Dive into the world of Tampa Bay offshore fishing at this all-female tournament

Lady anglers of all fishing levels compete in the Suncoast Ladies Classic, a multispecies fishing tournament exclusively for women.

By Gabrielle Lazor | Times staff
Published July 23|Updated July 26
Read Original Article

GULF OF MEXICO — Erika Almond’s biceps bulged as she gripped her Star Rod. Arching back, she used every ounce of her 5-foot, 10-inch body to muscle the fishing rod up before cranking the reel downward. Her opponent, about 100 feet below, contorted the pole into a parabola.

What exactly was hooked on the other end? It was impossible to say, but the deep-sea behemoth was nearly double Almond’s size. She guessed it was about 10 feet long and more than 250 pounds, either a shark or a goliath grouper.

It was a week before the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic, a multispecies fishing tournament exclusively for female anglers, or fisherwomen, that Almond runs.

She had set out before sunrise with five other anglers and their captain, Kevin Farner, to sail roughly 65 miles into the Gulf of Mexico from St. Petersburg, where the tournament was set to take place. Because how would she know there are fish to be caught without going offshore herself?

There’s no turning back during daylong excursions like these — if anyone gets seasick, she’ll toss you overboard with a pool noodle until it passes. A day with Almond, 46, and her crew is anything but ordinary. They “hawk tuah” on their bait, sing along to rapper NLE Choppa and tell stories about how. for Almond’s 40th birthday, the boat deck was transformed into a slip-and-slide of whipped cream.

Spewing endless expletives while fishing, the lady anglers single-handedly challenge the cliche “swear like a sailor.” More like “curse like a fisherwoman.”

Almond’s boat is a pristine, white 34-foot SeaVeeZ called Offshore Therapy. The best days aboard are when the vessel turns into a bloodied crime scene of fish guts.

The name came from Almond joking about being prescribed “offshore therapy” when work got stressful — except, with this form of therapy, shark attacks and panic attacks are equally likely.

She continued leveraging the rod against her body.

“You got it, girl, you got it,” cheered Crystal Snead, who came across the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic on Facebook last year and was hooked.

The monster was relentless.

It had been hours since the anglers last saw land. In every direction, cobalt blue water unfurled until the horizon blended into a hazy merge of sea and sky. The conditions were perfect. Besides the occasional rain shower, the water was glasslike. It made Offshore Therapy feel like the only sign of life, even though there were millions of predators, prey and who-knows-whats lurking below — nearly all of them hungry.

Scott Ramella, who was aboard for “comic relief and to drink all the beer,” ate deli meat off his Publix sub.

“If you want to catch a Florida fish, use Pub sub bread as bait,” he said.

From across the boat, he took a playful stab at Almond’s ego.

“If you need a man, Erika, just say.”

Erika Almond, the tournament director, watches teams weigh their fish during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

Reeling in respect, one catch at a time

Fishers are superstitious when it comes to what’s allowed on their boats. Bananas? Not a chance: They’re blamed for misfortune of any kind, a fallacy dating back to the 1700s that remains widely upheld.

For a while, women were considered bad luck, too.

“Other (fishing) organizations are very much about the ‘good ol’ boys,’ and they’re not ready to adapt to women fishing,” said Snead, a self-described “city girl” who used to avoid touching worms.

Sure, on Offshore Therapy, the closest thing to a “ladies’ room” is the boat’s stern, where women squat, letting the wind take their stream of pee behind them. And yes, men are less likely to battle with a hairbrush after a day in the ocean breeze.

But a woman can bait a hook just as well as any man. And she’ll do it with manicured hands.

Crystal Snead, with the Reel Dream Team, celebrates after her team finishes weighing their fish at the Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

Almond is a veteran angler. She grew up fishing in a pond near her trailer park in Gainesville, using hot dog chunks as bait because that’s what her mom could afford. After graduating from the University of Florida, Almond moved to St. Pete and sought a boat for longer offshore fishing trips.

She noticed then that her fishing clothes never fit right.

“They were basically a man’s shirt cut smaller,” said Almond. “They were not designed for women.”

So she created her own line of fishing apparel, also called Offshore Therapy, selling sun shirts, buffs and hats specifically for female anglers. She became a vendor at the Suncoast Kingfish Classic tournament, and was invited to serve on their board in 2019.

During the pandemic, organizers asked her how to expand the women’s programs. At the time, the fishing industry was tapped out. The market was not going to grow if the same type of people kept buoying the craft — grandfathers who raised their sons to raise their sons to fish.

Almond knew it would take a grassroots approach with an educational component to get women involved.

“They basically gave me the spotlight and said, ‘This is your baby. Let’s see what you do with it, and we’ll support you,’” she said.

Almond wanted to create an environment where women could improve their skills and learn fishing techniques. From tying knots to boater safety, she hosts workshops to prevent women from feeling like, well, fish out of water. (Learn more about the monthly seminars on the tournament’s website or Facebook page.)

“That’s what made her stand out,” said Snead. “I (went) to one of her women’s fishing seminars … it’s literally like ‘this is a hook, this is a line, this is how you tie a knot.’”

Almond uses her tournament to empower women of all fishing levels. She will pair women who have never touched a fishing rod with a tournament-winning captain, so they can win cash. (Proceeds go to Ready for Life, a charity helping young adults transition from foster care to adulthood.) Up to $25,000 in prizes are on the line — and hopefully fish, too.

She’s no stranger to tournaments herself. At the Dogfish 25 tournament in 2022, a fish hook impaled Almond’s index finger while she was reeling in a 25.54-pound kingfish. Her team still won.

Another time, on a recreational trip, a great white shark chomped at the boat’s motors.

But that monstrous God-knows-what hooked to the business end of Almond’s rod on her pretournament excursion? The line broke. Almond lost the battle. She desperately wanted to know what she had caught, it would’ve been returned to sea anyways. But sometimes, that’s just how it goes.

As tournament director, at least now she could confirm there are plenty of fish in this particular sea.

A red snapper is placed on a table and weighed for the competition during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

An offshore tournament like no other

On July 13, Almond was up at 3:15 a.m. She started her day at the third annual Suncoast Ladies’ Classic by driving teams to their boats.

A tournament record number of 136 lady anglers jetted dozens of miles offshore from Tiki Docks in St. Petersburg in search of seven species. Men could be captains, but only fisherwomen were allowed to touch and reel in catches. There would be no handing off the rod.

At exactly 6:30 a.m., the lines could touch the water. And Almond doesn’t tolerate cheating — she’s used a polygraph machine before to make sure anglers stay within tournament boundaries.

There are two categories within the multispecies tournament: bottom and pelagic. Bottom fish are found near the ocean floor: American red snapper, mangrove snapper and scamp grouper. The pelagic category includes predatory “surface swimmer” species: Blackfin tuna, mahi mahi, cobia and wahoo.

It’s rare that a kill tournament has a conservation element, but this one does: Teams are encouraged to collect any trash they find in the gulf. Partnering with Water Warrior Alliance, the boat with the most garbage aboard wins $1,000.

After scouring the waters all day, teams return for weigh-in, where they can bring their largest specimen per category to be considered for prizes. Tournament staff check for anything unnatural, like weights in the fish’s stomach or hooks in the mouth, that would affect the scale. Then, the fish are tied up and weighed for an official measurement.

The first team to arrive, Speeler Cos., cruised into the marina at 3:30 p.m. There was no need to stay out any longer: They knew they had a winner aboard. By 4:30 p.m., team after team started arriving. Almond’s rod was traded for a clipboard and walkie-talkie, as she made sure everything ran smoothly.

Wearing matching hot pink tank tops, team Not Here For a Haircut came in with the heaviest scamp grouper, weighing in at 8.94 pounds.

“It’s an adrenaline rush,” said Nicole Chandler-Autrey, who reeled in the 9-pound fish. “Your legs are shaking, your arms are shaking, and it’s like the best feeling in the world.”

The Not Here For A Haircut team celebrates when their scamp grouper weighs 8.94 pounds during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

Teenagers as young as 15 years old up to women in their 60s braved the big blue.

Chandree Reyes, 47, used to fish with her dad as a little girl. On tournament day, it had been more than 20 years since she touched a fishing rod.

She ended up catching a tuna for the first time, and got a new personal best for red snapper.

“Never for one minute felt like I was being talked down to,” said Reyes. “I never felt like I didn’t belong.”

Her team, If It Has Eyes, It Dies, lived up to its name. They walked away with more than $6,000, earning a spot on the leaderboard for American red snapper, scamp grouper and bottom master.

The If It Has Eyes, It Dies team celebrates after the trash they collected weighs 72.42 pounds during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

Toward the end of the day, Speeler Cos. unveiled their prized species: Jenny Roesch’s wahoo, a sleek razor-toothed predator.

The slender beast with lifeless eyes was zipped inside an insulated weigh-in bag, a red gash in its side where the gaff pierced its body. It took both Roesch and her niece to lift the wahoo, which was more than 6 feet long.

Two men paraded the fish over to be weighed. The scale’s hook had to be raised so the ‘hoo would fit.

“Look at the size of this wahoo,” said tournament emcee Nate Mosley. “Touches the dang floor, damn near!”

The crowd was a chorus of whoops and hollers. People rose to their feet, waiting for the scale’s numbers to blink red: 63.8 pounds.

Jenny Roesch of St. Petersburg stands next to a wahoo that she caught that weighed 63.8 pounds during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]

The teacher wasn’t expecting to bait the torpedo-shaped sea sprinter. Using a spinning rod 155 feet out, Roesch was fishing for snapper. Catching the predatory wahoo with a dead sardine made the feat even more impressive.

“We saw him take the sardine, set the hook and the race was on,” said Roesch.

She reeled in what could be the largest wahoo brought in by hook-and-line by a female angler on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Almond has reached out to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the International Game Fish Association to confirm the potential record-breaker.

Either way, the beast fish cleared its killer in height. At the ladies’ classic, size matters.

Competition fish are contained in a box during the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic at Tiki Docks Skyway Bar and Grill on July 13 in St. Petersburg. [ JEFFEREE WOO | Times ]