Parrott fished Grand Isle to win Houma event
Benton Parrott won the 2014 Inshore Fishing Association’s Kayak Fishing Tour Championship last weekend by just more than 1 inch, and claimed a Hobie Mirage Pro Angler and several other prizes for his first place finish.
Parrott, of Spanish Fort, Ala., measured a combined two-day total of 124.28 inches to win, nipping Matthew Vann of Pensacola, Fla., who had a two day total of 123.25 inches.
Parrott threw soft plastics, topwater baits and Berkley Gulp! for his limits each day and concentrated in Grand Isle, where he fished early for trout and spent the rest of his days upgrading for redfish.
In addition to the Hobie Mirage Pro Angler kayak, Parrott was awarded a Power-Pole Micro Anchor for first place. The angler won numerous contingency prizes, including the $300 Big Redfish award with a $100 gift card to Cabela’s, courtesy of Berkley, for catching his redfish with Berkley Gulp! and the $1,000 Hobie Top Angler award for having the highest placed finish for an angler competing out of a Hobie kayak.
Parrott also won the $1,000 Overall IFA Kayak Angler of the Year award in the head-to-head matchup among the Divisional Anglers of the Year at the championship event. Parrott was the Divisional Angler of the Year from the IFA’s Louisiana division.
Eric Pendarvis, of Prairieville, finally topped the leaderboard in his three years of fishing the IFA Kayak Tour with a third-place finish.
“I feel like a little boy at Christmas,” Pendarvis said. “I finally have the three-year IFA monkey off my back.”
The angler fished the Barataria Pass and Bayou Lafourche area with Berkley Gulp! on the bottom for his redfish and caught his trout on subsurface hardbaits.
“The conditions were great and everyone was killing the redfish,” said Pendarvis. “I caught my big trout in a spot that has been good to me over 12 years, yet I haven’t fished the spot since spring of 2013.”
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