McGowen’s “studly” 6.95 trout. Beautiful fish, Brian.

April 24, Jacksonville, FL. The second installment of the popular MirrOlure Madness tournament of the Florida Lure Anglers was held on April 19th in Jacksonville, Florida. Fred Rounsaville and Brian McGowan escaped the asylum by passing the test of bagging a redfish and trout combination that bested their fellow fishing fanatics.

This mental and fishing skill test is unique to the world of inshore saltwater tournament fishing. Members of the FLA fishing club are well versed in the use of all types of artificial lures when targeting redfish, trout, and flounder during monthly tournaments and they typically spend countless hours on preparation, tournament strategy, and lure selection. But when it comes to MirrOlure Madness, they've got another type of animal on their hands. The event challenges these anglers by taking all of their planning and preparation out of the equation on tournament day due to the "maddening" format.

The "top 30" club teams-narrowed down from their results at other club events -- that received an invitation would find preparation for the event to be rather difficult.

First, nobody knew the target species until the Friday night captain's meeting so pre-fishing efforts could not be focused on a specific species.

Another complicating factor was that nobody knew what type or color lures would be supplied and therefore couldn't plan to fish specific depths or water visibilities. Mix those two unfamiliar variables with the typical tournament unknowns like weather and weekend crowds and it is quickly evident that fishing on this day is no ordinary task.

That makes the morning at the ramp, where competitors get the MirrOlure box of lures, a heck of a scene.

Tournament organizers Pat Stinson and Eric Bachnik, aka. the mad scientists, again chose this year to create a format that would put an angler's skills under the microscope before crowning a victor. After spending the week on the water paired up with club members and MirrOlure's product development team, they elected to challenge contestants to catch a limit of one redfish and one speckled trout using the provided ten lure package. To further this challenge, the minimum limit for redfish would be increased to 22 inches and the minimum limit for trout would be 20 inches. A final twist came when Pat announced, "We have been on a great trout bite all week but the redfish have been scarce - so we will be awarding a bonus for redfish since they are harder to come by right now."

Eric Bachnik, Chief Executive Officer for MirrOlure, put together the lure package based on his experiences at last year's event. He said, "I had seen first hand some of the different areas Jacksonville anglers target so we tried to provide a good mix of plugs to work the water column effectively. That being said, we chose some color patterns that may be outside the norm for the area so it would be a bit of a challenge." Of the ten lure package each angler received three different surface walkers, a floating twitchbait, three different suspending twitchbaits, and three different sinking twitchbaits. Colors ranged from a natural mullet pattern, to the classic red/white combination, to a psychedelic black/fluorescent orange/fluorescent yellow pallet.

Fred Rounsaville, winner with Brian McGowan, holds out the crucial redfish.

Pre-front conditions on Saturday brought brisk south to southwest winds to the St. John's river and its tributaries but temperatures were pleasant and partly cloudy skies made for a decent day on the water. As is often the case, conditions that favor the fisherman are not always the favorite of the fish and the bite proved tough for most. Out of the thirty boat field, only four teams managed a limit but there were some nice catches. Many teams reported catching nice numbers of fish, but getting ones big enough to meet the increased tournament slot limit proved difficult.

Fred Rounsaville and Brian McGowan enjoyed a runaway victory which was anchored by a studly 6.95 lb. trout caught at 9:40 in the morning on their provided 16MR MirrOmullet surface walker in the natural mullet pattern. According to Rounsaville, "We both stayed with the MirrOmullet since it was overcast and we were fishing the backside of an island which was sheltered from the wind. The little mullet pattern worked great in the calm water conditions! We had worked the area hard and were about to leave when Bryan got a huge strike. We both saw the fish and it was a BIG trout. When she came into the net it was a sight to see! We gave her a quick lift on the Boga grip to check the weight and she pulled the scale down to the 7# mark. Let the celebrating begin - it was game on at this point!"

The pair then moved to a new spot to target redfish using the 17MR-18 MirrOdine suspending plug along the edge of some flooded oyster mounds. "We took our time fighting the red making sure not to miss with the net. We’re both holding our breath as we get the board out to check her length. What a second fish 26-1/2” and 6.5 lbs.," exclaimed Fred. The pair ended up with 1656 points and claimed the $500.00 first place check.

Second place went to the FLA's Tournament Director Chuck Dehlinger and teammate Brian Clark who managed 1478 points with a redfish weighing 6.43 lbs and the event's 2nd largest tout at 5.14 lbs. After pulling up to their first spot and catching a nice red on the 84MR-750 Top Dog Jr. surface walker, they went to fill their limit.

Chuck remarked "We are both throwing the Catch 2000 and Brian has a strike and a miss. The fish comes back to hit again and makes a big swirl on the surface. I decided to follow Brian's cast up and the fish turned and slammed my Catch 2000 and started peeling drag!" For their efforts, they collected a $400.00 paycheck.

Third place went to one of the area's most dominant teams: JD Nobles and Randy Hartley with 1326 points. Nobles reported that Hartley caught both keeper fish - the trout came on the S25MR-808 Catch 5 suspending bait and the redfish attacked the Top Dog Junior.

In addition to their redfish and trout, this team completed the Northeast Florida slam by adding a flounder on a 52MR-GR sinking twitchbait and cashed in to the tune of $300.00.

Six-year old Ethan Holland and his tournament-largest red. Holland and his dad Jeff netted a $250 MirrOlure certificate with the catch.

Six year old Ethan Holland teamed with his dad Jeff to bring the tournament's largest redfish to the scales which resulted in a 4th place finish and a $250 MirrOlure gift certificate. Their fish came early in the morning on a 84MR-750 Top Dog Jr. and weighed a whopping 7.35 pounds. With the redfish bonus in play, their one fish netted 1102 points and left them wondering what could have happened if they got a keeper trout.

Jamie Havard and Bob Morris took 5th for the second straight year with 1031 points. Their keeper trout came on the 52MR-18 which is one of Bob's all time favorite trout baits and their redfish hit the 84MR-750 topwater plug. The pair only boated 2 fish for the day but had several topwater strikes to keep things interesting.

Other notable catches were last year's champion Wade Hastings with a 5.02 lb trout and Mike Hayes who managed one slightly smaller at 4.96 lbs.

For photos and additional information regarding Florida Lure Anglers Associaton, visit them on the web at http://www.floridalureanglers.com/

For additional information on MirrOlure and their complete product line, visit them on the web at http://www.mirrolure.com/