Felling redfish
STIHL TIMBERSPORTS lumberjacks visit Venice, La., for amazing redfish trip
VENICE, La. — When a 300-pound lumberjack holds a bull redfish in his oversized mitts and the fish still looks crazy big, you know you're fishing for lunkers.
So was the case in the waters of the outer edges of the Mississippi Delta, just a day after Jason Wynyard, Danny Staib and Lawrence "The Chisel" O'Toole competed during Sunday's STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship in Columbus, Ga.
Immediately following the three-day competition, the wood-chopping giants piled into Wynyard's sponsored pickup truck and headed out on an all-night drive.
The destination? Capt. Mike Frenette's Redfish Lodge of Louisiana, 80 miles southeast of New Orleans. After a couple winks, they join the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup professional angler for a full day on the water.
Midnight ride from Georgia
As the only two to compete on Sunday's final day, (O'Toole had failed to make the final pool) Wynyard and Staib merely changed shirts following six hours of chopping and sawing in the 90-degree Columbus heat. So with the truck packed and after firm handshakes exchanged, Wynyard pulled onto hardtop heading westbond to the highway.
"No shower, then," Wynyard said directly in a strong New Zealand accent. "Let's get on the road."
The result of Wynyard's blunt directive created a mixed aroma of chain oil, WD-40, gasoline and dried sweat inside the crew cab — an ideal odor for any seven-hour-long road trip. (Apparently the 6'4" pro wanted to get away from the scene as quickly as possible.)
Less than an hour earlier, the man with the buzzcut from Massey, New Zealand, witnessed fellow countryman David Bolstad accept first-place accolades; Wynyard's disqualification in the stock saw event confirmed Bolstad's win and left him quite disappointed.
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Needless to say, conversation remained at a minimum for the first 30 minutes of the road trip — that is, until the lumberjacks got hungry.
"So, where we going to feed?" Staib asked as the group approached the highway interchange.
When Staib isn't competing as a lumberjack, he operates heavy machinery at his family's earth-moving business in Australia. He also spends time working on the family cattle farm.
"Steakhouse and buffet," O'Toole exclaimed from the front-passenger seat.
Having read the copy on the Western Sizzler marquee, he knew exactly what would please the guys. The youngest in the vehicle at 27-years-old, O'Toole is a self-described city boy from Melbourne, Australia, who works for his father's tree service when not traveling the world for lumberjack competitions.
Lucky for the famished lumberjacks but not so much for the employees of the restaurant, the fare hit the spot. Gawking patrons stared at the spectacle as new plate after new plate arrived at the table.
"Now that was a good feed," Wynyard said, the other guys nodding in approval.
He adjusted his hat with DU-HA (Wynyard's primary sponsor, manufacturers of truck storage systems) pasted across the front and piloted the vehicle down the highway on-ramp.
With new-found post-feast energy, the lumberjacks discussed the heated details of their day, fielded phone calls from overseas loved ones and took in the sights of rural Alabama. As the sun slowly headed for the horizon, Staib and O'Toole began to get comfortable. Soon, the driver assigned the writer driving duties so he, too, could join his snoring colleagues.
"After all, you didn't do anything all day," O'Toole said to the writer, mockingly. "You can drive, right?"
The trip continued across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana through the night, and at 2 a.m., the crackling gravel of the Redfish Lodge driveway marked their arrival.
Out to sea
"Let's go slay some fish," Wynyard boomed from the lodge's balcony deck following Monday morning's breakfast.
Wynyard's order seemed to launch the re-energized fishing party into action, as they scurried to help Capt. Frenette carry last-minute snacks and supplies to the tournament boat. Toying with the notion of whether or not to wager on who would snag the first and biggest fish, the trio instead decided to simply enjoy the day.
Each man displaced their share of marina water as they climbed into the boat.
"OK ... who's fished saltwater before?" the captain asked the lumberjacks as the boat idled out of Venice's harbor, wanting to ascertain each new redfish angler's level of expertise.
Each lumberjack then shared his own prior fishing experience.
Wynyard once owned a fishing boat with fellow STIHL TIMBERSPORTS competitor Dion Lane. The Fidget, as the boat was known, saw hours catching snapper and kingfish before Wynyard and Lane sold the boat last year. And while Wynyard still takes his two boys, ages 4 and 10, on fishing trips whenever possible, he clearly had the most experience — and would remain the most intense angler of the day.
Staib, who hails from the world's largest sand island — Frazier Island — has mainly reef fishing experience, with jobfish and black kingfish finding his nets along the way.
And O'Toole had a primarily freshwater fishing background, catching salmon with his father and uncle on the occasional trip to the country.
"So no one's ever caught a redfish before?" Frenette asked, rhetorically. "Cool. I've never cut a tree down, either."
Hooking up
Once they arrived 50 yards off an open-water beach in 3-5 feet of water, Frenette cut the engine and demonstrated how to properly cast a spinning rod and best retrieve the popping cork with its trailing soft plastic jighead. The Louisiana native also teased Staib and O'Toole after he rejected their request to switch the handles on the reels.
"You want a spastic reel?" Frenette asked. "How do you cut those logs with a spastic grip?"
But it only took five casts for Wynyard to show the group how to do it the right way. The seven-time STIHL TIMBERSPORTS champion set the hook and picked his first fight of many of the day.
The spool screamed as line shot into the water by a muscular fish. Amazed by the strength of the beast, Wynyard laughed as he reeled. Fifteen minutes later, the Kiwi lumberjack held a 30-pound redfish in his meaty hands.
"Do I have some potential here?" Wynyard asked the captain.
"Serious potential," Frenette responded. "I might have a new partner."
Wynyard may want to consider hitting life as a professional redfish angler: He only missed three fish out of a dozen landed. He clearly had the redfish bug.
Next, Frenette passed his rig to Staib so he would know what it felt like to wrestle a stubborn bull red. As the Australian farmboy maneuvered his fish towards the back of the boat, his line suddenly went slack — the fish had broken his line in the motor.
Smiling and red-faced, Staib could only look on the bright side of his 20-minute fight that ended without a boated fish. "Ah, that wasn't a bad workout," he said to O'Toole, reaching into the cooler for a drink.
(Staib would later wind up taking second place among the anglers that day.)
But "the Chisel" seemed to grow frustrated watching everyone else's success.
"I don't know about the fish, but I'm getting hungry," O'Toole said, joining his countryman at the cooler. "I think it's time for a sandwich."
Asked about the origin of his nickname during his break, the confident lumberjack proudly obliged.
"At a show in Australia, a newspaper featured a two-page spread of me shirtless in a competition," the lean lumberjack said. "The line read something like, 'The schoolboy O'Toole has now become a well-chiseled Adonis.'"
The refueling session reinvigorated O'Toole. Soon, the Chisel was casting — and catching — redfish just as often as the other guys. And living up to his moniker, the Chisel rolled up his sleeve and began doing curls with one noticeably smaller redfish.
Long way home
At one point late in the afternoon, a fast-moving storm forced Frenette to move the vessel into sheltered inlets until the ominous conditions subsided. The stained water between the marsh grasses remained calm, despite the drop in the temperature and increasing winds.
But the rain never came and Wynyard was eager to keep fishing. He wanted to make sure he wasn't missing any chances, so he checked with Captain Mike.
"Are there redfish here?" he asked.
"Probably," Frenette replied.
That's all the confirmation Wynyard needed to start tossing lures again.
For the remainder of the day, the fishing party continued pulling the prehistoric-looking animals from the water. In total, close to 30 redfish were nabbed by 5 o'clock that afternoon, with fish being caught up until the very last cast.
"I love days like these," Frenette shouted. "Fish just all over the place, swirling up, blowing up."
On the 30-minute trip back to the marina, Frenette swung by a shrimp boat so the men could see the birds fighting for scraps off the slow-mover's spider-like arms. He identified oil platforms for the anglers and pointed out alligators sliding into the water.
Once the boat returned to the Redfish Lodge, the worn-out lumberjacks-turned-anglers thanked Frenette vigorously for the hospitality and the experience. Capt. Frenette filleted two redfish for Wynyard, packing them into an ice-filled cooler for the long drive back to Minnesota.
Blackened or grilled, smoked or fried, skin on or off, the Kiwi learned different ways to prepare and cook redfish from the man with the slight Cajun accent. With final thanks and goodbyes exchanged, the lumberjacks loaded the truck again for the hour-and-half trek north to New Orleans.
Despite talk of Bourbon Street earlier in the day, two long days on both land and sea had taken its toll on the group. O'Toole and Staib had to catch two domestic flights early in the morning before embarking on the long return flight across the Pacific.
Wynyard was looking at a 20-something-hour drive to a friend's cottage where he'd stay before leaving the following week for France. In Europe, he will train the national lumberjack team ahead of the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wis.
Programming the GPS coordinates for the airport, Wynyard figured any hotel airport would do.
The final mission of the weekend was finding food. And watching Frenette's preparations earlier didn't do much to quell appetites. A seafood restaurant was the unanimous goal, but unfortunately anything with a formal kitchen had already been closed for 30 minutes.
With no other option along La. 23 at 9:30 p.m. on a Monday night, dinner involved scarfing down tacos and burritos at a Mexican fast-food restaurant.
The axmen consensus was clear after this meal: it was certainly not a good feed.
