Bait change puts Rickard and Marsonek atop Redfish Cup field

Ryan Rickard knew that a second title would not be spoon-fed to him, so he and partner Patrick Marsonek played a savvy game and positioned themselves well with a two-fish limit of 11 pounds, 4 ounces that leads Day 1 of the Yamaha Bassmaster Redfish Cup Championship presented by Skeeter at Apalachicola Bay.

Qualifying through the Power-Pole National Redfish Tour presented by Mercury, Rickard and Marsonek hold a 4-ounce lead over defending champions Cody Chivas and Fred Myers III.

Three years ago, at the event’s revival, following a lengthy hiatus, Rickard partnered with Bassmaster Elite Series standout Chris Zaldain to notch the win at Port Aransas, Texas. This time around, Rickard and Marsonek employed a similar strategy based on adjusting to fish behavior and bait refinement.

As Rickard explained, he and his partner were most encouraged by expectations exceeded.

“The big thing for us is we had not caught a fish over 4 pounds in practice, so our target weight today was 10 pounds, just to keep us around,” he said. “Today, we fished all new stuff that we didn’t even practice on.

“We just said, ‘We don’t have anything else (productive), so we’re going to go to this other stuff that looks fishy.’ Coming up with 11-4, I am thrilled with that weight today. We’re going to be right where we need to be to make a run at this thing.”

Without question, the most important decision the leaders made was to bench their starting lineup and switch to a different presentation.

“In practice we caught all of our fish except one on a spoon,” Rickard said. “They wouldn’t touch a spoon today, so we had to really kind of improvise on what we were doing.

“We were fishing more sand and oysters today versus the grass and potholes we had been fishing. We went to paddle tails (on leadhead jigs), and that’s what got it done today.”

Typically, spoons are an easy sell to redfish, as their flash and wobble mimic one of their favored forage items — pinfish. However, Rickard believes the bold presence may have been a little too intrusive during the first round’s sunny, calm conditions.

“We were slow rolling our (paddle tails), so maybe they were just keyed in on something different and they didn’t want to chase something down,” Rickard said.

Noting that a Z-Man MinnowZ in the New Penny color rigged on a 3/8-ounce Z-Man Trout Eye jig produced best, Marsonek said the bait change yielded nearly immediate results.

“The fish were aggressive; we could sight fish them,” he said. “We caught some of our fish right off the trolling motor. The fish were acting right, but getting around them was the issue.”

That access challenge was twofold: depth and habitat.

“We had to navigate through oyster bars when the water finally started to get low,” Marsonek said. “We the tide got right; the fish started coming out of the grass. We definitely put some scratches on Ryan’s boat.”

Marsonek said the area that produced the leading weight was thin on numbers, but the fish he and Rickard found were quality reds.

“We had scattered fish, but obviously the right fish,” Marsonek said. “We expanded off of what we had in practice, and tomorrow we’re going to have something to go back to.”

Placing second with 11-0, Chivas and Myers enjoyed a double-dose of 5 1/2-pounders that bit artificial shrimp on leadheads during the last hour of competition. Those two fish came from an area that Myers knows well. The key was patiently waiting for the afternoon’s low tide.

“We grinded today in a 3- to 4-mile area and it wasn’t looking too hot,” Chivas said. “We caught tons of smaller fish, but we stayed true to what we were going to do, and it worked out late for us.”

Myers said he was closely monitoring the tide levels all day, and when he felt the window of opportunity was opening, he suggested a move to a particular spot.

“As soon as we got around some moving water, we started catching some good fish,” Myers said. “They started coming really quick, and the two biggest fish we caught were really close to the same area.

“I feel confident that there are more fish that are just as big, if not bigger in there. One cast can make the difference in the area that we’re in. There are some big fish that live in there, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to go back in there and duplicate or have a really big bag.”

Referencing the impacts of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall just east of Apalachicola on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm, Myers said: “Fishing is just tough for everybody after the high water from the storm. But we caught plenty of fish to get us through, I think, and we’re going to try our best to catch that weight again and maybe a little more.”

Michael Frennette and Mark Robinson are in third place with 10-2. They started their day by fishing 1-ounce jigs in one of the passes linking Apalachicola Bay to the Gulf of Mexico but found success after pulling the plug and shifting gear to a completely different game plan.

“We were originally fishing between 22 and 32 feet of water and trying to match the hatch with a very small bait those fish were eating,” Frennette said. “When that (didn’t work), we went back to what we do naturally in Louisiana.

“We went to a very shallow area that was close to deep water where the fish could feel comfortable moving up to a flat to feed and then drop down into deeper water.”

Robinson said he and Frennette caught their fish on 1/2-ounce weedless gold spoons. They sight fished a few of their reds, but most came at the end of long casts.

St. George Island’s Krista Miller, paired with Elite Series pro Justin Atkins, from Florence, Alabama, finished Day 1 with an 8-6 total, good enough for sixth place.

Saturday’s takeoff is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. ET at Scipio Creek Marina. The weigh-in will be held at the marina at 3:30 p.m.

Saturday’s tournament coverage begins at 8 a.m. on FS1 and runs through noon. Saturday’s LIVE coverage will continue on Bassmaster.com. Sunday’s coverage begins at 8 a.m. on FS1 and runs through 12:30 p.m. Sunday’s LIVE coverage will continue on Bassmaster.com. All coverage times are ET.