APALACHICOLA, Fla. — The letters R-E-D begin both the target species and the term of motivation that drove Gary Moreno and Tony Viator to victory at the Yamaha Bassmaster Redfish Cup Championship presented by Skeeter at Apalachicola Bay.
After finishing last in the 2023 event at South Carolina’s Winyah Bay, the Texas anglers came to town seeking Redfish and Redemption. With a three-day aggregate total of 32 pounds, 9 ounces, it was mission accomplished.
“When we left home, I told Tony I didn’t want to finish dead last; we wanted to come and show everyone that we deserve to be here,” Moreno said. “And not just because we did well in (the Elite Fishing Series, through which they qualified), but that we can catch fish and adjust to the adversities we dealt with.”
After a rocky start, which put them in ninth place with a Day 1 limit of 7-14, Moreno and Viator regrouped and posted a Day 2 effort of 11-10 and moved up to third. Championship Sunday saw them step on the gas and box two chunky reds that went 6-9 and 6-8.
With that final limit of 13-1, Moreno and Viator edged Day 2 leaders Michael Frenette and Mark Robinson by 10 ounces and claimed the $75,000 top prize.
“It’s overwhelming. I’m at a loss for words,” Viator said. “I didn’t start seriously tournament fishing until about four or five years ago. When you first start out, you think ‘I’m as good as everybody else,’ but then you realize you’re not as good as everybody else.
“To be able to come in here and fish against a field like this and come out on top, I never thought that I would get to the point where I could do that. It makes you feel good to know that you can compete at this level.”
Wiping back tears, Moreno added: “It’s truly surreal. I’m choked up and I don’t even know how to respond. Since I started tournament fishing professionally three years ago, I’ve been so close in so many tournaments, but this is the icing on the cake.
“This is the most sought-after title in all of redfishing. My hat’s off to these other anglers (in the field). This is just unreal.”
As Viator explained, his team’s victory hinged on scrapping Plan A and committing to Plan B. After catching decent redfish in what Viator described as shallow broken marsh habitat in the upper bay, he and Moreno committed their first day and part of the second to this area.
“When we went in there on Days 1 and 2, we couldn’t catch a fish over 3 1/2 pounds other than Gary’s Day 1 fish that was almost 5 pounds,” Viator said. “We hit several spots the morning of Day 2 and Gary looked at me and said, ‘We gotta make a move.’
“We had looked on the other side of the bay (the east side of St. Vincent Island), but we hadn’t done much prefishing there. I said, ‘This isn’t working. There’s no big fish here. There’s a lot of freshwater, maybe they’re over there.’”
Making about a 20-mile run, Moreno and Viator “hopscotched” a few spots with no success. Venturing closer to West Pass (separating St. Vincent from St. George Island, the bay’s primary barrier island), they selected a promising area on the island’s sandy perimeter with flats dropping into deeper water.
“Gary’s not a deep-water fisherman. He’s a sight fisherman,” Viator said of his team’s initial reservations. “But we got over there, and the water was not only clear, but it was clear deep — you could see 4 to 5 feet deep.”
Moreno said the fish were ready and two good ones promptly participated. “We went from a 5-pound limit to 11-10 in 6 minutes,” he said.
Moreno said he and Viator sight fished their reds with 1/2-ounce Bagley silver spoons. Success, he said, relied on true teamwork and a strategy designed to cover all opportunities.
“We tried to make long casts, but also have somebody at the ready for short pitches as we drifted down the shoreline,” Moreno said. “When a fish came up and the opportunity presented itself, somebody was always ready to reel up and make a cast.”
Spending all of Day 3 in the St. Vincent Island/West Pass waters, Moreno and Viator quickly stuck a pair of hefty reds that went 6-8 and a 6-9. Taking the unofficial lead within a couple hours of takeoff, they held off all challengers and sealed the deal.
Frenette and Robinson kept themselves near the top from Day 1 by placing third with an opening round limit of 10-2. Adding 13-4 — the event’s biggest limit — they moved into first before turning in a Day 3 catch of 8-9 and finishing second with 31-15.
Also fishing near the Gulf of Mexico, Frenette and Robinson split their time between the Government Cut jetties and the West Pass area. They used 1-ounce jigging spoons in the former and threw 1/2-ounce weedless gold spoons in the latter.
“We caught our two biggest fish on Day 3 jigging at Government Cut,” Robinson said. “It was a little slow. The current didn’t start until later and we had to stay too long.
“We (hooked) two big fish at West Pass, but we lost them at the net.”
The hybrid team of Bassmaster Elite Series pro Brandon Palaniuk and redfish tournament pro Chris Cenci finished third with 29-4. Their daily weights were 9-6, 13-0 and 6-14.
“We did what we did, but I felt like we could have done a little better, but that’s fishing,” Cenci said. “We had an OK first day, a really good second day and today we caught a decent number of fish, but they were all small.”
After doing much of their work the first two days with a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Chatterbait Jackhammer in the golden shiner color and a 4.75 X Zone Lures Swammer, they caught their final-round fish on popping corks rigged with Cenci’s Slayer Inc. paddle tails.
The local sponsor of the 2024 Yamaha Bassmaster Redfish Cup Championship presented by Skeeter was Florida’s Forgotten Coast.
