Photo finish

Girle-Harris win Punta Gorda by thin margin

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – If Warren Girle and Billy Harris had a delayed reaction to winning the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern Division event in Punta Gorda, it may have been because they didn’t immediately realize they’d won.

Entering the event in the No. 2 position, Girle and Harris were second to last in the weigh-in order. Having just taken over the lead from Miles Meredith and Ozzie Fischer, they stood nervously behind the scales as day-two leaders Roger Crafton and John Ochs weighed their fish. When the last weight was announced, a dramatic pause from Girle and Harris magnified their eventual elation over knowing that their 41-pound, 5-ounce total had won the $50,000 top prize.

“I was trying to do the math quickly in my head, and it didn’t sink in for a few seconds,” Harris said. “To win one of these is amazing. It’s hard to get your mind around it all.”

Girle hails from Longboat Key, Fla. and Harris from Bradenton, Fla. Both know the Tampa Bay area well, so they made an 80-mile run from Punta Gorda to an area at the south end of the bay known as “The Bulkhead” and into Perico Bay. There they worked Berkley Gulp shrimp and jerk shads and caught their weight fish around 9:30 and 11 a.m.

Girle said their first spot produced an oversized fish and then fizzled. Both agreed that a change was in order, so they moved back toward the shoreline and set up on a series of potholes. With mullet flashing in the sandy depressions, the anglers knew they had a promising spot

“I think everything just fell into place for us,” Harris said. “There are so many things than can go wrong and so many things have to go right. There’s a lot of hard work and a lot of practice, but you also have to have some luck.”

On this day, the winners also needed a healthy dose of endurance. A south-southwest wind grew to 15 to 20 knots and made running open water a miserable chore. “We really took a beating today – it was nasty,” Harris said. “We only had about two hours to fish. The rest of the time we got our brains beat out.”

Tragedy nearly robbed the winners of their prize during the trip back to port. Running the beach in 3-foot seas, Girle and Harris heard a sickening sound and felt their power drop. Fearing they had spun a hub, they went into repair mode with the realization that they might not make it back in time for the weigh-ins.

“We figured `This is it. We’re done,'” Girle recalled. “I told Billy to back us into the beach, I stripped down and jumped into the water to (inspect the damage). Fortunately, it was just a crab-trap rope wrapped around the prop.”

Crafton and Ochs slip to second

After putting together back-to-back limits of 14-plus pounds, Roger Crafton of Boca Grande, Fla., and John Ochs of Englewood, Fla., led the field going into Saturday’s final round. Oddly enough, Crafton said his goal for the day was 12 pounds – the exact number his team needed to win. At day’s end, Crafton and Ochs took second with 41-4 and won $13,582.

“We had a good day overall,” Crafton said. “We caught a lot of fish – not the number we caught yesterday and obviously not quite the size. We caught a lot of snook and trout, so it was a fun day of fishing.”

Sticking to the pattern they had fished for two days, Crafton and Ochs worked Berkley Gulp shrimp over potholes in grass beds south of Punta Gorda. The anglers drifted the shallow flats and used their Power Pole to stop and work promising areas. Slow presentations remained most effective.

“On our primary spot, there were still a lot of fish out there and there were some good fish – we could see them – but they were real spooky today and they didn’t bite very well for the first hour or so. We had a little half hour spurt where we caught them really good.”

Meredith and Fischer improve to third

Fishing familiar waters in the north end of Pine Island Sound, Miles Meredith of Cape Coral, Fla., and Ozzie Fischer of Fort Myers, Fla., passed midday with no redfish in the boat. As Fischer explained, the turning point came when they decided on an alteration rather than a wholesale change.

The anglers had been working mottled bottom (sand and grass patches) in 2 feet of water around a coastal island. When the wind started impeding their performance, Fischer suggested that they simply investigate the island’s opposite shore before relocating. Three quick bites produced a pair of redsweighing 36-6 that moved the fifth-place qualifiers into third overall.

“Instead of running and looking for fish, we decided to try the other side and it paid off,” he said. “I wish we could’ve had a little more time on those fish, but I’m happy we got them.”

Meredith adds: “The wind was a huge factor against us. About 1 o’clock, we were a little bit down in the dumps, but all of a sudden we got on that one bite, and in about 10 minutes we got three fish in the boat. I think the key was having a game plan and sticking to it. We weren’t running all over the place. We spent a lot of time fishing.”

Meredith and Fischer, both southwestern Florida fishing guides, caught their fish on Berkley Gulp shrimp in new penny color and the Gulp sinking minnow in sardine color. The latter provided a much needed catalyst for a strong finish.

“We changed to the sinking minnow late in the day,” Meredith said. “All week, we had been catching fish on the 3-inch Gulp shrimp, but today it didn’t seem to work for us. I’ve had some luck with that bait in the area we were fishing, so we made a change and that’s what they ate.

“We only have about 20 to 30 minutes left to fish and then all of a sudden, boom, boom – there we were.”

Hendrick and Wittman consistent in fourth

Although they surely would have preferred a higher finish, Randy Hendrick of Clearwater, Fla. and Chris Wittman of Fort Myers, Fla., hold the distinction of being the only top-five team to finish in the same spot each day of the event. Their 9-pound, 2-ounce day-three limit brought their total to 35-8.

Hendrick and Wittman fished suspending hard baits and Berkley Gulp shrimp in 5-foot depths at the south end of Pine Island Sound. The area had produced well for them in two days of qualifying, but timing proved their downfall on day three.

“The bite had been getting later and later every day,” Wittman said. “Yesterday, our bite was (approximately) 12:30, but we could be in at 3:45. Today, we had to be in by 2:30 and the tides are all 40 minutes later, so I think the bite just didn’t turn on there.”

Facing a two-hour run back to the check-in point, Hendrick and Wittman found themselves with five minutes of fishing time left and only a 2 1/2-pound redfish in their livewell.

“We rolled over to a spot that we hadn’t fished but it was a good area to power fish. We made three casts and caught our two fish that we weighed.”

Quick start fizzles for fifth place Arsenault and Coffrin

Returning to the same general area of Lemon Bay that they had fished for two days, Sarasota, Fla., anglers Ed Arsenault and Jason Coffrin got on the fish in short order, but fortune soon faded and they ended up with only one legal redfish that capped their three-day total at 33-12.

“Just like the (previous) two days, we pulled in there and on the first two casts we hooked up,” Coffrin said. “Mine was too big, but Ed’s was perfect. We fished until we had to go home and that was it.”

The anglers fished Berkley Gulp shrimp on weedless worm hooks over sandy patches in grass bottom.