Handling Hanna

Tropical storm may sideline Redfish Series teams

FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. – The historical marker across from Fernandina Harbor Marina describes Florida’s first Atlantic-to-Gulf Railroad linking Fernandina to Cedar Key in 1861. Launching within an easy cast from these rails, Walmart FLW Redfish anglers hope to stay on track to big limits as a major weather system rumbles toward Florida’s east coast.

Day one dawned with mostly sunny skies and moderate winds, so anglers should enjoy a good day of fishing. However, Tropical Storm Hanna is expected to charge northward from the Bahamas toward the Carolinas sometime between Friday and Saturday. No Florida landfall is expected, but the storm will bring big winds and thunderstorms right past the tournament site.

Hanna’s proximity will most likely cancel one day of Redfish Series competition, so tournament officials have postponed the top-five finale from Saturday to Sunday. This allows the flexibility necessary to work around the weather. If Friday becomes a washout, teams will fish their second qualifying round on Saturday, with the final on Sunday. If tournament officials determine that Friday is fishable, the field will be cut to five boats after the day-two weigh-ins and those finalists will have Saturday off to prepare for Sunday’s final round.

Consistency is crucial for tournament competitors, as day-to-day adjustments often make a big difference in leaderboard standings. Weather delays are never convenient, but of the two possibilities, most would probably prefer a Friday cancellation, as this would mean the top five teams would compete a day after qualifying. Fishing Thursday and Friday’s scheduled qualifying rounds and then having to basically start from scratch after the storm could make things tough for finalists.

When Hanna passes, northeast Florida will see strong onshore winds pushing coastal water levels higher than normal. Pringles pro Leiza Fitzgerald of St. Petersburg, Fla., said she and her Partner Merrily Dunn of Bradenton, Fla., are actually hoping for a small dose of that surge on day one. Fishing a 23-foot Ranger Bay Boat, they will be limited by the morning’s low tide.

“We’ll have a northeast wind, but it’s not going to blow as hard as we would like for it to blow,” she said. “We have a bigger boat so we’d like to have a few more inches of water to fish. But I think the bigger boat is going to give us the advantage going across Nassau Sound. What it will do is force us off the tailing fish earlier.”

Fitzgerald said she and Dunn will fish a low-water spot first and when the redfish move onto the shallow flats to tail (feeding head-first along the bottom), they will follow their quarry as the rising tide allows.

They will fish heavy spinnerbaits with slow action in their low-water spots and then switch to soft plastics as the water rises. “What we’ve noticed is that these tailing fish are not working all the way to the bottom; they’re working that midsection of the grass. So we’ll put a little weight on our (soft plastics) to get them down to that mid-depth”

Fishing a shallow drafting Ranger skiff, Cocoa, Fla., pro Blair Wiggins and Travis Tanner of Titusville, Fla., will have greater shallow water access, but they’ll still have to contend with the large tidal fluctuations common to northeast Florida. Their only consistent pattern has been tailing fish in the Spartina grass, so a high tide around noon means they’ll be working against the clock.

“You can have a 4- to 8-foot tide and the fish move a lot,” Wiggins said. “When the flats we’re fishing dry out, they’re almost a mile from the main river. We have about a 30- to 45-minute window to catch our fish (when the tide rises), but if we catch them, there have been some nice ones in there.”

Wiggins said that DOA C.A.L. jigs with new penny color tails closely match the abundant fiddler crabs that redfish eat in the grass lines. To maximize the crustacean imitation, Wiggins pinches off the bait’s tail and slathers it with Lunker Sauce attractant.

Also, he noted that accurately casting toward lower stalks of Spartina avoids spooking fish. Casting toward taller grass runs the risk of shaking the vegetation and alerting the fish.

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.

For day two and Sunday’s final round, anglers will take off at 7 a.m. from Fernandina Harbor Marina, located at 1 Front Street in Fernandina Beach. Weigh-ins will be held at the Marina beginning at 3 p.m. today and either Friday or Saturday (depending on Tropical Storm Hannah). The final round weigh-ins start at 4 p.m. at the Walmart store located at 1757 South 14th Street in Fernandina Beach. Take-offs and weigh-ins are free, and the community is invited to attend the festivities.

The Fernandina Beach FLW Redfish Series event is hosted by the Amelia Island, Fernandina Beach, Yulee Chamber of Commerce. 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.

Thursday’s conditions

Sunrise: 7:04 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 79

Expected high temperature: 88

Water temperature: 78

Wind: ENE at 13 mph

Humidity: 55 percent

Day’s outlook: mostly sunny