Persistence Pays Off For Hometown Team
By John McQueen

Taken from redfishcup.com
4/15/2007

Lafitte, La. – Persistence paid off in grand fashion on the final day of the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup. First day leaders Kevin and Cajun Phil Broussard continued their mastery of the Barataria basin with a solid 15.17 lb. bag, taking the $40,000 first prize.

Using mainly four inch Berkely Gulp shrimp in New Penny and Molting color, the American Rodsmith sponsored father/son team relied struck gold on their twelfth spot of the morning after not being able to access their previous days’ honeyholes due to low water brought on by the fierce northwest winds.

“We couldn’t get within 100 yards of the first several spots this morning. We didn’t have a fish in the boat until around 10:30,” said Kevin.

The Broussards also overcame the heartbreak of missing the first two quality bites before finally sticking two 26 ½ inch reds and being essentially done with their fishing at around 11:30.

Kevin credited the team forcing themselves to get out on the water the previous Saturday despite another brutal cold front, this one complete with sleet.

“This spot was a little ditch that kind of wound back and forth enough to where the wind couldn’t mess it up,” said Kevin. “It was holding a good number of 6 ½ to 7 lb. fish, but nothing this big.”

Second place with 14.65 lbs went to the local team of Alden Bourgeois and Todd Dufour, whose 18.64 lb. second day limit shattered the single day record for weight. Predictably, most of the water was gone from their prime spot, forcing the fish even shallower than the previous two days and, more importantly, making them extremely spooky.

“We threw on so many fish his morning we got tired of it,” said Bourgeois, who teams with Dufour as inshore guides out of Lafitte. “They were just really, really finicky with the water being a foot and a half shallower. Most of the fish’s backs were out of he water.”

“I did lose a fish that would have gone eight pounds if it had measured.”

Rounding out the top five were Ranger pros Andy Mnichowski and Billy Nicholls (13.89), Lake and Bay’s Ray Malone and Jon Loring, Jr. (13.19) and the Lake and Bay team of Bo Johnson and Mike Del Duca (12.41).

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