The Texas Lone Stars put together one of the most dominant single-day performances of the 2026 Sport Fishing Championship Gulf Division season, stretching their tournament lead to 2,300 points heading into Championship Sunday.<\/p>\n
While the Lone Stars stole the headlines, every club found action throughout the day as calmer conditions replaced Friday’s rough seas.<\/p>\n
Lone Stars erupted for a triple sailfish release to start the day. Sutton Schoonover, Raul Perez, and Bryan Richter each recorded releases within a three-minute span, erasing the overnight deficit and reclaiming first place from the West Florida Black Flags by 150 points.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the Gulf Coast Cowboys scored early when co-owner Dino McDowell released a sailfish to move the club into fourth place, while Jaselyn Berthelot released a sailfish for the Louisiana Canyons. Raul Perez extended the Lone Stars’ lead with yet another release just after 9:30 AM.<\/p>\n
Less than 30 minutes later, fellow Lone Star and Port A local Bryan Richter continued his incredible weekend with another blue marlin, pushing the Lone Stars to 1,650 points and leaving the defending champions only a white marlin away from completing a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
At 11:25 AM, Roberto Velazquez released a white marlin, completing the Lone Stars’ first Grand Slam of the tournament. Normally worth 100 points, the fish release was worth effectively 300 points thanks to the 200-point Grand Slam bonus, pushing Texas to an imposing 1,950 points before lunchtime.<\/p>\n
By noon, tournament officials ruled that one of the West Florida Black Flags’ sailfish releases from Friday had been improper, removing 75 points. Although the deduction dropped the Black Flags from 975 to 900 points, they comfortably maintained second place.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Lone Stars continued to pile it on when Logan Radford recorded his first fish of both the tournament and season with a white marlin that pushed Texas beyond the 2,000-point mark. Later in the afternoon, Richter added yet another white marlin before he and Raul Perez combined for another 150-point surge, capping one of the most impressive scoring days the SFC has seen this season.<\/p>\n
Behind the leaders, the battle for the remaining podium spots stayed entertaining throughout the day.<\/p>\n
The Third Coast Renegades slowly chipped away thanks to sailfish releases from Drake Beasley, Kevan Billings, Garrett Frazier, and Dylan Frazier. Beasley also added a white marlin during the evening bite. By day’s end, the Renegades had climbed to 875 points, remaining one blue marlin away from triggering the Grand Slam bonus.<\/p>\n
Country Music superstar Brian Kelley, who has become the star angler for the Gulf Coast Cowboys, accounted for multiple sailfish releases before adding a late white marlin, while club co-owner Lori McDowell also contributed a sailfish. The consistent action kept the Cowboys firmly in fourth place entering the final day.<\/p>\n
The Louisiana Canyons continued to rely on Jaselyn Berthelot, whose sailfish and white marlin releases kept the club in the middle of the pack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Championship Sunday has a lot of drama in store with clubs on the precipice of the grand slam bonus: The Mississippi Blues added a sailfish through Adam Davidson, leaving them just a blue marlin away from completing a Grand Slam. In fact, each of the four remaining clubs yet to record a grand slam: Third Coast Renegades, Louisiana Canyons, Gulf Coast Cowboys and aforementioned Blues, are a blue marlin release away from the grand slam bonus.<\/p>\n
Day 2 Standings<\/p>\n
Texas Lone Stars \u2013 2,300 Points
\nWest Florida Black Flags \u2013 1,350 Points
\nThird Coast Renegades \u2013 875 Points
\nGulf Coast Cowboys \u2013 425 Points
\nLouisiana Canyons \u2013 250 Points
\nMississippi Blues \u2013 175 Points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Lone Stars put together one of the most dominant single-day performances of the 2026 Sport Fishing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-407836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}