taking our time," Brown said. "We had two keepers in the boat by 10:00.

"It's an hour ride back, but we didn't have to be back until 3:00. We planned to fish until 1:00, then have a slow ride back. We didn't want to beat our fish up."

They ended up with 15 pounds even on day 1: a 9.15-pound snook, and a 5.85-pound red. They figured that weight would be good enough to make the Top 5, and it was. They ended up 3rd, which meant they got to fish with four other teams on day 2 – and everyone started that day at zero.

But they definitely noticed that the Top 5 weight spread was 17.30 to 14.55 pounds – meaning their weight was closer to the lower end of that range. "We certainly had room for improvement," Brown said. "On the other hand, we didn't fish (their spot that hard)."

Day 2: Similar Thing, Different Day

> Day 2: 6.35-pound red + 7.65-pound snook = 14.00 pounds

Day 2 was largely similar in terms of the conditions. "The weather started out a little rough, but the front had pretty much passed through, and we didn't have the rain and wind coming out of the east," Brown said. Team Moonlite's plan also was similar: They wanted to secure bait, and then get down to their spot and fish it.

This time, however, they didn't have to worry about someone else beating them there. "We knew what teams made it into the Top 5, so we were a little more relaxed about getting there first," he noted. "We were more concerned about having good bait.

"We did the same thing: We stopped, got some more pinfish, a little bit of whitebait, went to the penned-up bait that we had left over, filled up our wells, and went right back to the same area that got us 15 pounds the first day."

Their goal was to get as much weight as possible, the goal being around 17 pounds.

"We raced there – time is money, so you want as much time as possible – got to the dock area we were fishing, set up, tossed some baits in there and it didn't take long at all. Our first fish of the day was a nice red, about a 5-pounder, and the second fish was another red, that 6.35-pounder.

"So we had an over-6-pounder in the boat, and were trying to get at least a 10-pound snook," he said. "We were catching snook, but everything was small. Nothing would measure."

The Big One

Then he sees teammate Jason Dudley toss a pinfish under a dock. The rod tip moves, and Dudley sets the hook and leans into the fish. It looks like a good one. "He gets four or five good cranks on the fish coming back to the boat, and the hook pulls," Brown said.

The pinfish was still on the hook, and as Dudley reeled it back in "we both see a big slot snook following that bait back to the boat," Brown said. "I'm already reaching for the landing net when he stops reeling and the fish takes it."

Dudley sets the hook again, gets two cranks of the reel – and the hook pulls out again. But he pulled the fish close enough to the surface of the water that Brown already had the net under it – and got it. That was their only keeper snook bite of the day.

"We continued to keep working (the docks) and probably caught another dozen snook with at least another half-dozen break-offs," Brown said. "But they were all 24, 25, 26 inches. We weren't getting that 10-pounder we were looking for."

They fished that area for another couple hours, then tried another spot back in a river. "We proceeded to catch goliath grouper, but no keeper snook," he said. So they went back to the docks and worked that area some more, but still couldn't upgrade.

"We were pretty much out of time, and I said, 'Well fellas, we did the best we can. Let's get back on time and see what happens.' We figured we had about 14 pounds in the boat."

> On being a quick net-man: "I had the net in the water because when you're fishing docks, there's a lot of pilings, oysters and barnacles, and you have to turn the fish and get them out of there fast. You have to yank the fish out of there and pull it up to the boat. If the net man isn't ready, you'll lose the fish."

Won't Cut It?

Brown said: "At that point we're thinking 14 pounds won't cut it because that wouldn't even get you in the Top 5 the first day. We were pretty bummed. We figured we'd do okay – not be last, but we weren't thinking 1st place."

They got to check-in a little early, and none of the other boats were there. "That's always a good sign because if nobody's back yet, they're probably fishing all the way to the end, trying to do the best they can," he noted. "When we saw that, our hopes were up a little higher. But then a couple minutes later another boat pulls up, and 5 minutes after that here comes another boat."

But now it's getting close to the cut-off time. "There's only 3 or 4 minutes left and there's only three of us at the dock," he said. A minute later the fourth boat came in, and then they found that the fifth boat broke down and wouldn't make it back to the weigh-in. So their odds of winning got a little better.

Condensed version of the weigh-in: One team didn't have a redfish, and one didn't have a snook. That left just one other team: Scott Bryant, Randy Williams and Steve Rotolo of Team Shallow Minded, which had both species for 11.60 pounds total. So on a day when Brown and his team thought they needed 17 pounds, their 14 pounds was good enough by more than 2 pounds.

Turned out the other teams were affected by the weather change. The wind changed, the temperature changed and it went from cloudy skies to bluebird skies on the afternoon of day 2.

'Great'

Winning "was great," Brown said. "We'd made the championship the year before and came in 4th. We'd had a mediocre season – consistent, but no Top 5s. So it was nice to finally top it all off, put a win under our belt and solidify the team."

Dudley said: "It felt really good. We were there last year, so it felt good to finally win that event and come home with the trophy." (Editor's note: Carlson didn't return a phone call seeking comment for this article.)

About his team, Brown said: "We work together well and will continue to work together well. We proved to each other that if we do that, we can succeed.

"I appreciate the hard work they do. It's definitely not all me. Those guys are good fishermen, they're real dedicated and truly love the sport."

Notable

> They won a 17-foot Hughes Tailfisher with a 60-hp Yamaha 4-stroke on a custom Tropic trailer, valued at $25,000.

> Dudley said his share of the winnings is "sitting in the savings account. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet."

> Brown noted: "It's easier to fish docks on the slower part of the tide, when the current's not so strong. The bait stays in the strike zone a lot longer. On the other hand, the fishing slows down a little because the fish aren't as active. So you just work with it."

- End of part 2 (of 3) -