Mikes Make Right at Everglades' Bight.

By Bob Morris

 

The fourth event on the Ranger/Mercury Redfish Tour was held August 8-9, 2003 in the world-renowned fishery of the Florida Keys.  Miami locals Capt. Mike Haines and Capt. Mike Hutchisson bested 115 teams with a two-day aggregate weight of 27.74 lbs. The grand prize consisted of a fully rigged Ranger 167 Cayman boat with a Mercury outboard and Minn Kota trolling motor.

 

Rowell’s Marina played host to the event at a venue that is considered the best suited stop on the Redfish Tour for a smooth running checkout and weigh in.  Their staff provides much needed assistance in traffic control and boat launching which makes the morning start run much more smoothly than at some venues.  Rowell’s features a spacious parking area and its management is kind enough to offer overnight boat storage with electric hookup to traveling teams – a much appreciated convenience considering the crowded lodging situations that coincided with the opening of lobster season in the Keys.

 

Most pros arrived prepared to make a long run to the Flamingo area of the Everglades National Park where the crystal clear water covers beautiful grass flats that are home to tournament winning redfish.  Reports from early in the week indicated that a tremendous bite was in progress, but with increased pressure from teams scouting for fish things got tougher as the week wore on. 

 

Day one of the competition dawned with clear conditions and steady southwesterly winds that created tough conditions for some – only 55 teams were able to manage a two-fish limit.  One of the biggest surprises was a slot sized redfish weighed in by Louisiana’s Andy Mnichowski and Anthony Randazzo that tipped 8.46 lbs on the scales – the largest fish weighed in the three seasons the Tour has visited Key Largo.  Four teams were able to break the 14 lb. mark – a number that would have won any previous event!  The “top 5” for the day were Randazzo and Mnichowski with 15.61 lbs., Mike Meritt and Ray Culver with 15.13 lbs., Michael Hanes and Mike Hutchisson with 14.91 lbs., Trent Brady and Eddie Callais with 14.61 lbs., and John Henninger and Frank Fazioli with 14.64 lbs.

 

Saturday’s competitors found similar weather conditions to the first day with the exception of higher wind speeds.  Several teams made strategic adjustments that paid off with big moves in the standings – most notably was Jeff Dry and Howie Blitstein who turned a empty livewell on day-one into a 51th place finish with 12.21 lbs.  Other big movers included Jim Romeka and Jay McDaniell who went from 64th to 35th place, Scott Johnson and Jeff Chambliss moved from 58th to 30th, and Ray Van Horne and C.A. Richardson made it “into the money” by leaping from 39th to 17th place.

 

Local knowledge played a factor in 4 of the top 5 finishes including the winning team of Mike Hutchisson and Mike Haines who regularly guide in the waters around Flamingo.  According to Hutchisson, the team had prefished for about two weeks in some of the bays and bights east of the ranger’s station.  On the first day of competition they found milky white water but were not swayed from their plan of sight casting to feeding reds.  “When you spend a lot of time fishing that type of water you learn how to spot the fish – they will really have a red glow against the white background,” said Capt. Haines.  “They have a hard time seeing you too - the big fish we caught (on day one) I had to cast to six times before he could see it and would eat!” 

 

Throwing Saltwater Assassin jerkbaits in the “space guppy” pattern on Biscayne Rods, the duo reported a strong bite to finish out the day in third place overall.  Saturday’s competition found them headed to the same bay to test their float plan again.  According to Hutchisson, “The increased wind had turned the water to pea soup so we started out blind casting.  On one of my first casts I retrieved the bait within a couple of feet of the boat and BAM – our big fish just swallowed it!”  This early catch led to a stressful end of the tournament for these pros – after running the livewell all day to ensure a successful release of their fish they found the battery would not power up their motor!  “We were really sweatin’ it at that point – after about three tries of pull starting the motor it fired up.  We decided to head in but didn’t think our weight would hold up for better than around 10th place,” said Hutchisson.  Their win in Key Largo backs up “top 10” finishes in Titusville and Lafitte and will make them strong contenders for the “Team of the Year” point race that is really starting to heat up.

 

A long trip from New Orleans paid off for the second place team of Anthony Randazzo and Andy Mnichowski who led the field after the first day of competition.  The pair used a soft plastic fiddler crab they found at an Islamorada bait shop combined with some Yum attractant to bring home a 27.59 lb limit from the grassflats around Flamingo.  “This is totally different for us – we guide out of Venice (Louisiana) and are used to using a trolling motor so learning to pole was tough.  The first day we were going around in circles but we figured it out eventually,” said Randazzo.  “We didn’t find a lot of fish – mainly singles or pairs but we sight cast the crab that we Texas rigged with a bb shot to them and they ate.”

 

Randazzo added, “We really owe a lot to Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor.  They loaned us their Maverick HPX and showed us some spots on the map.”  After a win in Lafitte, this result shows that these guys are good enough to adapt to any conditions and will be a threat with the tour coming to their home waters of Venice, LA in October.  

 

Team Cabela’s Tony Ortega and Ron Creber reside in the Keys so they are no strangers to the nuances of redfishing in these waters – past experience led them to make adjustments to their float plan en-route to a third place finish.  “We got to our number one spot and found a lot of mullet which were active and making a lot of noise.  We felt that this would scare the reds to a certain extent so we moved,” said Tony.  The strategy paid off as they found a flat with clean water and a lot of redfish. 

 

Knowing what the redfish were feeding on was another key element in their 27.45lb limit.  “At this time of year all of our fish are feeding on juvenile shrimp and crabs so we went with the brand new Hank Browns 1/4oz skimmer jig which is a good finesse bait that imitates a crustacean.  We tipped it with an Exude Mite which added some scent and helped it sink slower which kept it in front of the fish longer.”  Ortega was also quick to thank his sponsors: “Without the courtesy of outfits such as Compass Outfitters, Cabelas, Mercury, Hank Brown’s Lures, Power Pole, Eva Cool, Maverick Boats we would not be able to do this.  Another key is having a good partner like Ron Creber and having the family behind you – we would not be nearly as successful without them.”

 

Captains Ray Culver and Mike Merritt of Everglades City took second place on Friday but fell to fourth place after the final weigh-in with 27.06 lbs.  Using Exude shrimp on 1/4 oz. jig heads, the pair targeted a school of fish around a small key south of Flamingo that Culver had discovered on a recent charter.  “The bite was red hot on Friday!  We used a snook tactic of fishing tight under the mangroves because not a lot of people do that down here.” said Culver.  “We caught our limit and decided to leave the fish for today.  We took a real risk because we had to wait late in the day for the tide to come in enough for the fish to get under the bushes.” 

 

In one of the more exciting but heartbreaking stories of the tournament, Ray and Mike lost what may have been the winning fish to a large lemon shark at boatside.  “We use Power Pro line on Shimano Rods and Reels and really crank down the drag and horse the fish out of there.  The big ones take a little more time and the shark just grabbed one that was over 7lbs.  Once the blood got in the water it was over – sharks came from everywhere.  Mike almost got bit trying to land it!”  They ended up catching one that weighed 5.51 lbs and wondered what may have been  – but were still happy with a “top 5” finish.

 

Robert Walczak of Naples and Capt. Stephen Murray of Islamorada bagged 26.65 lbs. to take the fifth spot.  Johnson spoons and Berkley and Saltwater Assassin jerkbaits were their baits of choice when targeting a school of active fish they had located during prefishing.  According to Murray, “I had been prefishing on charters for a couple of weeks but we didn’t find our fish until Thursday.  They were away from the crowd, which was good, so we left quickly to avoid being seen.”  Walczak added, “We found the fish to be pretty spooky so we decided to abandon sight fishing and strictly blind cast – that was a good part of our success.”  The pair made a good move from 17th place on Friday with their 13.85 lb. limit.   

 

The Key Largo event is usually one of my favorites but this year it was tough with only one rat red to our credit.  The ironic thing that I discovered while interviewing the top teams was that we crossed off the winner’s spot after prefishing due to water clarity, and fished the wrong pattern at the fourth place team’s spot while they had a spectacular bite right behind our backs…  Good lessons learned for next year - hopefully things will improve when we return to our home waters of Jacksonville on September 12th.