Hope floats

Surface game will play a key role in Redfish Series finale

VENICE, La. – Much occurs beneath the water’s surface, but fish pay plenty of attention to topside activity. That’s why certain buoyant tactics will factor greatly for the top five teams in the final round of Walmart FLW Redfish Series Western Division competition at Venice Marina.

First, there’s the straightforward technique of topwater lures. Designed to imitate wounded baitfish struggling at the surface, topwaters will flip the aggression switch in opportunistic redfish. Additionally, with abundant mullet milling at the surface, a vulnerable looking topwater bait is very attractive to predators accustomed to picking off stragglers.

Blair Wiggins of Cocoa, Fla., who along with his Titusville, Fla. partner Travis Tanner sits just 11 ounces off the lead, has thrown a bone colored MirrOlure She Dog almost exclusively for the past two days. Working the lure’s interior rattles has been the key.

“I’ve figured out a certain retrieve that the fish like,” Wiggins said. “It’s an aggressive retrieve that makes a lot of noise.”

In another surface tactic, the jig-and-cork rig combines the attention-getting topside commotion with a subsurface presentation by suspending a soft plastic bait beneath a float. Some use traditional popping corks with concave tops, but premade rigs comprising floats with brass and plastic beads threaded onto wire stems also work well.

Ideally, twitching the cork creates a noisy, splashing surface performance that gets fish looking in the right direction. When they come to investigate, they’ll see the soft plastic bait hopping below. Sometimes, the cork’s appeal is too much for its own good.

Tournament leaders Tadd Vandemark of Key Largo, Fla. and Kevin Shaw of Corpus Christi, Texas found this out the exciting way. After the second day’s weigh-ins, Vandemark displayed two of his Cajun Thunder corks that he rigged new for the tournament. One was almost completely stripped of its red paint, while the other bore the perfect crescent imprint of a redfish bite.

“They were trying to eat the corks – that’s how aggressive they were,” Vandemark said.

In third place, Dwayne Eschete and Blake Pizzolato found a day two limit weighing 16 pounds, 14 ounces at the South Pass jetties. They, too, fished cork rigs, but theirs was a different strategy. Berkley Gulp! Shrimp on ¼-ounce jigheads will definitely catch redfish when bounced along the jetty rocks, but the potential for snagging runs high. Therefore, Eschete said his team hung their Gulp! baits under corks and made long, tide-borne presentations parallel to the structure.

Representing Team M&Ms, Eschete and Pizzolato won the Redfish Series Western Division event at Venice Marina in June.

Other baits

Complementing the surface game, some of the finalists will use soft plastic baits rigged on jig heads or weighted “keeper” hooks to probe the lower depths. Hopping shrimp and baitfish shapes along the bottom is a good bet for tempting redfish that are rooting around in the mud. Also, if a redfish boils on a topwater plug but misses the hookup, casting a subsurface bait at the point of attack will often nab the interested fish.

Scented baits like Berkley Gulp! Shrimp can prove highly effective by helping redfish focus their keen sense of smell on the target. Vandemark and Shaw enhance their plastics with Lunker Sauce scent attractant – an addition that can sometimes push indecisive fish over the edge.

“We watched fish swim up to our lures (without Lunker Sauce) and sometimes they’d just swim on by,” Vandemak said. “But when we put the (attractant) on our baits, the redfish would swim up to them, smell that scent and just pile drive the baits.”

Sound and vibration also attract redfish attention, particularly in murky conditions. That’s why spinnerbaits have long been a popular tool of Bayou State fishing. When cast right up to shoreline vegetation, in a tactic known as “banging the banks,” a spinnerbait that clumsily rolls into the water and then starts clicking and thumping resembles a blue crab scurrying for safety. (FYI: Redfish love blue crabs.)

In-line spinnerbaits and designs similar to those used by bass anglers work fine in the marsh, but hooks and wire stems must be of stouter construction to withstand the crushing jaw power of a redfish. Willow blades work well when fishing around bait schools, as the flashy appearance mimics the natural forage. The broader Colorado blades also flash, but they create more thump in the water and that’s a good way to pull fish out from weedy cover.

Logistics

All teams will compete during the first two days, and the top five teams based on accumulated weight advance to day three. Final standings are determined by the total weight from all three days.

Final weigh-ins will be held at Venice Marina beginning at 4 p.m. Weigh-ins are free, and the community is invited to attend.

The Venice FLW Redfish Series event is hosted by Venice Marina. The top award of $50,000 includes $20,000 cash plus a $15,000 cash bonus from Ranger Boats and a $15,000 cash bonus from Yamaha or Evinrude if contingency guidelines are met.

The top 50 teams in each division of the 2008 FLW Redfish Series, based on Land O’Lakes Team of the Year points standings at the end of the season, will advance to the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Championship Oct. 30-Nov. 1 in Biloxi, Miss. The winning team at the championship will earn as much as $100,000.

Saturday’s conditions:

Sunrise: 6:49 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 63 degrees

Expected high temperature: 81 degrees

Water temperature: 78 degrees

Wind: from the NNW at 7 mph

Humidity: 45 percent

Day’s outlook: Sunny