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Fishing Report for Homosassa, Florida
Capt. Mike Locklear
March 7, 2001
Homosassa - Saltwater Fishing Report
Tournament report of the Inshore Fishing Association
This report is mainly about my participation in the Ranger/Mercury Pro Redfish Tour.
First, I wanted to bring you up to date on my other activities.
Last month, I was invited to the Tampa Fly Fishers Dinner Banquet & Auction where Flip Pallot was the featured speaker. Flip was awesome as usual and gave a great 2 roll slide presentation about fishing south Florida’s Everglades. A good friend from the Tampa area joined me for some good company with one of the directors of the club..
Bill Ray of Bill Ray’s Sport City Marine in Ocala invited me to do a fishing seminar on February 17 which is my Dad’s birthday. My name was posted in capital letters on Bill’s big orange sign near the side of Highway 441 and in front of his business. My son, John is 11 years old and we both were surprised to see such a fine job Bill did to promote the fishing seminar.
The seminar lasted about 90 minutes and many questions were answered from about 50 anglers of all ages. I sure enjoyed giving the seminar as I talked about what lures that work for me and types of lines that I liked and so on.
There will be more seminars given at Bill Ray’s beginning at 10:00 A.M. on March 17, March 31, April 14, April 28 and May 12 by area experts. For more information you can call the store at 352-732-0123. Bill’s store is about 5 miles south of Ocala on east side of the Highway 441.
On February 28, with the help of Citrus County Parks, I taught a 3 hour Salt Water Workshop at the Lions Club in Homosassa Springs. The courses included many techniques of when, where and how to catch fish. Tides and maps were given out. A fly casting demonstration was given from my Pro-Line flats skiff. A mini-raffle provided all the students with some sort of prize such as Mirrolures, Cotee Jigs, Cajun Thunder Corks and spools of Ande and Berkley Big Game Line.
A first in 11 years, was that a father and his son traveled from Georgia to attend the seminar. Although the pair were an hour late, they stayed to receive information well after the end of the seminar. The father was a fly tier and his 11 year old son could cast the fly rod! Of course this year was the first year I advertised the seminar on the Internet.
Back to the Ranger/Mercury Professional Redfish Tour. You will learn from the series of articles what lures and equipment the pros use. Also, you will be able to follow my success or the lack of. Some reasons I joined the tour is that I love hunting for and catching the hard pulling redfish. It will be great fun to actually get in some bow time.
Learning new areas for my children to explore also comes to mind. Over the last 10 years, I have had many good sponsors who have supported me throughout with my educational seminars and my guide business. It is going to be awesome to be able to fish from a new Pro-Line flats skiff every year.
Last September, John Euart and I qualified to fish in the 1st Annual Championship from a 4th place finish in the Homosassa Open. Fishing the Homosassa Open was as easy as 1-2-3 for us. We had our fish in the livewell by 9:00 A.M. that morning. The reason it was so easy is that bait is allowed in the open division.
Only problem was one of our fish had died and cost us an 8 ounce penalty and a second place finish. Capt. Bruce Williams won first place that day, but declined to fish in the championship. It was through this stroke of luck, that John and I got to fish the Jacksonville Championship.
I left a few days early to pre-fish the area by myself. The waters along the Intercoastal Waterway(ICW) and the St. Johns has many feeder creeks and perfect redfish habitat.
Anytime you go to an area that is unknown waters, it takes some time to figure out the areas that hold fish.
In two days of fishing I had only caught one redfish that was around 26 inches and 6 pounds. No big schools or large concentrations were found. I knew I was in for a tough time.
John came in with a map the night before the tournament with some hotspots marked on it. We were excited about our chances to win some big money. John was just glad to be out of Atlanta and was eager to wet a line. I was hoping that we would be able to catch and weigh in two 7 pound plus redfish each day to qualify for the top 5 fish off on Saturday.
The first morning of the tournament was a pretty one and the Pro-Line flats skiff performed flawlessly with the 200 H.P. Mercury EFI powering her down the ICW at mach 1 speeds.
We fished hard for two days and caught maybe a dozen redfish in the lures only tournament that were both too small and large. John caught the biggest fish, a 9.5 pound 29 inch redfish. We had to release her because Florida’s law requires fish to be between 18-27 inches for possession.
The rules of the tournament are to release all the fish after being weighed in, however, the fish have to be within the slot to qualify. So you see, the tournament is about catching the two biggest redfish just below the 27 inch maximum size.
We came in 47th out of 63. Actually making the top 50 is not suppose to be all that bad. I can tell you I felt bad that I did not do any better. However, it was a good time and Ranger/Mercury put on a big party for the guys and gals.
The winners of the championship tournament were Mike Phillips and Chip Davis of the Jacksonville area. They qualified fourth in two days with 4 redfish that weighed between 5.62 & 6.84 pounds. I overheard them saying they were using Excaliber Spit’n Image top water baits.
George Wadsworth, Jr. & Mark Sepe had qualified for first place in two days with the heaviest collection of four fish between 6.78 & 7.35 pounds with a total weight of 28.31 pounds. The pair could only come up with one slot size fish on championship day and a fifth place finish.
Hometown favorite Jim Romeka & partner Mark Ritcheson come in 12th place with 4 fish at 22.56 pounds. 35 teams weighed in four fish the first two days. All fish were released healthy to fight again another day.
My next report will be on the opening event of the Ranger/Mercury Redfish Tour from Titusville, Florida. If you would like more information about the Tour, you can go to www.redfishtour.com
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