THE "PRICE" IS RIGHT

Father-Son Team Top Venice, La. Event 

 

By DAVID A. BROWN

VENICE, La.  — Pair the oldest with the boldest and big things will happen.

Such was the formula for Artie Price, Jr. and his father Arthur Price as the

New Port Richey, Florida anglers won the Ranger/Mercury Redfish Tour’s

Venice, Louisiana tournament, November 2 at Venice Marina.

 

At a spry 73, Arthur is the tour’s seniormost competitor, while his son’s

full-throttle driving has earned him a reputation for unabashed boldness.

Together, they have become one of the tour’s most prolific teams, with a

victory at the 2001 Titusville event as well as a first place finish in last

season’s Ranger Cup competition.

 

In this year’s Venice tournament, the Prices fished grass beds with potholes

in about 18 inches of water just outside of Red Pass on the west side of the

Mississippi River delta. Notably, the father/son duo had the

tournament-winning aggregate of 18.62 pounds by 9 a.m.

 

When Artie pulled into his spot on tournament morning, lower-than-anticipated

water level forced him to plow through a mucky entrance to reach enough depth

to sit down and fish. As he prepped the livewell, his father caught a 4-pound

redfish. While Artie was putting this fish in the well, Arthur hooked their

9.48-pounder. Artie finally got in a cast after this fish and hooked their

9.14.

 

Three casts, two winning fish: Impressive, but highly competitive anglers

won’t pack up quite so easily. The Prices fished until around 2 p.m., when a

cold front chilled their interest in improvement. With one of their fish

right at the 27-inch maximum and the other a quarter inch under, Artie

determined that the potential for finding a bigger red was slim.

 

"I said ‘We’re fishing for a needle in a haystack so let’s go in’," he

recalled.

   

Johnson gold spoons produced all of the Prices’ tournament fish. Artie said

the day’s declining temperature must have sent the reds into a lethargic

state requiring modified lure action.

   

"We had to work [the spoons] extremely slow so they’d flutter over the thick

grass and fall into the holes," he said. "Normally, you just reel the spoons

in at a steady retrieve and [the fish] see the flash and come up and hit it.

This day, they wanted it to basically hit them in the head, they didn’t want

to chase it."

 

Artie said he’s noticed two distinct strands of Louisiana redfish: One is

long and thin, while another is short and stumpy, with a humped back. He

described the latter strand as looking like it ran into a wall when it was

young.

   

"There’s redfish everywhere in [the delta] and trying to find that fish I

call the ‘deformed fish’ is what’s hard," he said. "In Louisiana, you can

take two 27-inch fish and one weighs 8 pounds and the other weighs 10 pounds.

That’s a 2-pound difference, so there’s definitely two groups of redfish."

 

On fishing with his father, Artie said: "[My dad’s] 73 and still getting it.

It’s great fishing with family, the time you can spend together is special."

   

Taking second place, Belle Chase, Louisiana anglers Anthony Randazzo and Andy

Mnichowski boated nearly twin redfish (8.83, 8.84) for a 17.67-pound

aggregate. Both of their fish also came from the Red Pass area. 

   

Randazzo said fishing several miles of shallow coastal water in the early

morning produced only a 14-pound aggregate. The plan was to wait for the tide

to bring better quality fish into their area, but that didn’t happen. So,

around noon, the anglers decided to try a hidden wreck in 6-8 feet of open

water. High winds had reduced visibility to about a 12 inches, but local

knowledge told them the spot might hold competitive fish.

 

Randazzo described a flurry of activity that put the No. 2 fish in the boat: 

"Once in the right location at the wreck, my partner hooked the largest of

our two keepers. While I was weighing and measuring [this fish] he hooked

another big fish. By habit, I grabbed my rod as well as the landing net and

went to the stern where my partner was fighting the fish. 

 

"In textbook fashion, he frantically said there is another big redfish

following the hooked fish. Before he could say more, I was hooked up too. A

split second decision to cast or net played a vital role in our success."

 

In the double hookup, Mnichowski’s fish was barely oversized, while

Randazzo’s was the second of his team’s qualifying fish. One of the fish ate

an Excalibur Swim'n Image crankbait and the other fell for a 1/4-ounce

Reaction Lures gold spinnerbait. Randazzo said that YUM fish attractant aided

their presentation in the stained water, while 20- and 30-pound Silver Thread

fishing line helped hoist the big fish out of the underwater debris.

 

The third-place team of Mike Frenette and Darron Angelo of Marerro, La.,

found their 17.52-pound aggregate some 40 miles from where they started the

day. During prefishing, they had located favorable action in Pass-A-Loutre at

the delta’s southeast corner. Tournament day brought lesser productivity, so

Frenette decided to head across the delta to the venerable Southwest Pass,

where jetty rocks abound with redfish.

 

Arriving at the jetties around 1:30, Frenette and Angelo trolled the rocks in

about 20 feet. After a slow start, they drew a cluster of strikes and

anchored to check out the spot’s potential. Good move — Over the next hour

and a half, they caught about 60 redfish, including their 8.86- and

8.66-pounders.

 

"Once we got the fish working, we didn’t even have to cast, we had them right

under the boat. We just dropped straight down," Frenette recalled. "We were

lucky enough to cull through the fish and pull out two good ones. Most of

them were too big. But I’ve always felt that I’d rather cull down than cull

up."

 

Frenette said that he normally wouldn’t consider Southwest Pass for a

tournament because the fish expend so much energy in the heavy current that

they grow much thinner than the butterballs that live in still water marshes

upriver. However, with only 8 pounds in the well by 1 p.m., he rolled the

dice and fished where he knew he could at least find cullable numbers.

 

Berkley Powerbait Shads in chartreuse and pearl with green tails produced the

heaviest action that Frenette, also a local guide, has every encountered. At

one point, he said, anglers in an adjacent boat stopped fishing just to watch

the non-stop rod bending.

 

"I’ve fished all my life and I fish for a living and that was the hardest two

hours I’ve ever worked," he said.

 

In fourth place, another Louisiana team, Joe Bush and E.J. Plaisance of New

Orleans fished broken marsh shorelines in less than 18 inches of water near

Red Pass and caught 9.21- and 8.13-pound reds for a 17.34-pound aggregate.

Spinnerbaits and Spot Removers produced most of their action. 

 

Bush said his team put two keepers in the livewell early, but they weren’t

satisfied with the weight. Persistence paid off, though, as Bush and

Plaisance culled through six reds between noon and 1 p.m. to find their money

fish. The anglers found their bigger reds on points with clean water cuts

running through the marsh. Once the tide started out in the afternoon, the

water muddied and the area shut down.

 

During the day, fate dealt Bush and Plaisance an embarrassing blow when they

ran aground and had to push their boat off of a mud bank.

 

"It was just an ‘oops’," said Bush. "My partner looked up and said ‘Hey,

look at those ducks standing right in front of us. I used to do that kind of

thing a lot when I was a younger man, but I haven’t done it much since I’ve

gotten older and wiser."

 

Finishing fifth, Eric Mannino and Paul Jueckstock combined the event’s

largest redfish, a 9.86-pounder, with a 7.48 for a 17.34-pound aggregate

(time of entry decided the tie with fourth place). Fishing marshes in 1-2

feet of water, the anglers concentrated on small creeks running between

islands.

 

"It looked like they were marching out of the creek and we just kept picking

them off," Jueckstock said. "There were times when the fish were either so

shallow or so big that we could see the whites of the bellies."

 

Fishing Nemire spoons, Reaction Lures Chub Minnow, Bass Pro Shops’ XPS Laser

Eyes "Z Dog" and Taylor eels, Mannino and Juecstock caught approximately 40

redfish. Their 7.48 bit around 8:30 a.m., but the big fish came on the team’s

last cast at 4 p.m.

 

Although larger aggregates have won past Louisiana redfish tournaments, the

Venice event yielded a strong field of competition with 72 teams weighing

fish. Fifteen-pounds reached all the way through 36th place with 11 teams

weighing at least 17 pounds. Three teams found legal fish weighing 9.50

pounds or more.