Pros Go Deep and Shallow for Jax Reds

By Bob Morris

 

The fifth event on the Ranger/Mercury Redfish Tour was held September 12-13, 2003 in the birthplace of the Tour, Jacksonville, Florida.  Local father and son team Capt. Terry and T.D. Lacoss tamed the field with a two-day aggregate weight of 27.03 lbs. which yielded the grand prize of a fully rigged Ranger 167 Cayman boat with a Mercury outboard and Minn Kota trolling motor.

Dave Workman’s Strike Zone Fishing center played host to the event, which was a departure from the normal practice of having the festivities at a marina.  Competing teams checked in and out of the closest boat ramp with tour officials before trailering their catch approximately 7 miles to the city’s newest and largest outdoor products retailer.  Thanks to the Audubon Society’s mobile aquarium and the care pros put into livewell maintenance, stress on the fish during transport was minimal and having the event away from the water’s edge did not compromise the almost perfect percentage of live release for the Redfish Tour.

Jacksonville is one of the more tricky venues on tour for traveling pros due to several factors that make it different from other locales – primarily a water flow of 4-6 feet between high and low tide.  Learning to pattern redfish feeding habits as they related to the tidal fluctuations would be a key to angling success in the backwaters of the St. John’s river. 

Further compounding the difficulty of the competitors’ search for a two-day, four fish aggregate limit was the enforcement of an obscure law that prohibits the upgrading of fish during competition.  Anglers would be forced to make a decision to keep a fish at the moment of catch – once it was placed in the livewell it would be against the rules to exchange, or cull, it for a larger fish later in the day.  This would dictate strategy for most teams – a conscious decision would have to be made between going for broke in search of top-end slot sized fish or playing it safe with whatever fish were caught first.  Fortunately, IFA officials are working closely with State authorities to have the law revised and this added stress on the pros will hopefully be eliminated next season.

Day one of the competition dawned with some of the best conditions of the season - clear conditions and calm winds greeted anglers at daybreak and did not vary much throughout the day.  Surprisingly, only 52 of the 98 registered teams were able to catch a two-fish limit – perhaps the slow bite could be attributed to the full moon conditions and the catch was certainly affected negatively by the no-cull rule.

First place on Friday went to Ron and Chris Hueston who weighed a limit of 16.34 lbs that was anchored by the event’s largest redfish at 8.45 lbs.  Rounding out the “top 5” were Arthur and Artie Price with 16.04 lbs., Howie Green and John Oliverio with 14.32 lbs., Lonnie Collins and Richard Hulett with 14.29 lbs., and Mike Frenette and Darren Angelo with 14.09 lbs.

Saturday’s competitors found similar weather conditions to the first day with the exception of a lower tidal flow – many teams that had patterned high water reds were left sitting in the channel hoping the tide would flood enough for them to reach their fish.  South Carolina’s Ronnie Pitts and Eric LaBarca were the big movers on day-two with a 14.42 lb aggregate that replaced an empty livewell on day-one for a 40th place finish.

The father and son team of Terry and T.D. Lacoss are no strangers to success on the Redfish Tour with a win and a several top finishes on their resume.  Entering the weekend, many would pick them as the favorites to win considering they placed 2nd in Jacksonville and 4th in St. Augustine on last year’s Tour – two venues that are in striking distance of their home waters of Amelia Island, FL.

Keying in on a local pattern was an integral part of their victory according to Terry.  “We had a narrow cut near a big oyster covered mud flat where we knew the fish would stage while waiting for the water to rise high enough for them to get back onto the flat.  We targeted them with topwater plugs and got one close to 7lbs.  When the tide rose we used spoons in the flooded grass to get our second fish – we knew we could have gotten some bigger ones but with the no culling rule we took what we had.”

Saturday brought a lower tidal flow and the team worried that their 6th place standing from Friday may be sacrificed.  “We were looking at each other and wondering when the water would come in and allow us to get on the flat,” said Lacoss.  “The minute the tide flooded and started to go out, we had five strikes and got our limit.”  The pair elected to blind cast spoons on the final day because they felt that the bite had slowed and topwater would not be as effective on fish that were in the grass feeding on crabs and shrimp.

Another local guide, Larry Miniard, and his partner Keith Reagor took the second place check with a completely different strategy from the winners.  Ignoring the pattern of chasing fish in the grass covered mud flats; Larry and Keith chose to target deep-water fish on their fall spawning run. 

“We had been shallow water fishing during practice, but could not get any consistent results,” said Miniard.  “Having fished here all of my life, I knew that at this time of year the fish come in to the inlets to spawn and they can be caught on deep water structure.  We were vertical jigging in 25 feet of water using Jaw Jacker jigs rigged with a Rip Tide 4” mullet plastic – the motor oil with chartreuse tail was deadly!”

On day-one the pair had their 12.48 lb. limit by 9:05 a.m. that left them in 14th place.  Saturday found the pair in the exact same spot in the St. Augustine area, where they found bigger fish.  “We caught and released around twenty oversized reds before we got two that would measure,” said Capt. Larry.  They finished with a four-fish aggregate weight of 26.64 lbs. 

Third place went to Tampa’s John Oliverio and Homosassa guide Howie Green with 26.01 lbs.  During scouting the duo had found redfish feeding in the flooded grass north of the St. John’s river in the Intracoastal Waterway and elected to spend both days in the same area.  According to Green, “On Friday, we targeted tailing fish and got one on a Rip Tide mullet at high tide.  As the tide fell, we used the Power Pole (Oliverio’s invention) to stake off at the mouth of small creeks where we waited for the fish to come out of the grass.”

On Saturday a little luck paired with skill led to another nice stringer of fish.  “We had decided that we would throw back any fish under 5lbs. before 12:00 and keep them after that time.   At 12:45 we caught one right at 5lbs. – we were supposed to keep that fish according to our plans but we flipped a coin and released it!”  said Oliverio.  Knowing that the bite had gotten better on the previous day, the pros’ educated gamble paid off with a bigger fish weighing 5.98 lbs.

Like the winners, brothers Ron and Chris Hueston also fished the backwaters of Amelia Island en-route to their 4th place finish.  Sight casting to tailing redfish with Exude shrimp was the team’s strategy going into the event and it paid off with the events largest fish and a day-one lead.  “We were fishing oversized fish and hoping to get two in the slot each day,” said Ron.  “The water had gotten blown in by the high winds on Thursday and we were able to easily get back in the grass and find fish on Friday – we caught 8 reds before getting two to measure.”

Saturday’s changing conditions proved more difficult for the leaders and they were unable to bag two good fish to seal a win.  According to Ron, “We waited four hours before even making a cast…The water just didn’t come up.  Our Maverick HPX was the only way we got on the flat and back to our fish – we were only able to fish for 40 minutes and only got one redfish to fit in the slot.”  They spent the remainder of the day blind casting to catch a 3.27 lb. red to round out their limit of 26.00 lbs.

Local anglers Lonnie Collins and Richard Hulett were two more proponents of the deep-water strategy.  Coming off of a win in a recent local tournament, the pair knew of a spot that was holding large slot sized reds.  “We know that at this time of year the fish are coming in to spawn.  We pulled in on our spot and caught our fish by 8:45 on Friday!” said Hulett.  They returned to the same spot on Saturday and persevered through two break-offs before getting their limit.  Exude shrimp on jigheads were the lure of choice for the teammates who had a two day limit weighing 25.99 lbs.

A return to home waters was nice for myself and partner Jamie Havard after a long year of tough fishing.  We were happy to finally get a paycheck with a 12th place finish, but were disappointed with the limitations of the no-culling rules – it got really tense on-board the boat Saturday when we had released several small fish and still had an empty livewell at 12:30.  I’m sure everyone else has similar stories to tell – and we all will sure be happy to return to Venice, LA where culling is not an issue!