Speckled Trout Shootout 'couldn't have been done any better' at Mississippi Deep Sea Rodeo

The return of the Speckled Trout Shootout to the Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo proved to be a huge success as 32 teams participated in Sunday's competition.

Team Foreplay, captained by Troy Helwig, captured first place with a string of five fish weighing in at 19 pounds 10 ounces.

"My personal opinion is, I'm more excited about the tournament coming back to the MDSFR," said Helwig. "Now that it's back, it's just great. Winning it makes it even sweeter.

"They hit the nail on the head on this one," said Helwig. "It was done professionally. It couldn't have been done any better. As a fellow angler, I can tell you that everything was done like it needs to be done."

The tournament took a two-year hiatus as participation had fallen off. After numerous requests to bring back the Speckled Trout Shootout, tournament officials asked Jeremy McHugh to revive The Shootout, and the response has been exceptional.

McHugh said that he expected 15 teams to participate in this year's shootout, but 33 teams actually signed up and were represented at the mandatory captain's meeting.

"It's been phenomenal," said McHugh. "I couldn't have been happier with the attendance. We had 33 teams; 32 of the 33 teams left Gulfport Harbor at 5:20 Sunday morning. They were respectable to each other. The shotgun start went off perfectly.

"They fished all day," said McHugh. "We had perfect weather. It couldn't have been better weather to relaunch this tournament.

"We had some amazing fish brought in. At least 16 or 17 of the teams came to the weigh-in. We had a huge crowd there with all their family and friends."

The first place prize included a cash prize of $3,480 and a Gyotaku painting of a speckled trout. Joining Helwig on the first place team were Erik Nelson, Bobby Seymour and Joe Culpepper.

The second place team En Fuego made up of Pete McGoey and Ryan Davis received $1,490. Their string weighed in at 17 pounds, 14 ounces. They also turned in a 6-pound, 5-ounce speckled trout for a Calcutta win of $1,150.

Team Sea Wolf won $430 for their string weighing in at 17 pounds 1 ounce. The team included Brandon Busby and Jimmy Swinford.

There was some excitement brewing at the tournament early Monday afternoon as word got around that a "huge tigernshark" was being brought in. The shark brought in around 2 p.m. by David Rogers of Mobile weighed in at 494 pounds and measured 136 inches length. It was good enough for second place, but it was 181 pounds short of the pending record caught on Saturday by Michael Garrett of Ocean Springs.

The 71st MDSFR continues through Wednesday at Jones Park in Gulfport.

This story was originally published July 2, 2018 at 5:56 PM.