Deep thoughts

Fernandina tide schedule stymies many Redfish Series teams

FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. – It’s the ultimate angling frustration – seeing fish exactly where you thought they’d be, but realizing you can’t reach them. That was the pain felt by many frustrated fishermen working the local salt marshes during day one of the Walmart FLW Redfish Series event at Fernandina Beach.

With very few exceptions, the majority of the tournament field banked on the same pattern – tailing redfish. Teams had scouted the area’s vast Spartina grass mashes and noted particular creeks, coves and flats that held tournament quality redfish.

The key had been high tide – new water flooding the muddy banks and granting redfish nearly limitless access to the bounty of crabs, snails and other forage hiding amid the grass stalks. Tailing – nose down, backside up – enables redfish to gobble these meals, but it also offers anglers a visual clue to their whereabouts.

On this first day of Redfish Series competition, a high tide around noon in the Fernandina area gave anglers very little time to take advantage of the flooded grass. In some areas, the water never rose enough for anglers to reach the sweet spots.

Tournament leaders Roger Crafton of Boca Grande, Fla., and John Ochs of Englewood, Fla., found a limit catch weighing 11 pounds, 12 ounces. They overcame the day’s tidal limitation by working the perimeter of Spartina grass stands during the early-morning low.

“We like to fish on the trolling motor, but the tide was so low we couldn’t do that, so I poled John around,” Crafton said. “We saw some fish moving and saw a fish bust up along some grass. John threw up there and caught him. It was a 5-pounder, so that was a good start.”

That first fish ate a Blurp Jerk Shad in molten color around 8 o’clock. A nearly identical opportunity arose shortly thereafter, but Ochs’ leader broke. “There are so many oysters out there, so you’re constantly checking your leader for (damage).”

After that, Crafton said his team struggled with several unproductive spots: “We tried a bunch of different stuff. We tried a spinnerbait once the water got up a little, but these midtides here are just killer because the fish push into that grass, and they become inaccessible. We tried to throw as far back in the grass as we could, but it was futile.”

The team’s second weight fish came late in the day as the high tide enabled them to work their way into marsh arteries. Ochs explains: “We just trolling-motored around the rest of the day, looking for tailers. We ended up catching four more, and about 1:45, we ended up catching one more that was about 6 pounds, so that’s when we called it a day and just took it easy coming in.”

Early success lands Joseph-Jernigan in second

Working the Spartina marshes of South Fernandina, Chris Joseph of Holmes Beach, Fla., and John Jernigan of Venice, Fla., caught two reds weighing 11 pounds, 8 ounces. They started their morning by fishing the drop-off edges of the Intracoastal Waterway on the low incoming tide and then moved to grassy marsh habitat to look for tailers.

They were hoping to find dozens of redfish tailing in the grass and an aqueous path to the bounty. What they found was a tide that did not follow the script.

“We needed another 6 inches to reach the quality fish that we had found during practice,” Jernigan said. “The tide was supposed to be lower than what we had fished during practice, but the wind was lighter today, so we didn’t get as much of a push as were hoping for.

“We could see the fish tailing in some of the deeper flooded pockets, but we couldn’t access them. It was pretty frustrating.”

As Jernigan notes, their earlier success eased the frustration: “It would have been worse if we didn’t have anything in the boat, but we caught our weight fish during the first hour. We were on our spot by about 7:20, and we had our two fish by 8:30. We were pretty pleased with that.

“We knew going in that we had nothing to do but scout new areas for the first few hours until that water came up,” Jernigan added. “So we just worked the outside of the ICW on little drop-off edges.”

The anglers threw dark-colored jerkbaits on ¼-ounce jigheads right against the Spartina grass and pulled them into the deeper water. Flipping shrimp and schools of finger mullet were welcome sights. “The more bait we saw, the more (redfish) activity we would find,” Jernigan said.

Owens-Aldridge find the fish, end up third

A busy day with some 22 redfish yielded a third-place performance for Scott Owens of Brunswick, Ga., and Robert Aldridge of Jacksonville, Ga. Fishing oyster bars, the anglers threw Fish Bites soft-plastic jerkbaits on 1/8-ounce jigheads and caught two redfish weighing 10 pounds, 3 ounces.

The excitement started early, as the third-place duo caught a 15-pound redfish on their first spot. “It’s too bad we couldn’t cut him in half to make two (slot fish),” Owens joked.

Best of the rest

In fourth place, Michael and Linda Dotson, both of Fernandina Beach, Fla., caught a limit weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces. Manny Perez of Punta Gorda, Fla., and Paul Jueckstock of Port Orange, Fla., placed fifth with 9-11.

Rounding out the top 10 leaders at the FLW Redfish Series Fernandina Beach event are:

6th: Adam Loud and Cliff White, 9-10

7th: Christopher Cenci and Eric Taylor, 9-2

8th: Chaz Adams and Michael Phillips, 8-11

9th: Paul Chavis and Blaine Peterson, 8-7

10th: Larry Miniard and Jim Romeka, 7-11

Walmart FLW Redfish Series action in Fernandina continues at Friday’s takeoff, scheduled to take place at 7 a.m. EDT at Fernandina Harbor Marina, located at 1 Front Street in Fernandina Beach. Weigh-ins start at 3 p.m. at the Marina.