| Team Weaver Takes IFA Redfish Crown
Two redfish limit of 17.14 pounds wins the IFA Redfish Tour in Rockport, Texas....
John Weaver, of Driftwood, Texas, and John Weaver Jr., of San Marcos, Texas, weighed in a two-redfish limit that totaled 17.14 pounds to win the IFA Redfish Tour event at Rockport, Texas, on May 14. To win the event, which operated out of Cove Harbor North, the team topped a large field of two-angler teams to take home a new, fully rigged Ranger Banshee Extreme powered by a 60-horsepower, four-stroke Yamaha outboard and equipped with a Power-Pole shallow water anchor, Minn Kota trolling motor, Humminbird electronics, Blue Point Fabrication metal work, Bob’s four-inch Ultra Light Jackplate, an OPTIMA battery and a Loadmaster trailer valued at $30,000.
In capturing their first IFA win, the father-and-son team used the day’s high winds to its advantage fishing a shallow ditch in the Flour Bluff area. Using white and New Penny Berkley Gulp! Shrimp as bait, the team reported catching five redfish during the tournament.
“By 11 o’clock we had 17 pounds, but fishing with against all these guys who are the best in Texas?” John Weaver said. “We knew 19 pounds was the magic number and headed back to the weigh in knowing we’d be in the Top 3.”
Second-place finishers, Kent and D.J. Turner, of Aransas Pass, Texas, brought 16.85 pounds to the scales during the Rockport event, the results of another success trip to the Flour Bluff area. Using a mix of Berkley Gulp! baits and spoons, the pair ideal weather conditions to suit their fishing pattern, earning them a total of $1,777 in second-place prize money and Anglers Advantage cash.
“We had to grind all day to catch our fish,” Kent Turner said. “We probably saw 200-300 fish, but it was hard to get them to bite.”
The third-place team of Duane Perry, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Mark Foster, of Friendswood, Texas, weighed in 16.83 pounds during the tournament, following a day in which they fished in the Sulfer Road area. The team drifted in high winds, using silver and gold spoons to secure their third-place catch.
“By about 10 o’clock we really got on them,” Perry said. “Once we found them we caught everything on spoons.”
Shannon Ledwick and Bruce White (34th place) won the $500 Berkley Gulp! Big Redfish Award, plus a $500 Cabela’s gift card courtesy of Berkley, for catching their 9.12-pound redfish on Berkley Gulp! bait.
The IFA Redfish Tour continues to draw redfish anglers from Texas to the Carolinas and beyond, offering two-angler teams the opportunity to compete in six different divisions, each offering a three-event regular season. Low entry fees for the one-day, regular-season tournaments allows anglers to fish close to home and minimize expenses, while still being a part of a premier inshore, catch-and-release redfish tournament organization. Teams fishing any three of the IFA’s 18 regular-season events are automatically qualified for a no-entry-fee championship event, pitting qualifiers from each of the six divisions for a combined $78,200 in payouts and prize packages, as well as a shot at the coveted Cabela’s Overall Divisional Team of the Year Award for the six regular-season division winners.
In addition to a possible $60,000 in payouts per event (based on a 100-boat field), the first-place prize package for all 18 IFA Redfish Tour regular-season events remains extremely lucrative. In 2011, every regular-season tournament winner is guaranteed – regardless of field size – a fully loaded 2011 Ranger Banshee Extreme. The boat is powered by a 60-horsepower, four-stroke Yamaha outboard and is equipped with a Power-Pole shallow water anchor, Minn Kota trolling motor, Humminbird electronics, Blue Point Fabrication metal work, Bob’s four-inch Ultra Light Jackplate, an OPTIMA battery and a Loadmaster trailer. The entire first-place prize package is valued at $30,000. Lucrative contingency programs added for 2011 include $50 prize to the team claiming the big fish award in an IFA Redfish Tour event if the fish is landed with an EGO Net, $25 prize for both the big redfish and big trout in IFA Kayak Tour events; $250 prize to a qualifying winning team which competes from a boat equipped with OPTIMA Batteries; PENN reels for tournament-winning anglers who compete with PENN reels.
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