Tino and the redfish on his “not new” boat

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Recently, Longoria said he had changed to light tackle fishing, coached by his friend and fishing buddy, Rudy Rodriguez, CRG Community Resource.

As the story goes, they were fishing in upper Laguna Madre when Longoria reeled in a beauty, a 12-lb., 28-in. redfish. Now, as Longoria tells it, the redfish would be a keeper and possibly would have won in any tournament.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t fishing in a tournament. However, something strange caught Longoria’s eye as he was admiring his catch. Seems the redfish had a small red wire with writing on the wire attached to the fish. Before Longoria decided to fillet the fish for dinner, he decided to call somebody. That somebody was the Coastal Conservation Association of Texas (CCA).

Once Longoria described the unusually tagged fish, the CCA representative announced that he was one of 14 people who caught the specially tagged redfish that was released for the 2010 Star Tournament. Those who caught a tournament tagged fish won a wonderful prize – a 2010 Ford F150 “Texas Edition” and a Haynie 23 Bigfoot with a Mercury 150 Optimax and Coastline Trailer.

For Longoria this redfish was better than a winning lottery ticket.

However, there was just one small detail – the tournament ran from the end of May to the beginning of Sep. 2010. Longoria caught his prize redfish Jan. 5, 2011.

The CCA representative told him there were 16-tagged fish released along a 600 miles stretch along the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to Brownsville. And, Longoria was lucky to catch number 14. Two more tagged fish are still lurking in the Gulf Coast waters.

Even though Longoria is a member of CCA, he caught the fish too late to be a winner of even a commemorative cap or a keychain.

A little downcast at losing out on the new F150 and boat [slight understatement], Longoria took special care to enjoy his redfish over dinner with friends.  –dn

©2011 Construction News, Ltd.