Breakdown to Success
The Big Day
 Editor’s
Note: Brian Bracknell of Mobile, Alabama, has fished
out of Orange Beach for most of his life. Two years
ago, Bracknell got a new boat, the “Crowd Pleezer,”
and decided to make charter fishing his primary business.
One of Bracknell’s unique characteristics is that
he’s learned how to snatch victory out of defeat.
In the 2006 Red Snapper World Championship, Bracknell’s
never-say-die attitude earned him over $5,000 and enabled
one of his anglers to catch the red snapper of a lifetime.
“I had a 12-hour trip scheduled on Sunday during
the Red Snapper World Championship,” Bracknell
says. “But on Saturday before my Sunday trip,
the clutch went out on one of my main engines. I had
a party of people coming in to fish during the last
days of the Red Snapper World Championship, my boat
was broken down and I didn’t have a spare boat,
so I called Captain Patrick Ivey on the ‘Intruder.’
Since Ivey didn’t  have
a trip that day, he agreed to let me put my captain,
deck hand and charter on his boat and fish my people
on Sunday. Because his boat’s slower than ours,
we didn’t have the range that we’d normally
have if we were fishing on the ‘Crowd Pleezer.’
However, if we hadn’t been on Captain Ivey’s
boat, we wouldn’t have caught the fish that made
the money. If we’d been on the ‘Crowd Pleezer,’
we would’ve gone further offshore and never been
at the place where we caught the big snapper. We were
fishing in close, and in the middle of the day, we found
a spot that didn’t really look that good on the
depth finder. I would’ve never believed a snapper
this big would’ve been caught on a reef that showed
that little amount of structure and fish on my depth
finder. Although I can’t say for  sure,
I would bet that the spot was made of two or three chicken
cages wired together or a pyramid of concrete. But whatever
it was, it wasn’t a very-big structure.
“The snapper was caught on cut squid, even though
we normally use bigger baits when we’re fishing
for big snapper. The angler who caught the trophy snapper
was Alan Perry of Chunchula, Alabama, which is north
of Mobile. The fish he caught weighed just over 30 pounds
and placed third in the tournament. That red snapper
enabled Alan to not only bring home the biggest red
snapper he’d ever caught in his life, but also
a third place check worth $10,000. In the Red Snapper
World Championship, the boat also receives the same
amount of money as the angler who catches the big fish.
So, the boat won an additional $10,000. Since we had
my captain and deck hand on the boat, and we were running
th e
trip, we split the prize money of $10,000 between the
‘Intruder’ and the ‘Crowd Pleezer,’
giving each of us an additional $5,000 on that day.
To fish with Captain Brian Bracknell, you can contact
him at (251) 471-2868, or (251) 379-8099. You also can
write him at Captain Brian Bracknell, 2405 South Vaughan
Drive, Mobile, Alabama 36605, email him at brackimk@aol.com
or visit his website, www.crowdpleezer.com.
To learn more about the Red Snapper World Championship,
check out www.orangebeachsnapper.com. For more information
on the Orange Beach area, go to www.orangebeach.com
or call the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitor’s
Bureau at (800) 745-7263.
Tomorrow: Six Secrets to Catching
Big Red Snapper
|
