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Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern features a full field, full moon and full tide.

ENGLEWOOD, Fla. – A full field of 150 redfish anglers drifted about under a full moon in Lemon Bay this morning awaiting the official take-off of the third Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern event.

This is the first FLW Redfish Series tournament to reach the maximum capacity of 150 redfish teams since the Series’ inception in March – a sign that redfish fever is gaining momentum.

One of those anglers filling out the field is Sandy Melvin of nearby Boca Grande, Fla.

Melvin, a familiar face on the FLW Tour, just returned from fishing the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship in Hot Springs, Ark.

“I had an opportunity to give the Redfish Series a try so I thought I’d give it a whirl here near home,” he said. “It’s going to be a fun event.”

Melvin is no stranger to redfish in the Charlotte Harbor/Pine Island Sound area. He owns and operates Fishing Unlimited Outfitters – a fishing outfitter and charter business – on Boca Grande Island and has fished these waters for 25 years.

With a full moon creating higher tides than normal, Melvin believes that topwaters and soft plastics fished around the mangroves will be a primary pattern for many teams this week.

“It’s just like fishing flooded bushes for bass,” he said. “Except you can’t get close enough to flip or pitch the mangroves because redfish are too spooky, so you have to stay way back and skip something like a Berkley Gulp! Shrimp on a jighead up under the thick mangrove canopy.”

Melvin says that sometimes you can actually see the fish before skipping a cast to it, but that will likely not be the case this week.

“We’ve had a lot of rain and the water is a dark red tannic color,” he explained. “Combine that with an ultra-high tide during the tournament hours and the fish will be very difficult to see. Some guys might use this high water to their advantage and shimmy way back into skinny water areas to sight-cast, but a lot of teams will be blind fishing the mangroves, trying to skip a bait as far as possible up under the trees.”

The legal slot limit for redfish in Florida is 18 to 27 inches. Any redfish under or over those measurements must be released. Anglers are allowed to keep two redfish per day and the team with the heaviest cumulative weight after two days will win.

The day one weigh-in of the third FLW Redfish Series Eastern begins at 3:00 p.m. at Stump Pass Marina in Englewood, Fla.

Friday’s conditions

Air temperature: 78 degrees.

Forecasted high: 91 degrees.

Forecasted winds: NW 5 to 10 MPH.

Tides: low: 6:57 a.m.; high: 1:50 a.m.

Day’s outlook: sunny in the morning, 40 percent chance of thundershowers this afternoon.