Tied up in Titusville

Top two teams in Redfish Series lock up at 24-01

TITUSVILLE, Fla. – It’s all tied up at the bottom of the ninth! OK, so it’s not Major League Baseball, but it best describes the scenario at the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Eastern event.

Going into the final day, the redfish team of Jim Armstrong of Chuluota, Fla., and Dennis Cox of Edgewater, Fla., share the same leading weight – 24 pounds, 1 ounce – with the team of Dallas Dudley of St. Cloud, Fla., and Shawn Harrell of Bartow, Fla.

Although they both have the same two-day total, technically, Armstrong and Cox lead based on the Redfish Series rules for a tie-breaker which call for the team with the heaviest one-day weight to advance over the other team in the event of a tie.

In this case, Armstrong and Cox caught the heaviest one-day weight today with a pair of redfish tipping the scales at 12 pounds, 10 ounces.

But as long as a hurricane doesn’t show up unexpectedly tomorrow, the final round is on, giving both teams a shot at the Redfish Series title.

Amazingly, Armstrong and Cox found their primary spot by accident yesterday when Armstrong, by happenstance, hooked up with a nice trout that was suddenly attacked by a school of ravaging reds.

“It’s been a strange couple of days,” Cox laughed. “I fish the Lagoon here 200 days a year and know the place pretty well. We were on our way out of one of my places yesterday at about 1 o’ clock when Jimmy hooked that trout. All of a sudden, like a pack of sharks, these reds literally mauled his trout. We staked down right there and caught everything we weighed yesterday.”

Today, the team had a chance to observe the area a little better and find out what the fish are relating to.

“It turns out, there is a little mud hole there that I didn’t even know existed,” Cox said. “The water in this area is dirty so you can’t see the bottom features real well and I just never noticed it. The biggest thing, though, is the fish in this area appear to be pretty aggressive. We had doubles on several times today.”

Dudley-Harrell also find `aggressive’ bite

Dudley and Harrell doubled their day-one weight of 12 pounds, 1 ounce with another 12-pound catch today.

Dudley and Harrell also used the term “aggressive” to describe their fish, which is rare since many teams complained of dealing with meek fish all week.

“Shawn and I are actually amazed at how aggressive these fish are,” Dudley commented. “They’re acting so different from the rest of the fish we’ve found. They’re busting bait and surfacing all around us. And if we move out of this one little hot spot, the fish are completely different – unresponsive like the rest of the fish out here.”

As to why the spot is so hot, Harrell noted the little area is full of bait and he and Dudley are fishing far from the crowds.

“We’ve found a place off the beaten path and we have it ourselves,” Dudley added.

As to whether the spot is in Mosquito Lagoon or the Indian River, Dudley responded, “We’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Fuller-Dill third

Wayne Fuller and Aaron Dill, both of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., bolstered their day-one catch of 12 pounds, 3 ounces with 11 pounds, 7 ounces today for a two-day total of 23 pounds, 10 ounces, just 7 ounces off the lead.

“We had some company in our area today, which we didn’t have yesterday.” said Dill. “But it worked out okay. We got in there and caught what we needed. Some of the other boats were buzzing around on trolling motors and we stuck with a push pole, which makes a huge difference here because the fish are so skittish.”

Fuller contends that falling water is helping build the school.

“The school was bigger than it has been the last couple of days,” he said. “We probably saw 200 fish today,” he said.

With most of the field eliminated, the team hopes to have the area to themselves again tomorrow.

Bostick-Sepe move into fourth

One of the hottest teams on the redfish tours right now, Andrew Bostick of Marco Island, Fla., and Mark Sepe of Deland, Fla., put themselves in position for their second Redfish Series win of the season by catching a pair of redfish weighing 12 pounds, 3 ounces to move into fourth.

Bostick and Sepe won the Englewood event in March and they are on the move again, just a pound off the lead.

“We got a couple of fish in our big fish hole to bite today,” Bostick said. “It’s so exciting to watch Mark make the presentation and then see the fish nose down on the bait. They study it pretty carefully – sometimes they eat and sometimes they don’t.”

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Sepe explained. “You’ll see one fish nose down on it and swear it’s going to bite and then it will move on. Then another fish will kind of look at it and suddenly decide to eat it. It’s crazy.”

What has the team worried now, though, is the dropping water. Apparently there is not much water to spare in the team’s primary area.

“It’s been dropping a little each day,” Sepe noted. “If it drops just two more inches we could be in trouble. We’ve got some other areas to go to, but the fish we need for a win are in this one area and I just hope we can still get in there tomorrow.”

Totten and Lessinger hang on to top 5

Yesterday’s leaders Jeff Totten of Englewood, Fla., and Ozzie Lessinger of Fort Myers, Fla., brought just 8 pounds, 3 ounces to the scales today, but it was a enough to garner another top 5 for the team that finished third at Englewood.

“We’re just happy to be fishing tomorrow,” said an exasperated Lessinger after the last team weighed in. “We came here with nothing, we didn’t really find anything in our short practice, we’ve just been going out and fishing the best we can. We’re nearly 3 pounds off the lead, so we’re just going fishing again tomorrow to have fun.”

Day three competition begins at 6:30 a.m. at Sand Point Park in Titusville.