Bay Creek Classic
Capt. Greer Hughes, Mike Hill, and Steve West with the 10.9 lb. flounder that earned the trio victory in the Bay Creek Classic. Hill landed the big flatfish after it fell for a live finger mullet while they were fishing Snows Marsh in the Cape Fear River.
Scaling a monster 10.9 lb. flatfish, local anglers Mike Hill, Steve West, and Capt. Greer Hughes sailed past their competition to handily earn first place in the 7th Annual Bay Creek Classic, held September 28th out of Oak Island’s Wildlife Boat Ramp.
The anglers caught and penned up finger mullet the night before the event, and they headed for a spot near the mouth of the Cape Fear River on the morning of competition.
After hooking only a few throwback flounder at their first spot, they worked their way up the river in the search for a money-winning flatfish.
“We started bumping spot to spot and ended up making it happen,” Hill explained.
The anglers had worked their way up to Snows Marsh, not far from Snows Cut, which funnels the Intracoastal Waterway into the river, when they got their big bite.
“That was about 10:30,” Hill explained.
The doormat flounder bit a mullet Hill was casting, and the angler quickly realized he had something a bit more substantial than the undersized flatfish the crew had caught all morning.
“I had a good idea that was a solid fish,” he continued. “It wanted to stay on the bottom which is characteristic of a good one.”
The angler attempted to coax the fish to the surface for several minutes before it finally relented, and Hughes was waiting with the net when the big flatfish finally came into view.
“It finally came to the top of the water and Greer was there,” Hill explained. “He did a great net job.”
Putting the double-digit fish in the boat lifted the crew’s spirits, but they kept casting, looking for more keepers in order to place in the event’s aggregate category as well.
Over the next hour, West and Hughes made their contributions to the aggregate, landing 3.6 and 4.1 lb. flounder respectively.
The three keepers were all the crew managed to boat until it was time to head to the scales, but in addition to topping the main leaderboard, their 18.3 lb. weight was enough to finish second in the aggregate category, just behind the aforementioned Davis.
Davis and the “Turnitup” crew scaled a quintet of flounder weighing 25.1 lbs. to top the aggregate division, and they finished second overall with a 7.4 lb. single big flounder.
Neal Sears took home third place on the main leaderboard with a 6.6 lb. fish.
Alan Beasley rounded out the top three on the aggregate division, scaling 17.8 lbs. of flounder.
