FAMILY AFFAIR

Father and Son Team Win Redfish Tour Championship

By DAVID A. BROWN

Consistency was the name of the game for Greg DeVault and his father Bill, as the New Port Richey, Florida anglers topped a field of 47 teams to win first place at the Ranger-Mercury Redfish Tour Championship, November 8 at Lafitte, Louisiana’s C-Way Marina.

Southern Louisiana is known for producing big, fat redfish in the fall and with three of their four fish weighing over 10 pounds the DeVaults capitalized on this seasonal heftiness to secure their victory. In two days of competition, the tournament saw 17 fish weighing 10 pounds or more and two reaching the 11-pound mark.

The DeVaults were actually one of four teams that arrived about an hour before the Day 2 weigh ins and sat outside the marina until the scales opened at 3 p.m. To build excitement, the weigh-in crew held a handful of teams with obviously large catches until the end of the weigh-ins.

The winners weighed in second to last, ahead of local fishing guides and Day 1 leaders Anthony Randazzo and Andy Mnichowski who started Day 2 with 21.05 pounds (10.70, 10.35). Carrying 19.09 pounds (8.79, 10.30) from their fourth-place Day 1 finish, the DeVaults added a pair of whoppers weighing 10.53 and 11.00 pounds to take over the lead with 40.62 pounds (the Redfish Tour’s first 40-pound total). All eyes locked onto the Cabela’s scoreboard to see if the DeVaults would fall to local talent. But when the screen showed Randazzo and Mnichowski’s Day 2 score of 18.78 pounds (9.36, 9.42), the Florida team embraced in a father-son victory hug.

Greg DeVault said he and his father caught all of their tournament fish over grass flats in the Red Pass area of Venice (south of Lafitte on the Mississippi River delta). Topwaters drew some action, but their weight fish hit 1/2-ounce Johnson gold spoons. A steady retrieve worked better for the spoons than the twitching, fluttering action common to Florida waters, DeVault said.

After breaking a fish off on Day 1, the DeVaults upsized their line to handle the feisty Louisiana reds. “Out here, [heavier line] doesn’t seem to make a difference, the fish just eat when they want to eat. I’ve never been anywhere else where slot sized fish can torque you and break you off. Out here, these 27-inch fish CAN do it. They’re big, wide and mean.”

The winning technique consisted of drifting across the flats, staking out on promising spots with a Power Pole, fan casting and then moving on to the next spot.

“We were just fishing a big open area and watching for fish blowing up on the surface,” Greg said. “We weren’t fishing anywhere near the shore, which is kind of different for us over here. Normally, we’re bouncing off the shore. We were just working big flats in the middle of nowhere with some grass and lots of bait and the fish were in it.”

The winners had their Day 1 fish by 8 a.m. and their Day 2 catch by about 8:45. Greg said that on the second day, it didn’t take long for the realization of potential victory to take hold.

“We knew we needed at least 21 pounds to be competitive and we did it with the first two fish,” he recalled. “The first fish we had [on Day 2] was the 11-pounder and when we caught the second one, we knew he was a heavy 10. It was hard to fish for about an hour after that. It was hard to get serious again, we were so jacked up.”

Comparing Louisiana’s fishery to that of the Pasco County homewaters in which he guides, Greg described Bayou State reds as much more accommodating.  “These fish are so hungry and so aggressive. You can’t spook them; you can’t run them off of an area. You can just about run over top of them with a trolling motor without spooking them.”

Nevertheless, Greg acknowledged the high level of competition, especially from Louisiana anglers. “We feel very fortunate to have caught the fish that we caught. The local anglers are so good — they know where everything is. This is just an awesome feeling.”

On a humorous note, Greg’s winning performance was tempered by a healthy dose of angling humility, courtesy of a cantankerous red. “A fish ran up between two poles and when I motored the boat up to it, the fish turned and came out. When I tried to push off the pole, it broke and I went over the front.”

Connecting this experience to sponsor recognition, Greg thanked Ranger, Mercury and Minn Kota. “The boat got us there, the motor pushed it and the trolling motor pulled double duty — it worked us around the shallow areas and served as a ladder for me to get back into the boat!”

For their efforts, the DeVaults won a new Ranger Boat, Mercury Outboard and Loadmaster Trailer package.

Randazzo and Mnichowski caught their weight fish by blindcasting in shallow water ponds and coastal bays with quarter-ounce spinnerbaits carrying Riverside and Reaction Lures plastic tails. Repeating the same pattern on both days produced plenty of slot-sized, as well as oversized, reds.

“The wind was a little stiffer today so there were some spots that weren’t holding as many fish and some spots that were loaded with fish,” he said. “We caught several 7- to 8-pound fish and we caught some 20- to 30-pound fish. When you’re blindcasting, you just take what comes. You can look at my [heavily scraped] thumb and get an idea of how many fish I released today. It had been starting to heal up because I had been sick and took some time off [from guiding], but these two days just tore it back to nothing.”

Although many tournament anglers were limited by low tides in the morning, Randazzo said he and Mnichowski targeted areas that were less tide-sensitive. “I typically don’t fish ultra-skinny water if I can help it. The areas we fished the last two days were two to four feet deep, so if the tide fell a foot, we still had plenty of water.”

Of the Championship competition, Randazzo said: “We’re fishing against the best of the best and we try to keep our confidence level as high as possible. We do a lot of prefishing, but we don’t necessarily expect to find winning fish when we prefish. We eliminate a lot of water and we locate areas with good concentrations of fish, the right water quality and bait populations. And we have top-notch [boat, motor, trailer, trolling motor, etc.] that allow us to worry about fishing not equipment.”

Randazzo said that although he and Mnichowski caught more fish on Day 2, they just didn’t get a shot at a 10 plus-pounder that could have given them the winning edge. However, on the eve of the tournament’s final day, he put into perspective his team’s performance. “Since tomorrow [November 9] is my 34^th birthday, second place at the Championship is not a bad present.”

Taking third, Eric Mannino and Mark Dobkowski of Oviedo, FL paired the Redfish Tour’s heaviest redfish — a finned football weighing 11.56-pounds — with a 9.09-pounder for 20.65 pounds and a second-place position on Day 1. The following day, they yielded one notch by entering 8.35- and 9.64-pounders.

Fishing heavy grass in the Venice area, Mannino and Dobkowski threw Nemire Red Ripper Spoons and Gambler Flappin Shads. The thick vegetation prevented pitching tactics, so they cast and retrieved the Flappin Shads at a quick pace and. If a redfish blew up on the soft plastic but missed the hook up, they’d immediately follow up with a Red Ripper spoon on the strike point and generally hook the fish.

Dobkowski caught the team’s biggest fish on a small flat where reds were actively feeding. When he spotted a boil next to the boat, he tossed a Nemire Red Ripper spoon toward the fish and quickly hooked up. Mannino said the big red didn’t fight as hard as one might expect an 11-plus pound fish to do, but when the monster rolled sideways at the surface, both anglers gawked in amazement.

“Our eyes lit up and I just said “I hope he measures,” Mannino said. “Our Boga Grip is off by a pound, so we thought it was a 10.50-pound fish, and then when we got up on stage and heard it was an 11.56-pound fish, we were [thrilled].”

Mannino said his team benefited from extensive prefishing for the Championship, as well as for the final regular season event in Venice, October 10-11. “We were here a month ago and I think that was the key, because we prefished for 8 days. We basically knew the general areas where we wanted to start so we didn’t have to break down new water. A month doesn’t change much down here.

“We were on good fish all week [before the Championship] and we had caught 20-pound stringers all week long.”

In fourth place, Artie Price of New Port Richey, FL and Mike Tindal of Mobile, AL grabbed a seventh-place spot on Day 1 with 18.68 pounds (8.83, 9.85) and moved up three places on the final day with 10.13- and 9.31-pound reds for a two-day total of 38.12 pounds. Price and Tindal fished Venice on both days. Facing mostly low-visibility overcast conditions, the anglers couldn’t employ their preferred tactic of sight fishing with soft plastics, so they resorted to blindcasting with 3/4-ounce Johnson gold spoons. Targeting mud flats with grassy bottoms, they had their weight fish by about 11 a.m. both days.

This was the first event in which Price and Tindal fished as a team. Price has historically competed with his father, Arthur Price, Sr., but health concerns have limited the elder Price’s ability to endure long, grueling tournament runs. Tindal said common techniques and similar experience helped solidify the new duo for an effective Championship performance.

Finishing fifth, Dan Latham of Port Charlotte and Matt Haag of Fort Myers made the biggest top-5 move by climbing four notches from a ninth-place Day 1 total of 18.54 pounds (8.87, 9.67). Their second-day effort of 9.34- and 9.52-pound reds yielded a tournament aggregate of 37.40 pounds. Running to Venice on both days, they used Purple/chartreuse Riptide Mullets and fished duck ponds on Day 1 and worked deeper water outside the Red Pass area on Day 2. Latham attributed his team’s success to effective planning.

“We knew we had big fish in the ponds, but we also made sure that if this north wind blew, that we were going to have some deep water fish,” he said. “It worked out well, because without those deep water fish, we wouldn’t have had anything [on the second day.] We made sure we had a back up just in case.”

Many thanks to the folks at C-Way Marina for their trademark hospitality and support, which helped make this event successful and enjoyable for all participants. Also, thanks to Crista Lobue and the Audubon Nature Institute team for their diligent efforts in tagging and releasing all tournament fish.