Good weather, donations make for notable Red Gill

With 22 boats and perfect weather, the Red Gill turned out well as entrants fished in a hard outgoing tide just in front of the moon.

“It was enough fish to be competitive and have everybody in it to the last second,” said organizer Capt. William Woodroffe, who puts together the tournament for the benefit of the Gasparilla Island Maritime Museum. The tournament is named for the old Red Gill Fish House that was at Whidden’s.

The tournament raised $1,750 for the museum, which included $1,300 from the actual tournament and a $450 surprise donation during the awards ceremony.

“We had a great year with weather,” Woodroffe said. “We had beautiful skies and strong tides.”

In previous years, the tournament has been held around Memorial Day, but because that weekend was quarter-moon tides, organizers moved it later. That increased the number of boats available.

The first-place team, Searene, led by Capt. Travis Joiner, won with just two fish.

“They won the tournament, caught two fish and were broke down a third of the time,” joked Woodroffe.

The second-place team was Blaze, captained by Capt. Waylon Mills.

At this year’s tournament, Lucas Coleman, 17, fishing aboard Had’em, won the first-fish award. Woodroffe said at the awards, “If another fish wasn’t caught today, I would be happy.”

This was Coleman’s first win.

“We’re all so proud of him, all the family and all of the community. He was very close to winning the whole thing. He had his second fish on, and unfortunately, it got cut off before he landed it,” Woodroffe said. “That would have put him in first place.”

In terms of the Pass, there were no troubles with boats on top of each other, and the radio chatter was lively throughout the day. They did not have to have special flags like the World’s Richest.

“Everybody was respectful of each other,” Woodroffe said. “Most of the boats in the Pass that afternoon were in the tournament, but the ones that were not were all playing well in the sandbox.”

Shark predation was an issue, as this is the time when the fish are spawning.

“There’s plenty of fish around, but there’s just not a lot of fish in the Pass at times during this period of the spawn,” Woodroffe said. “The levels of tarpon can change day by day due to the spawning activity, and we had a lot of sharks in the Pass on Saturday, as evident by a couple people’s fish getting eaten.

“During this time of year, the fish tend to bite on the hard outgoing tides in the daytime,” he said.