Clearwater, Fla. (February 16, 2007) – It doesn’t get much better than to start a season with a win, and for Lucky Craft’s Bryan and Greg Watts, it felt really good. The Watts brothers brought home a win this past weekend at the All Star Icebreaker, the first tournament of the 2007 Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup season, against 29 of the best redfish teams on tour.

With their last win more than three years ago, the Watts brothers began to wonder if they were really able to close the deal. Although they were known as one of the most consistent teams on the circuit, they weren’t satisfied with consistent top 10 finishes – they were still hungry for the win. And this week, they got it.

“You never lose the feeling of winning,” said Bryan Watts, “but sometimes you wonder where it has gone. I think we’ve found it again.”

It all started with a good practice, with both brothers fishing several of the practice days alone. The Watts brothers ended up fishing within earshot of the launch ramp, where they caught all of their keepers.

“We found a lot of fish down south, but also found a lot in Clearwater,” Bryan said. “We decided to stay close, which turned out to be a great decision. Most of the other teams made long runs, either north or south, so we pretty much had the whole area to ourselves.”

The weather was great in practice but a front was on the way, and the Watts brothers weren’t sure exactly how it would affect the bite. However, Friday turned out to be successful, as the Watts brothers weighed in 12.46 pounds, putting them in sixth place after day one. They knew they had to keep it up and catch just a bit more to make it into the top five after Saturday.

“We stuck with the same pattern in two locations pretty much all weekend, and it worked great for us,” Bryan said. “It was really a hard pattern for a fast fisherman, but for Greg and I, it was stable and we felt really confident.”

Greg and Bryan were fishing two very different areas during the three-day tournament. One area was a five-acre bowl with a deep spot in the flat surrounded by mangrove islands, where the fish were schooled up in about 18 inches of water. The other spot included some Intercoastal barrier islands housing some single-cruising fish running in about two to three feet of water. In both locations, the fish seemed to want to eat the same thing, which as it turns out, wasn’t much.

“The fish were so lethargic, and when you push fish like that, they get up and rumble around but will not eat,” Bryan explained. “The only thing they would eat, and it was still seldom, was a three-inch Gulp shrimp and a four-inch sinking minnow. The water temperature was around 59 to 62 degrees, so the fish didn’t want anything working fast or anything on the top. If they were going to eat at all, they wanted it laying in the mud. If they found it, they would eat it, but if you showed it to them, they didn’t want any part of it.”
Throwing the soft plastics out and just tickling the bottom was the key to success all weekend for the Watts brothers.

“We would throw it out, move it three inches and let it sit for 30 seconds – and then do it all over again,” Bryan said. “It was such a sluggish bite. We really had to be on our game to even be able to tell when the fish actually picked up the bait.”

The Watts brothers brought in 12.97 pounds on day two to take the lead. With the weights cleared going into Sunday, they knew they had to catch at least 12 pounds again to keep the lead, so they brought in a little over a pound more. Bringing in 13.26 pounds on day three gave the Watts brothers the win with more than a three-pound margin over the second place team.

“We really took this tournament to heart and after the first day, we knew we were on a great pattern,” Bryan concluded. “Winning the first event of the year really sets the pace for us going into the 2007 season, and we’re not done; we’re just getting started. With Lucky Craft on our side with some of the best hard baits on the market, and Gulp to compliment those, I think we are going to be unstoppable this year. If this doesn’t get your momentum going, nothing will. It’s going to be a great year.”