Far Out Shootout
Posting a 39.55 lb. wahoo and a 23.7 lb. dolphin for a 63.25 lb. combined weight, Capt. Barrett McMullan and the “UBS/OIFC” fishing team earned first place in the 2012 Far Out Shootout, held out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center on May 11-19.
With his father Rube and Atlanta friends Bill Pahl and Andy Smith aboard the 32’ Yellowfin “Team OIFC,” Barrett McMullan had a game plan for the event despite not having fished his home waters in quite some time.
“Honestly, that’s the first time I’ve been out Shallotte Inlet this year,” McMullan reported.
Pointing the bow toward the Blackjack Hole after they cleared the inlet, the anglers made the run and set about putting the first part of their game plan in action.
“Essentially this tournament’s about catching a good wahoo,” the winning captain explained, “so we went to the Blackjack. There’s a lot of great bottom structure out there that makes it as reliable as anywhere for a wahoo.”
The plan worked almost immediately, as the crew boated a wahoo within a few minutes of putting lines in the water, but they decided to keep searching for a larger fish.
Around 10:00, something attacked a small tuna feather they were trolling long, and Pahl took the rod. After a brief battle with the speedy fish, Pahl brought the wahoo to gaff, and the anglers put their near-40 lb. fish in the boat.
“We knew we were good after that,” McMullan said. “It was perfect timing because we wanted to go look for a dolphin around 11:00.”
The “UBS/OIFC” anglers put their wahoo on ice and headed further offshore to begin their hunt for a dolphin at a temperature break they spied on a satellite image.
“There was a major temperature break around 15-20 miles offshore,” McMullan continued. “We started heading that way and ran into a tremendous weedline five miles off the Blackjack.”
The anglers put out a spread along the weedline, and they began catching dolphin almost as soon as the baits hit the water.
“We started catching a bunch of dolphin right away,” McMullan said.
Their largest ‘phin hit the ice around 1:00 that afternoon, and Pahl was again the lucky angler on the big fish.
With solid wahoo and dolphin in the box, the anglers decided to try and improve their odds in the one tuna/one dolphin/one wahoo tournament by going on the hunt for a blackfin tuna.
“We did exactly what we were trying to do with the wahoo and dolphin,” McMullan said, “so we went to the Steeples to try for a tuna.”
The tuna apparently wasn’t meant to be, but the anglers had a strong pair of fish in the boat and decided to head back to Ocean Isle after a brief attempt.
Fortunately for the winning team, none of the boats in the event were able to land a tuna either, and their wahoo/dolphin aggregate was enough to slide by the second place crew and secure the victory.
A 41.15 lb. wahoo and a 20.45 lb. dolphin made for a 61.6 lb. aggregate for Robby White and “Oil Slick,” good for second place, and Larry Spainhour on the “7th Heaven” brought home third with a 60.9 lb. aggregate.
More information on the event and a full leaderboard can be found at www.oifc.com.
