Team Crown Royal Takes Punta Gorda Prize

By Bob Morris

 

Stop three on the Ranger/Mercury Redfish Tour was held May 16-17, 2003 in the beautiful waters of Charlotte Harbor in Southwest Florida.  Hosted by the Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda, the team of John McGill of Slidell, Louisiana and Joe Crosby of Cumming, Georgia beat the field of 117 boats with a two-day aggregate weight of 29.14 lbs. The grand prize consisted of a fully rigged Ranger 167 Cayman boat with a Mercury outboard and Minn Kota trolling motor in addition to $5,000 cash and Ranger Cup contingency bonus money.

Charlotte Harbor is well known as one of the top destinations for inshore saltwater angling in the world with trophy redfish, tarpon, trout, and snook found in great numbers in its waters.  Without a doubt, the facilities at the Burnt Store Resort are the finest the tour visits each season - offering a perfect compliment to the strong fishery.

The marina itself is run by dock master Don Thompson whose organization of the morning launch made things run much more smoothly than is the norm for other stops on tour where traffic flow has presented a problem.  Some of the more well-traveled teams took advantage of the marina’s abundance of slips that offered electric hook-up for battery chargers, fresh water wash down, and mooring lines for effortless docking.  The time saved by not having to launch and retrieve the boat every day is a great convenience that is worth every penny - especially after spending several hours in the 90-degree heat chasing redfish.

The Marina Inn offered reasonable rates for very nice rooms that featured a master suite, screened porch, and kitchenette - not to mention a large pool for an after hours dip.  Several teams opted to rent some of the resort’s duplex units that featured two bedroom accommodations with all the conveniences of home.  Latitudes Restaurant offered a great menu and full bar overlooking the water and the Ship’s Store offered box lunches and breakfast to competitors.  The amenities of the Burnt Store Resort were top shelf and the Redfish Tour appreciates the hospitality.

Last season several teams earned their money by traveling from other venues to the redfish laden waters of the Pine Island Sound - leaving many pros anxious for the Tour’s return to the area.  Early reports indicated a strong feed was in progress, but things got tougher as the week wore on.  By tournament time, the overwhelming consensus was that the fish were abundant but were very skittish and finicky - the bite was definitely slow!  Some credited the meltdown to a combination of the arrival of pockets of red tide, the full moon, and the practice of people “running the flats” in search of fish - which makes them more spooky than normal.

Day one of the competition dawned with clear conditions and calm winds but the fishing was tough - as evidenced by statistics that showed only 60 teams with a two-fish limit.  George Clark and Kerry Wingo led the way with a 16.16 lb aggregate limit anchored by an 8.17 lb slot red.  Sam Arcure and Sam Arcure Jr., John McGill and Joe Crosby, John Henninger and Frank Fazioli, and Cliff Vaughan and Mark Sepe who rounded out the "top five" followed them.  2002 Team of the Year captain Eric Mannino and teammate Byron Stewart had the largest redfish on day one with a monster that went 8.52 lbs.

The second day of competition saw similar conditions - relatively calm winds by Redfish Tour standards (which usually means a minimum of 25 mph) with a temperature index in the 90's.   Fishing on Saturday was slightly better according to the top teams but the field as a whole only managed 63 limits.  Team Cabela's Merrily Dunn and Leiza Fitzgerald bagged an 8.75 lb stud that took big fish honors for the event, which they paired with a 7.73 lb that gave them the largest aggregate of the tournament - a whopping 16.48 lbs.  Day-one woes found them with only one small fish, but they made up ground in the Team of the Year point race on the second day by finishing in 37th place overall. 

The main challenge of the Redfish Tour is creating strategies that allow anglers to pattern fish away from their home waters.  The nuances of fishing the crystal clear flats of Charlotte Harbor are not easily learned, which makes the victory of John McGill and Joe Crosby especially sweet considering their local fishery is the Louisiana Delta.  They certainly did not grow up fishing pothole covered grass flats and mangrove shorelines in the marshes of the Mississippi River, but showed that skill paired with persistence could will them a victory.

According to McGill, "This is vastly different from what we are used to - it's harder here.  The main thing is we had to learn quietness and a stealthy presentation - plus you can see the fish here in the clear water which is unlike back home."  The team had found fish in a couple of locations during their three day prefish, and had planned to head to the north end of Charlotte Harbor in search of tailing reds on the first day of competition.  "Our number one spot didn't pan out," according to Crosby, "so we had to head south to Pine Island to an oyster reef we located in practice.  The bite was slow - we only caught four fish on the first day, and three today (Saturday) but we stuck to the spot."

Using Exude jerkbaits on jig-heads, the pros methodically worked the area with a combination of blind casting to the sandy ring around the oyster bar and sight casting to any fish that showed themselves.  After finishing in third place on the first day, McGill reported that he was sure they were in trouble on Saturday.  "We had a cameraman on board, Bob, who said he had filmed a lot of tournaments but had never been on the first place boat - we were kinda thinking he was bad luck.  Bob ended up being just as happy as we are!"  Crosby added, "This was an awesome week.  Thanks to our sponsors things worked out - JDC Marketing and Crown Royal made it all possible for us to be here.  The Ranger Ghost allowed us to get onto the shallow flat, All Star rods landed the fish, Stren line let us get them off the structure, and our Ocean Waves sunglasses let us see the fish in the glare."  They were also pleased to be the first team from outside the state of Florida to best the locals in their home waters.

Ft. Myers locals Sam Arcure and Sam Arcure Jr. added their names to the list of "family ties" on tour by narrowly missing the top spot by a scant .31 lb with 28.83 lbs.  Like the winners, Team Arcure, found a school of redfish and stuck to their plan without leaving the spot for two straight days.  According to Arcure Jr., "We were on a flat in the north Pine Island Sound that we had been fishing for about a month.  We got there and found at least 15 boats in the area - we watched them catching fish but we didn't get a bite.  We ended up putting down our Power Pole and waiting for any sign of action."  Sam Sr. added, "We were really gambling on that spot.  There were fifteen boats pushing the fish all around.  In the afternoon everybody finally left the flat and we wondered if we should too.  We stayed and the fish ended up coming right to us!"

The father and son team finally got their day-one limit around 3:00 using Exude jerkbaits and a spoon that Sam Sr. had designed himself.  Knowing their strategy was solid enough for a second place standing on Friday, they returned to the same flat the following day.  "We narrowed it down to one single pothole," said Sam Jr.  "We were surrounded by boats all day long but we held onto the spot until we decided to leave so our fish would make it to the weigh-in alive.  The key for us is that we now have the boat to really make a strategy around - our Ranger 191 has a jack plate that lets us run shallow and the Power Pole lets us stop and really watch the fish.  We also are really excited about our new Waterloo Rods and would like to thank our other sponsors Reels Inc. and Ameristitch Embroidery,"

Team Maverick/Yamaha was represented by Mark Miller and Andrew Bostick who brought home another solid finish for the year by coming in third with 28.14 lbs.  Mark said, "Both days were extremely tough.  We had a game plan and stuck to it - we were lucky enough the first day to have a couple of fish in the boat early and got our upgrades late in the afternoon."  Bostick added, "We had to go to a spot we knew the fish were in and stay with it (on day-two).  We stuck with them for 6 hours before we got them to eat."

When asked what the fish were biting, Miller replied "Most of the time, nothing!  These fish are very spooky and don't eat real well but we threw a lot of plastic baits that seemed to work well at times.  It seemed like nothing in particular would work - if you put a bait in front of a fish and he wanted to eat he would eat."  The duo worked pothole covered grass flats in the Pine Island area and credited part of their success to their shallow running HPX tunnel hull Maverick boat that allowed them to access the shallow water.

Another father and son team - Artie and Arthur Price claimed the fourth place prize with an aggregate total weighing 26.91 lbs.  The Newport Ritchie locals worked through fifteen small fish before catching the two they would weigh on Friday - one of the better fishing reports of the day.  "We weren't on any fish that I though were substantial," said Artie.  "We had caught several small ones and around 1:00 I told dad that we needed to do something different.  I fish down here a lot in an airboat and had a spot where we had to jam the boat down a narrow canal and over a sandbar to get to a six foot deep hole where the better fish were." 

On Saturday, they returned to the same spot in the Turtle Bay area when the tide got high enough and quickly caught their limit, which included an 8.34 lb slot sized redfish, using white Berkley Power Mullet plastics on jig-heads. "We caught a lot of fish on gold spoons but the big ones came on the Mullet with a 3/8 oz stand up jig head - its my go to bait," according to Artie.

Rounding out the "top five" was the team of Eric Bachnik of Mirrolure and Rick Stinson who filled in for his father Pat.  According to Eric, "On day-one we were exceptionally lucky - at the end of the day we got a couple of quality fish after we had caught several small ones earlier."  Using Exude soft plastics (there was too much floating grass for Mirrolures to be effective) Bachnik and Stinson found fish early on Saturday.  "We went out early today because we had a high boat number and got a good fish right away.  Then we moved and caught another one - which was good because we only got one more small one all day.  They managed a total weight of 26.55 lbs.

My hat goes off to the teams who managed to catch a limit both days because the fishing was very tough in my opinion.  This venue has historically been the worst one for my partner Jamie Havard and I - which is disappointing since everyone seems to catch good fish here.  I had hoped this year would be better, but we managed a dismal 78th place finish....The only good news is that we were able to locate a lot of quality fish  - too bad they would not eat anything we threw at them!  I hope that Key Largo will greet us with some more aggressive fish in August.