Guthrie-Murphy shine with 15 pounds

Surprisingly large catches lead opening day at Jacksonville FLW Redfish

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Despite tougher fishing during the practice days, Scott Guthrie and Rick Murphy dialed in on a bite as sweet as Florida orange juice Friday to take the lead in the first half of Wal-Mart FLW Redfish East Division competition at Mayport.

Guthrie, of Jacksonville, and Murphy, of Homestead, Fla., caught a two-fish limit weighing 15 pounds for first place, topping the second place team of Bill Pittman and Charles Kegley by 12 ounces.

The sunshine that produces all those luscious Florida oranges was out in full force Friday, with bluebird skies and highs in the mid-80s, and it sweetened up the redfishing, as well. Many anglers reported a small bite in prefishing, but things picked up along with the weather today for the leaders.

“I was going to be happy if I caught 11 pounds or so,” Guthrie said. “The big fish just haven’t been eating lately; it’s been a really tough bite. But we got lucky and got a couple big ones to eat today.”

Guthrie and Murphy ran about eight miles from the takeoff point at Mayport and caught nine redfish Friday, including two under the 18- to 27-inch slot limit. Sight-fishing at low tide this morning proved the most fruitful, with all but one of their fish biting before the area’s strong tide came in. The two they kept, both weighing more than 7 pounds apiece, bit on an Exude Cajun Crab.

“The big weights around here lately have topped out at about 13 or 14 pounds,” Guthrie said. “Today we were lucky to get one really deformed fish that had a big old head on it. The strategy for tomorrow is that we’re going to do the same thing, except there’s one other spot we’re going to check out.”

Pittman-Kegley overcome odds for second

Pittman, of Fernandina Beach, Fla., and Kegley, of St. Augustine, Fla., caught two redfish weighing 14 pounds, 4 ounces for second place, but they were more relieved than ecstatic about their day.

“We had some equipment failure that prevented us from doing what we wanted to do early this morning,” Pittman said. “We were back at the dock by 11 o’clock getting our equipment repaired.”

But between takeoff and then, the team wasted no time. They caught roughly 15 fish in a flurry, eventually culling out to their 14-4 limit. They said their main bait was a Terminator In-Line Spinner.

“We knew where they were and what we had to do to get them,” Pittman said. “It was just a matter of whether they were going to eat when they were supposed to eat. We had to make a quick decision this morning. I told my partner that we need to worry about getting there, then we’ll worry about the fish.”

As it turned out, they didn’t really have to worry about the fish.

“The action, it was just bam, bam, bam,” Kegley said. “If they wanted action, they should have put the camera crew on our boat today. We had a game plan and it worked.”

Reagor-Miniard third, Miller-Morley fourth, O’Brien-Hastings fifth

Keith Reagor and Larry Miniard, both of Ponte Vedra, Fla., grabbed the third slot with a two-fish limit weighing 13 pounds, 11 ounces.

Coming in fourth was Brady Miller and Thomas “Adam” Morley, both of St. Augustine, who ran the Intracoastal Waterway down to their home water and caught a limit weighing 13 pounds 8 ounces.

“We were pretty much on fish right away,” Morley said. “We had three schools of fish that we found previously. Usually, nobody’s in my spots except, for some reason, today.”

“But we’re very happy,” Miller said. “This is our first tournament.”

And they were glad the tide held up for them, as well. The rookie tournament anglers prefished under the assumption that takeoff was at 6 a.m., catching fish during the early low tide. However, takeoff each day is at 7 a.m., and they almost missed their bite after making the long run this morning.

“We caught the last bit of outgoing tide,” Morley said. “Then we lucked out and caught the second (keeper) later on the mid-incoming tide.”

Scott O’Brien and Wade Hastings, both of Jacksonville, landed in the fifth spot with two fish weighing a collective 13 pounds, 2 ounces.

“At Sarasota we made a couple mistakes,” O’Brien said. “This is our home water here, so it’s nice to recoup a little pride.”

Fishing a Quasi jig, which is a jig with a spinner tail, they landed about six fish. While many anglers sight-fish the shallows Friday, O’Brien and Hastings chose a little different route.

“We were basically working the outside edges of flats,” Hastings said. “We usually fish very technically, but today we covered a lot of water. One of the best things to do is find a rock pile and score a bunch of fish off it, but we didn’t use our rock piles today.”

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 10 teams on day one of FLW Redfish action in Jacksonville:

6th: Chris Linhart of Inverness, Fla., and Tom Barrett of Deland, Fla., 12-14

7th: Shane Vandemark of Homestead and Mike Hutchisson of Miami Springs, Fla., 12-11

8th: Robert Carter of Plant City, Fla., and Loye Futch of Lakeland, Fla., 12-10

9th: Ken Weinstein and Fred Grey of Jacksonville, 12-8

10th: Richard Hulett and James Scully of Jacksonville, 12-7

The second half of FLW Redfish action begins Saturday as the full field takes off from Mayport Marine at 7 a.m.