PENSACOLA, Fla. (September 30, 2008) – The waters off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., hosted the last regular-season stop for anglers fishing the 2008 Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup series. Lucky Craft’s Paul Jueckstock and partner, Manny Perez, finished 27th with a two-day total of 16.7 pounds – enough to keep them in Team of the Year contention and give them a shot at the 2008 Redfish Cup Championship.

The Florida duo had a good practice finding fish in Louisiana and Panama City, Fla., both two-hour trips in opposite directions.

“Depending on the wind, we would go to Louisiana if we could,” Jueckstock said. “That’s really where we wanted to be. If the weather was nasty, we knew we could catch some decent fish in Panama City. However, that all changed as we started the tournament.”

The fishing in Panama City grew dim and the fish were few and far between. So much so that Jueckstock and Perez decided to stay nearby and fish two main areas much closer to the weigh-in location – the Destin and Orange Beach Bridges.

While not running so far saved them gas, the duo wasn’t sure what the tournament days would hold for them since they didn’t fish these areas during practice.

“It just wasn’t happening on the spots we found in practice, so we stuck close and fished where half the field was fishing,” Jueckstock said. “The wind was the main factor that kept us close and kept us from running to Louisiana. That and the fact that our bite in Panama just died.”

Jueckstock and Perez fished the two bridges both days of the tournament with a Lucky Craft Flat CB D-20 in MS American Shad, as well as soft plastics and deep jigs. With the Lucky Craft crankbait, Jueckstock would make contact with the rocks or jetties in 18 feet of water and hope the fish would hit it on the deflection.

“One of the fish we weighed in this weekend came on the D-20,” Jueckstock said. “With the crankbait, I would use a 7 1/2 foot rod with 20-pound braid. With the soft plastics, we would throw them about 20 feet into the current, let them drop and bounce them back to the boat. Most of our fish came doing that.”

The Lucky Craft team used those two techniques all weekend and brought in one fish on day one weighing 6.96 pounds and two fish on day two weighing 9.74 pounds. Their two-day total put them in 27th for the weekend and in a three-way tie for fifth in Team of the Year standings.

A little disappointed with their finish in Pensacola, Jueckstock and Perez are still pleased to be fishing the Championship in Biloxi, Miss.

“We can’t wait for the Championship,” Jueckstock said. “It’s going to take 12-pounders to make a dent that weekend. The bag limit is between 20 and 30 pounds, so weights could be huge. We’re really looking forward to it.”

“We fished the two bridges like most everyone else did this weekend,” Greg said. “We pre-fished in Panama City and Mobile Bay and were looking for crankbait bites on clam bars but nothing was going off there. The bridges were fired up, so that’s where we decided to stay.”

During practice, the Watts brothers were able to catch a few big ones with the Lucky Craft Pointer 100 and 128 in Misty Shad and MS MJ Herring.

“The key to the jerkbait bite, or any bite for that matter, was the outgoing tide,” Greg explained. “When we had that in our favor, we were killing them. I took the Pointer 100 and 128, put a 4-foot, 30-pound leader on with a 2-ounce lead sinker. I would pitch those baits out under the bridge, the weight would take them deeper and the fish would crush them.

“We were fishing around guys using live bait, which is not against the rules unless they’re chumming, which these guys were not doing,” Greg continued. “The good thing about the live bait was that these guys were using sardines and the Pointer 128 mimicked a sardine perfectly.”

Greg and Bryan had the Pointers rigged up and ready to go on the first day of the tournament, but the wind switched and the tide did not play to their advantage.

“We were supposed to have an outgoing tide by 10:30 a.m. on day one, but the wind switched to the southwest and held the water in,” Greg explained. “These Redfish are very tidal oriented and when it goes out, they love to eat. We were hoping for that during the tournament, but it just didn’t happen.”

After such a tremendous bite with the Pointers, Greg and Bryan Watts had to revert back to a 1-ounce jig to bring in 9.01 pounds on day one. Heading back to the bridges on day two, the duo knew the tide would work against them, so they didn’t stay in the area long.

“After about Noon on day two, Bryan and I knew we couldn’t stay at the bridges,” Greg said. “We were in scramble mode by then looking for two fish that would give us a shot at a good finish. We ended up fishing docks with a jig head and Gulp, much like a bass fisherman – just pitching it out and jumping from dock to dock waiting for the bite.”

Greg and Bryan were able to bring in two fish weighing 5.28 pounds on day two to finish their weekend in 30th. After a hard fought season, the Watts brothers will not be moving on to fish the Championship – something that has not happened in the past eight years.

“We are very disappointed that our season is ending in Pensacola,” Greg admitted. “And we honestly don’t know what went wrong this year. We had eight great years with solid finishes each tournament, and to come out this year and not have a good season is really hard for us. I don’t have a clue what happened and that is what’s killing me. We made good decisions all year, and we were around good fish. It all comes down to getting those big fish in the boat, and we just didn’t do that this year.