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Redfish Cup
Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup All Star
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(Nov. 04, 2006 - Orange Beach, AL)... The teams in the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup All Star event in Orange Beach, Ala., have spent the last two days battling not only the other elite teams, but Mother Nature as well.
It was 40 degrees when the anglers took of from The Wharf in Orange Beach on Friday morning, and high winds made it feel much colder. And as usual, high wind meant high waves, which can make what should be a nice afternoon of fishing, seem like a nightmare. But as brothers Greg and Keith Hartsell know, nothing makes you forget about bad weather like a nice heavy bag of fish.
The Hartsell brothers made the perilous run to Louisiana water to try and find bigger fish and it paid off as they brought in a two-fish limit weighing 10.68 pounds.
"The first two fish we caught went in the livewell," said Keith Hartsell, who, with Greg, qualified in first with a two-day weight of 23.04 pounds. "We probably could have caught bigger fish, but we were in such a hurry, because we wanted to give ourselves time in case we had a problem. We only fished for about 40 minutes."
The anglers are looking for fish in the Alabama slot limit, which is 16-26 inches, and the teams who aren’t making the run to familiar water are having more trouble bringing in big weights.
John Ochs and Craig Johnson, the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Team of the Year, have been making a 70-minute run in the mornings and subsequently qualified for their 4th final of the season with 19.8 pounds.
Rounding out the top-5 were Ross Barkhurst and Lloyd Landry, who qualified in second with 19.89 pounds; Bo Johnson and Mike Del Duca who qualified in fourth with 18.5 pounds, and; Mike Tindal and Artie Price, who qualified in fifth with 18 pounds. The weights will be zeroed for Saturday, and the anglers will fish in a one-day tournament for the $40,000 first-place prize.
The fishing continued to be tough for most of the anglers as nine teams didn’t catch a keeper on Friday, and five teams failed to weigh-in a fish for the entire tournament.
The weather forecast, which changed at the last minute, was a thorn in the side of a lot of teams who were planning on making long runs.
"We didn’t pre-fish this area at all," said Andrew Bostick, who, with partner Mark Sepe, didn’t weigh-in a fish on Thursday, but managed a 9.25 pound bag on Friday. "It was just to rough for us to make a run. Yesterday we fished the shoreline and didn’t catch anything. Today we tried the same thing and caught two good fish."
With warmer, but still windy weather forecasted for Saturday, most of the top-5 teams cautiously hope they can make easier runs to the bigger fish. The teams will takeoff from The Wharf at 6 a.m. and the weigh-in will be at The Wharf at 3:45 p.m. |
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