Not surprisingly, most teams headed for Louisiana's redfish-rich waters, including Lucky Craft Saltwater Pros Greg and Bryan Watts and Paul Jueckstock.

In the end, the famed Watts Brothers finished fifth in the event, leaving them about a dozen points shy of a Redfish Cup Team-of-the-Year title.

Each of the first two days, the Watts ran to the Lake Borgne area of the Louisiana Marsh to sack up 19.81 pounds and 19.19 pounds respectively and squeak into the top-5 in fifth with a two-day total of 39 pounds, even.

Due to breezy conditions on the final day, the Watts played a little weather strategy and stayed close, trying to capitalize on any attrition that might occur with the other four finalists. The plan did not work and they finished fifth with two redfish weighing 6.81 pounds.

Low water levels during practice had many solid slot-sized reds stacked up in the mouths of creeks around the Chalmette area.

"Practice was awesome," said Bryan Watts. "A persistent west wind had pushed the water out of the marshes on the east side of the (Mississippi) River and the reds were forced out into the mouths of feeder creeks; the fish would blast a Sammy 100 at those creek mouths."

But during competition, a little east wind started to build in and the water level came up in the Watts' primary areas.

"The water backed up about 8 inches and that's all it took to disperse those redfish back out into the marsh flats," Watts said. "The creek-mouth pattern died and we had to float our boat up into ultra-skinny water to find where the fish had relocated to. We started sight-fishing with Gulp on Bass Assassin jigheads to singles and doubles that were pushing water or making wakes as they fed up on the flats. That play still worked, but it was not as fast and furious as when the reds were piled up in those creeks mouths waiting on bait."

As for the decision to stay close on the final day, Watts said it was a gamble based on the weather.

"There were 3-footers crashing on the beach and we had a 50-mile ride across open-ocean to get to our spot," Watts said. "Greg and I have seen those kinds of conditions wipe out every one running to Louisiana in other tournaments on the final day. So we decided to play it safe and fish right near takeoff in the Biloxi River. We knew we could only catch maybe 10 pounds and those guys making the run would skin our hides. But if they did not make it back on time because of weather or boat problems, we just might end up the winners. As it turned out, the team that won made it in by a single minute – and they were carrying another team in their boat. If they had not made it, we would have moved up a couple of spots anyway. It's all about risk and reward in tournament redfishing."

The team finished runner up in the Team-of-the-Year points race, but even winning the Biloxi event would not have put them on top.

"We were in good shape in the points at about midseason," Watts said. "Then we dropped the ball at the last event in Chalmette and fell behind. We knew then we were out of (the points race) so we were pleasantly surprised to see how far we moved up after Biloxi."

Now the Watts Brothers head to Pensacola, Fla., for the Championship Sept 24-27.

Lucky Craft pro staff member Paul Jueckstock and team partner Manny Perez finished the Biloxi event in 34th place with daily catches of 17.16 pounds and 16.67 pounds for a two-day total of 33.83 pounds.

A 34th place showing may not sound all that great, especially since this well-known redfish team won the Redfish Cup Championship in Biloxi in October of 2008. But given the duo's troubles, woes and misfortunes during the week, the fact that they weighed in any fish at all is due to pure perseverance.

For starters, neither pro got much practice time at Biloxi. Jueckstock stayed at home to nurse fever-stricken children while Perez was dealt a major set back with trailer axle issues that took a couple of days to get fixed.

Perez did put in a day and half of practice. Based on what he found, the team decided to make a monster 100-mile run from Biloxi to the Delacroix area in Louisiana.

On day one the team completed the long run and as they idled into their best backwater pond, the outboard started making inconsistent noises and would not allow the anglers to get back up on plane.

Despite the troubles, they made quick work of boating reds by blindcasting a Sammy 115 topwater and sight-casting soft plastics to visible fish. Jueckstock also employed his favorite Lucky Craft spinnerbait: a white 1/4-ounce model with a single tear-drop blade.

"I'm not sure if they still make that spinnerbait," Jueckstock said. "I got a bunch of them when I first teamed up with Lucky Craft 8 years ago and I've got just one left. What makes it so effective is it casts a mile and has a unique tear-drop shaped blade that is thicker than most spinnerbait blades, so it puts off a ton a vibration."

In an hour and a half the team landed their two best slot reds and decided to start making their way back. Due to engine trouble, they spent another hour and a half idling to Hopedale Marina where they caught a ride with other competitors to weigh-in.

After getting the engine serviced with new parts late that night, the team had to abide by a 45-mph break-in period on the engine the next day. With that in mind, they decided to run to some nearby island marshes and salvage their event with another solid two-fish limit.

"The next day we stayed closer and just fished the outside islands near Biloxi," Jueckstock said. "We caught a ton of fish with the Sammy and the spinnerbait again, but many of them were over-sized fished migrating back out."

Fortunately, Jueckstock and Perez had already qualified for the 2009 Redfish Cup Championship or the stress of the week would have been ten fold.

"The defending Redfish Cup Championship winners get an automatic berth back to the following year's Championship," Jueckstock said. "So already having the Championship made as the previous winners took a lot of stress off the week. We were right on the bubble of making it in the points, so it could have been a much more trying week if we had that on our minds, too."

As it turns out, the team still would have qualified for the Championship in the Redfish Cup Team-of-the-Year points as they finished 19th overall and the top-20 get invited to the Redfish Cup Championship.