I did not know it could get so cold in Florida. Here we were just a few hundred miles from sunny Key West and we looked out the window of the hotel room to notice frost and winds of 25-30 miles an hour. As the alarm clock still blared at 5:00 AM, the temptation was to just turn it off and go back to sleep. In fact, let’s just go home!

We weren’t there to have fun, this was pure business and we had a lot of work to do. I stepped outside and felt the biting wind and thought how it would feel on the water driving 30 miles an hour into that bitter wind. I started with Patagonia Capeline tops and bottoms, then a Patagonia Fleece Bib Farmer John, then Fleece pants, a windproof Oakley vest, a down vest and a Torentshell Patagonia rain coat.

On the water, I was still cold. It stayed like that all week and I felt as though I barely brought enough clothes.

Rich and I traveled the entire area and our new tournament ready Maverick Mirage HPX Tunnel with a Yamaha $stroke 60 hp engine proved to be the best tool that we could hope for. The 60 4 stroke allowed us to run well over 100 miles on 12 gallons of gas as we acquainted ourselves with the unfamiliar area.

Rich had lots of ideas on where we might find fish due to his homework on the charts of the area. We proceeded to check everything and then check it all again. Each day of prefishing was spent prospecting for new spots and eliminating spots that held fish too small, too big or difficult to find consistently.
We used our Quantum Blue Runner series rods (7 foot 8-17 pound) with Catalyst 40 and 30 Pti reels loaded with Berkley 10 pound Fireline and a Sufix Fluorocarbon leader to make long casts and cover the new waters. After filming a show with Shaw Grigsby recently, I learned of Strike Kings new 3X series of soft plastics and used them almost exclusively. Our Oakley polarized eyewear also proved to be invaluable as we spent most of our time trying to duplicate our sightfishing conditions in the Keys.

By Tournament day, Rich and I had our strategy together. We would concentrate on sightfishing for big single fish that we had located and stay there until we caught the ones we needed.

By 10:00am the clouds rolled in and spoiled our plans. At 1:00 pm we did not have a fish in the livewell. Due to Rich’s non stop exploring all week, we had other options and finished the day off with a school of smaller fish that allowed us to catch a 4.35 pound and a 6.59 redfish to stand in 19th place.

The morning of the 2nd day was clear and we agreed that we would go right to a school of fish that we could get 2 fish right away. Of course, these fish did not cooperate and forced us to go through the line up of spots. We did not or could not find a few schools, some spots had boats already fishing them and others simply did not work. At 10:00 am I caught a small 5-pound fish that made us feel much better. With the clear skies, Rich and I both agreed that we should be sight casting those big fish to the north and we left the more predictable areas to try for the larger fish.

Thankfully, the clouds stayed away and we were able to land a 6.3 and an 8.25 to elevate our placement from 19th to second and give us the biggest fish of the tournament. The Redfish Tour awarded us $8500 for 2nd and an additional $1000 for largest fish.

Team Maverick is comprised of Rich and I, Rick Murphy and Geoffrey Page, Andrew Bostick and Mark Miller, and Ron and Chris Heuston. At the conclusion of day two, Team Maverick/Yamaha had 3 of the 4 teams in the top 5 out of 124 boats and all teams in the top 15.

It was a pleasure to fish among the incredible competition that this tournament provides. The other competitors were courteous, professional and all extremely talented. Rich and I look forward to a great year with this Tour and would like to thank our incredible sponsors once again. Thank you to OAKLEY, QUANTUM, MAVERICK BOATS, and YAMAHA. We could not even participate in these events without their help.