Red hot Culpeppers

Team Berkley members Jonathan, Kris Culpepper win Wal-Mart Redfish Western tournament title at Port Aransas going away

PORT ARANSAS, Texas – Fans of the FLW Redfish Series couldn’t be faulted for having high expectations heading into today’s weigh-in. With all five team finalists separated by less than 1 pound, 13 ounces, it was largely assumed that Saturday’s final weigh-in would be steeped in high drama. However, brothers Jon and Kris Culpepper made quick work of that assumption.

In fact, Team Berkley turned the much-anticipated weigh-in into nothing more than a long coronation for the best redfish angling team of the moment, using a total three-day catch of 41 pounds, 12 ounces to outdistance the nearest competitors by almost 6 full pounds.

In short, the Culpeppers took the rest of the field to school – both literally and figuratively.

“It’s nice when something finally comes together the way you planned it,” Jon Culpepper said. “We prefished for four straight days and stayed with the same school of fish the entire time. We watched them every day. We watched how they reacted to the tides, and we watched how they reacted to boat traffic. We really did our homework this tournament.”

By the time the final weigh-in had concluded, there was no doubting which team was head of the class. Not only did the Culpeppers avoid the nasty winds and difficult conditions that sank the chances of the rest of the competition by running a full 70 miles south of Conn Brown Harbor, but they also carefully weighed the odds of such a long run and computed that, ultimately, it was a no-brainer. In short, their gamble gave them the best chance to win, and they took it.

“It’s usually a gamble when you make long runs like that,” said Kris Culpepper, who estimated that their total travel time on the water surpassed four full hours, leaving them with a little over three hours to fish. “But we just felt that this was, in some ways, a gamble-free decision, just because there were so many fish in that area.

“We were on schools that had anywhere from five to 200 fish, so we felt pretty confident we could do well there,” Kris Culpepper continued. “And we wound up having a great day. We probably caught around 40 fish total. They weren’t huge, most were in the 6 1/2-pound range, but we knew that consistency would be very important today.”

Although they were pleased with their efforts, they still weren’t sure they had enough weight to vault atop the leaderboard as they returned to weigh-in on the third and final day of competition.

“We didn’t know for sure, but once we started heading back in, the wind really picked up, and we could see that some of the (other teams) probably got caught up in that storm. At that point we started feeling a little more confident, and we knew we had a real shot,” Jon Culpepper said. “And then, once the weigh-in started and we began seeing the weights come across the stage, we had a good idea we could win this.”

And win the tournament they did. For their efforts, the Culpeppers walked away with $37,500 in prize money and moved up to sixth place overall in the FLW Redfish Series Western Division standings.

As for their winning strategy, the Culpeppers said that they employed a 4-inch white Berkley Gulp bait with a 3/8-ounce jighead and 50-pound Spiderwire line, and that they targeted redfish in 1 to 3 feet of water near banks and transition zones – the point where the water has a slight break before dropping off into deeper depths.

So what is it like to win the biggest tournament of their redfishing careers?

“It feels great,” said Jon Culpepper, who announced to the crowd that the money would certainly come in handy, given the fact that he has a new baby on the way. “We’ve been working at this for a long time. And finally we came up with a plan that worked to perfection all three days.”

White-Walker rebound

While they didn’t win a tournament title, the team of Cory Walker and Jason White did manage to come away with a hard-fought second-place finish, a check for $9,400 and the knowledge that nobody else vaulted farther up he leaderboard on the final day of competition.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Jason White, whose team turned in a three-day catch of 36 pounds, 1 ounce. “We thought we were having a horrible day. But it appears that everyone else had a bad day as well. We broke off two fish, so we’re disappointed by that. But we tried our best. Overall, it was definitely a good tournament for us.”

Father-son team comes up short

Day-two leaders Danny and Grant Coppin were hoping they could pull off their very first victory in their rookie season. But in the end, they came up just a little short. However, their three-day catch of 34 pounds, 14 ounces was still good enough for third place as well as a check for $6,400.

“Our confidence is still good,” Danny Coppin said. “We did lose some really nice fish today, and that hurt. But we’re really happy to have made the finals.”

Best of the rest

Team Folgers, consisting of Tommy Ramzinsky of Fulton, Texas, and Todd Adams of Rockport, Texas, finished in fourth place overall with a total catch of 33 pounds, 5 ounces. Although their finish was good enough to earn them first place overall in the Western Division standings, they said their biggest adversary in today’s competition was the weather – the bane of most of the angling teams in the finals.

“It was terrible out there. It was brutal,” Ramzinsky said. “We pulled up to our spot today and only managed to make about 10 casts before some huge gusts came in from the north. The wind blew for two solid hours, so we left for a small creek to the north. We fished there for another two and a half hours and only caught one fish.”

From there, Team Folgers headed to its final spot of the day that yielded three keepers, but by then, it was too late.

“With the way the conditions were today, we’re happy to catch what we caught,” said Ramzinsky, whose team ultimately finished with $5,400 in prize money.

Rounding out the top five teams was another father-son duo, Jay Watkins Sr. and Jay Watkins Jr., both of Rockport, Texas. Although they failed to land a keeper in the finals, they did manage a respectable three-day catch of 27 pounds, 7 ounces to finish with $4,100 in prize money.

The next Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Western Division event is scheduled to take place June 15-17 at Cocodrie, La.