Angler celebrates birthday with $40K present

KEMAH — A perfect day of fishing.

It was just that Saturday for the father-son team of Mike Frenette and Michael Frenette Jr. who won the $40,000 first prize in the Oh! Oberto Redfish Cup tournament.

For the elder Frenette, who turned 50 Saturday, it was a perfect birthday present.

And for the younger Frenette, 16, he became the youngest co-champion in the history of the 4-year old, made-for-television redfish cup tournament circuit. Kemah is one of six stops on this year’s schedule.

Their two championship fish Saturday weighed 15.01 pounds.

The two were the only Louisiana team of the five teams that made the final cut after two days of fishing Thursday and Friday. The top five teams who had the largest combined total weights of two fish caught each day fished for the big money.

Eighty-two teams, including several from the area, fished the tournament.

“It’s just a perfect day,” said the elder Frenette. “It’s always a perfect day when you can go fishing with your son, and then to win this tournament, and on top of everything else, being my birthday, it doesn’t get any better.”

This was the first Redfish Cup win for the two.

The Frenettes won the event by concentrating on the rock jetties that dot the edge of the ship channel within Galveston Bay. By their own admission, the tactic was designed not to win, but catch enough fish to just gain points in the Oberto Team of the Year standings.

On Day 1 of the event, the team caught two keepers, totaling about 6 pounds, in the first hour of the event, on crankbaits and Rat’l Traps.

“We were ecstatic,’’ Mike Frenette said. “But I noticed a lot of redfish running out of the rocks, taking a swipe at the bait and then running back into the holes.

“I figured out right then I was going to do something different.”

That change was two-fold. Age told him to slow down. His experience convinced him to switch baits.

“Michael likes to bass fish, so I asked him if he had any bullet weights and worm hooks,’’ the elder Frenette said. “I rigged up a Gulp Sinking Minnow and started letting it just fall into the holes.”

Within 20 minutes, Frenette hooked up with two keepers. The younger Frenette quickly followed suit.

Finishing second was the Houston team of Robert Scherer and Mark Huse, whose two fish Saturday weighed 11.33 pounds. Their payout was $8,000.

The Lake Jackson team of Jim Franklin and Brian Fornea was third with 9.83 pounds, taking home $5,000.

According to tourney organizers, some of the biggest fish caught in the history of the tournament were caught the past three days in Galveston Bay. The 33.13 pounds caught over two days by the Culpepper brothers was the second largest.

“These are the heaviest fish we have seen all year,” said tournament spokesman Steve Bowman. “They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the redfish definitely are.”

“Right here in Kemah is some of the finest redfish in the country,” he said. “Outside of Venice, La., which many consider the best spot, this place is No. 1 as far as I am concerned.”

One area team, Jim Frazier and Charlie Paradoski, finished 15th and took home $1,740.

“It was great to be back home and fishing in our back yard,” said Frazier. “It’s even better to able to show these fishermen from Florida and Louisiana, who think they have the big redfish that they, (the redfish), are in Texas and right here in Galveston Bay.”

The Kemah tournament will be televised in early 2007 as part of its “Saltwater Sunday” series.