Kemah, Texas (June 6, 2007) – There was a battle this past weekend just southeast of Houston, during the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup’s Western Division Open #2. Gritter Griffin and Larry Kirby were representing Team Lucky Craft in their second tournament together, and as practice began rather slowly, the duo didn’t know what to expect.

“There had been no rain for a while and the estuaries were very salty,” Gritter began. “Frankly, Kemah [Texas] is my nemesis – my weakest point. I’m a pond and a flats guy, and I struggle when it comes to fishing deep water. None of us can be great at everything, I guess.”

During practice, Gritter and partner headed to the marshes to do what they like best – fish anything but deep water. They thought they would try their luck there and were pleasantly surprised about what they found in the first couple days of practice.

“We were able to find some real quality fish,” Gritter continued. “We were catching them on the Moonsault CB 001 [Chartreuse Shad] and the BDS 1 [Aurora Gold]. We would use soft plastics when we had to, but those two Lucky Craft cranks were the go-to baits.”

Feeling pretty good about the first three days of pre-fishing and having rounded up some 8-pound fish, Gritter and Kirby thought they would be in contention… until Thursday came around.

“The big rains came in Wednesday night, opened up all the upriver dams and flooded the whole area with fresh water,” Gritter explained. “That wreaked havoc on everything we had plotted. It took away probably 80 percent of our pre-fishing areas.”

Team Lucky Craft knew they would have to swing for the fences on day one, with their main pre-fishing areas ruined. They decided to still run to the marsh and see what they could bring in.

“We had one of those very fortunate things occur right away on day one [Friday],” Gritter said. “On Larry’s first cast, he hooked a fish that was almost five pounds with the Moonsault CB 001. Then, less than 10 minutes later, as we were moving slowly up the bank over an oyster bar, I threw the BDS 1 out and nabbed a red that was probably about 7 pounds. We had almost 12 pounds in the first 15 minutes of the day and were feeling pretty good.”

Gritter and Kirby were fishing in a marshy area off the Intracoastal Waterway. It was a shallow pond filled with oyster bars and according to Gritter, the water was high, and it pushed up on the grass slightly above the oyster beds. With water about 14 inches deep, Kirby would throw the Moonsault CB 001 out, bringing it across the top of the water. Gritter would cast the BDS 1 and bring it back, bumping it along the oysters on the bottom.

In addition to the Lucky Craft baits that came into play this weekend, the duo was throwing Rogue rods with Cabo PTs40 series Quantum reels which is, according to Gritter, the best redfish set-up out there. They were also using 30-pound braided PowerPro line and running 20-pound leaders, but changed to 40-pound leaders when fishing in the rocks.

Their original plan had been to check out the marshes first and then run to the spots where they had found the bigger fish. The first part of the plan had worked out great, but when the duo reached their second location, they weren’t quite as confident.

“We got to our other location, which was about 30 to 40 minutes away, and it was completely in turmoil,” Gritter said. “It was full of up-churned muddy water. We were out in the bay against the man-made breakwater that had been built. We were going to throw the Pointer 100, which is what we caught the larger fish on in practice. It was really disappointing because we followed our plan and secured the first two fish in the marsh, but when we got to our next spot, it was ruined.”

It was the same story at the third location as well, which left the team scrambling to find some bigger fish, knowing almost 12 pounds would not be enough in Kemah. Team Lucky Craft wasn’t able to upgrade, and weighed in 11.82 pounds on day one. Knowing they needed to, at the very least, repeat the scenario and weigh in a couple decent fish on day two, Gritter and Kirby decided to check their day one spots again and hope for the best.

“We figured we would repeat the scenario and do okay on day two [Saturday],” Gritter said. “But much like we saw yesterday, the fresh water had reached every area we pre-fished. The guys that won this tournament were out in the middle of the bay in big water, and that is just not something we are good at. But on the upside, we feel like we had a pretty good first day. We stuck to our game plan, but it just didn’t quite pan out.”

Gritter and Kirby’s total weight of 11.82 pounds wasn’t enough to have them fishing on Sunday or to make the All Star tournament in Alabama, but Gritter believes you have to take the good with the bad and keep on trying.

“All in all, it was very disappointing,” Gritter concluded. “I guess Kemah got me again. Some places just have your number, but I’ll keep going back until I finally beat it down. I’m definitely not giving up.”