MONSTER HAUL OF RED SNAPPER
What Scientists Learned in the 2004 Orange Beach Red
Snapper World Championship
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: During 30 days of fishing in the spring of 2004,
more than 8,000 anglers on 95 boats participated in
the Orange Beach Red Snapper World Championship and
caught big snapper with more than 28 of them weighing
over 25-pounds each. This year’s Championship
will take place April 21 – May 20, 2005 with headquarters
at Zeke’s Marina. Total tournament monies will
be $500,000 with a $200,000 bonus if a new world ‘s
record red snapper is caught, but anglers only will
pay $5 per fisherman per day to enter the tournament.
All proceeds from the tournament will go to support
the building of public reefs and conducting red snapper
research. You can buy tickets to participate at Blue
Water Ships Stores in Foley, Ala., Outcast Bait and
Tackle in  Pensacola,
Fla., and in Orange Beach, Ala. at J&M Tackle, Orange
Beach Marina, Outcast Marina, Sam’s Stop &
Shop, San Roc Cay Marina, Sportsman Marina, the Rod
Room, Top Gun Tackle, Trent Marina and Zeke’s
Landing Marina. To learn more about the Championship,
visit www.gulffishing.net where you also can see a list
of captains and their contact information; or call:
(251) 981-8565; the Orange Beach Fishing Association
at (251) 981-2300; or the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention
and Visitors Bureau (www.orangebeach.com)
at (800) 745-SAND.
“In the last 58 years, the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) has had only eight snapper weighing over
25 pounds in its database to  gather
information on and study their age and growth,”
says Steve Heath, chief marine biologist for Alabama’s
Marine Resources Division (AMRD). “In that 30-day
period of the Championship, we tripled the size of NMFS’s
database on big red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico.”
The top-four red snapper weighed more than 30-pounds
each, and the fifth-place red snapper weighed 29 pounds,
15 ounces. On the last day of the tournament, an angler
took a 33-pound 9-ounce snapper that would have beaten
the winning fish, which weighed 32.25 pounds. However,
the angler hadn’t bought a $5 entry-fee ticket
to enter the tournament and couldn’t receive the
$25,000 first-place prize or win the championship.
 But
what tactics and tackle do you need to use to catch
one of these giant red snapper? Where do you find them?
What kinds of baits do they hit? To learn the answers
to these questions, I have interviewed the winning captains
and anglers for the 2004 Orange Beach Red Snapper World
Championship so that you can learn more about how these
fish were taken.
TOMORROW: THE “INTIMIDATOR”
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