Oct. 15 program to highlight $200,000 qualifying event
Tune in Sunday, Oct. 15 to “FLW Outdoors” on FSN for the $200,000 Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series event presented by Evinrude in Lafitte, La. The fourth and final Western Division event of the $1.9 million FLW Redfish Series season concludes with the winning team claiming a cash prize of $50,000.
The “FLW Outdoors” saltwater series is a reality-format show told from the anglers’ perspective. Each week the top-five finalists are followed from takeoff to weigh-in, allowing the audience to feel the anglers’ nerves, listen to their strategy and learn from their mistakes. The stories evolve and the suspense grows throughout the one-hour show until the final weigh-in results are announced.
After two days of competition, it appears that teammates Blair Wiggins of Cocoa, Fla., and Tadd Vandenmark of Key Largo, Fla., have found the jackpot. The team caught a pair of redfish on day two that weighed 16 pounds, 5 ounces to take the lead with a two-day total of 32 pounds, 4 ounces. Wiggins and Vandenmark are fishing an area near Venice, La., located in a deep pass that connects the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Their two heaviest fish were caught on a sinking DOA Baitbuster in the mullet pattern and a DOA C.A.L. jig with a purple and chartreuse tail. Watch as these Floridians return to their honey hole on day three for a shot at their first Redfish Series title.
Edward Adams and Ray Chagnard, both of Metairie, La., moved into second place with a two-day total of 31 pounds, 7 ounces. The team used their local expertise to locate reds in a pond east of the Mississippi River that possesses just the right combination of pogies and vegetation. Once in the pond, the team is using Berkley Gulp Jerkshads and a spinnerbait rigged with a No. 4 Colorado blade and a purple H&H Cocahoe minnow body. The two are catching upper-slot reds from water that is barely a foot deep.
Brett Phillips and Mike Patterson, both of Rockport, Texas, matched their day-one weight of 15 pounds, 6 ounces with a duplicate catch on day-two for an opening-round total of 30 pounds, 12 ounces. Phillips and Patterson, who head into the finals in third place, discovered a deep-water pattern by accident as they were trolling across a boat canal to get to the other side of a pond.
FSN also follows Todd Adams and Tommy Ramzinsky, who put an exclamation point on their FLW Redfish Series Western Division points title by qualifying for their fourth top-five in the last two seasons. To date, that brings the team’s Redfish Series accomplishments to the following: leading money winners with $144,000; heaviest one-, two- and three-day weight totals; most number of top-fives (4); two tournament wins, including the Redfish Series Championship in 2005; and, now a Western Division points title.
This FLW Redfish Series presented Western Division anglers with their last chance at qualifying for the three-day, no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Championship to be held in Pensacola, Fla., Oct. 19-21. The championship winner will take home as much as $100,000.
FSN broadcasts “FLW Outdoors” Sundays from 11 a.m. to noon ET. Check local listings for show times and channels in your area.
FSN reaches more than 81 million homes through its network of 20 regional sports channels. Established in 1996, FSN is the only cable network that supplies national, regional and local sports programming. FSN serves as the cable TV home to 62 of the 82 MLB, NHL and NBA teams based in the United States, and produces over 4,500 live events each year. FSN has an extensive catalog of original national programs, including “Best Damn Sports Show Period” and “Beyond the Glory” documentary series, along with national packages of collegiate sports. Based in Los Angeles, FSN is part of the vast FOX Sports television family.
“FLW Outdoors” is also broadcast internationally to more than 350 million households in such countries as Germany, China, South Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Hungary and the United Kingdom, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoor-sports television show in the world. Additionally, FLW Outdoors is proud to provide tournament coverage to more than 800,000 service men and women stationed around the world in 177 countries and aboard Navy ships through broadcasts on the American Forces Network.
Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Abu Garcia, Stratos Owners’ Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series. These circuits offer combined purses exceeding $37.9 million through 249 events in 2006.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 1997 and today is the world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing.
By: FLW Outdoors Staff
