From left, Jeff Guillot, Daniel Migues and Jeff Frawley each hold a redfish caught on May 28 during the second Southcentral Fishing Association tournament of 2018. Guillot, Migues and Frawley topped a 19-boat field with a two-fish limit weighing 12.10 pounds. The high end of the slots, drawn that morning before the tournament, was 24 inches.

CYPREMORT POINT — There are highs and lows with a draw-the-high-end of the slot limit for a Southcentral Fishing Association tournament, as SFA officials did May 28.

SFA Director Gerrit “T-Blu” Landry of Lydia announced before the start of the second tournament of the year that the high end would be 24 inches. The slot limit for the other three regular-season tournaments is 16 inches to 27 inches.

“I’m not a big fan of it but I was Saturday. Twenty-four inches? It’s better than 19 or 21,” Jeff Guillot of Lydia said with a chuckle Friday morning.

Guillot, Jeff Frawley and Daniel Migues, also of Lydia, had a reason to give the draw their blessing. The trio caught approximately 35 redfish and deposited three limits of redfish, including two perfect for the tournament, in the ice chest on their way to topping a 19-boat field and 63 of the best redfish fishermen in the Teche Area.

Two of the redfish in the ice chest couldn’t be beat.

“They were exactly 24 inches, both of them,” Guillot said.

Guillot, who was in action for the first time this year because he missed the SFA opener on March 17, was pleased with the outcome because a scouting trip the day before was no help. The 44-year-old production operator for BP Offshore, had to scout again the following day after the 19 boats took off.

“We fished Friday. We ended up fishing all over Friday and we fished the tournament somewhere we didn’t redfish. We eliminated water,” he said. 

They wound up taking his 21-foot, 4-inch Frontier through Marsh Island and settling on a destination in the reefs in the Gulf of Mexico near Marsh Island.

“With the north wind blowing” it was calmer on that side, Guillot said.

“The wind switched later in the day but the bite was on in the morning,” he said about the action near Diamond Reef. The water was green and salty, he said.

They fished with H&H Cocahoes tipped with shrimp under a popping cork, he said.

The three redfish fishermen stuck redfish after redfish for a while.

Frawley said he was pretty sure they had first place wrapped up with their two best redfish, both caught by Guillot.

“When we measured the fish in the boat, yeah, I was pretty confident. It’s kind of hard to come across two 24-inch redfish. When you’ve got two of them like that, you are feeling good,” Frawley said Friday morning.

“We caught big fish that day, too. If it had been a regular tournament (slot limit of 16 to 27 inches), we would have been catching tournament fish.”

Closest to the winners was the team of Bobby Muffoletto and Yvonne Muffoletto. Their two-fish limit weighed 11 pounds on the digital scale manned by Landry.

Right behind the runners-up was the veteran crew of Drew Romero, Kim Romero, Kirk Kapp and Racheal Kapp, whose limit weighed 10.55 pounds.

Also finishing in the money was the father-son team of David Lazczak and Zack Lazczak with two redfish weighing 10.40 pounds, good enough for fourth place, and the hard-fishing foursome of Milton Davis, Dusty Davis, Brittney Davis and Jonathan Rush, whose two redfish weighed 10.35 pounds.

The first-place finish fired up Frawley, 44-year-old fitter/welder for 2M Oilfield Group Inc. in New Iberia. “It felt real good. I’m pumped up for the next one,” he said. 

“It’s always fun to fish with Jeff Guillot and Daniel Migues, always a pleasure,” he said, tipping his cap to Guillot. “When he’s confident, I’m confident. He’s a helluva fisherman. It’s nice fishing with him.”

The next SFA tournament is scheduled to be held out of Quintana Canal Boat Landing.