2024 Topsail Island Fall Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge
The 2024 Topsail Island Fall Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge was hosted over the weekend of November 8-10, with Tournament HQ (Registration and Awards) under the big tent beside East Coast Sports in Surf City.Â
The weekend offered warm temperatures but a stout Saturday wind, and 196 surf anglers and 89 pier anglers came together to enjoy the Topsail Island coastline.Â
Anglers registered for the event by declaring entry in either the Pier Division (bluefish, sea mullet, black drum, and red drum) or the Surf Division (bluefish, sea mullet, black drum, and trout), with separate TWTs available based on which division they fished. Surf anglers could enter the Surf Red Drum TWT, while Pier anglers could enter the Pier Trout TWT (speckled and gray).
The Fisherman’s Post surf and pier fishing events are also created to be family-oriented, with prizes awarded to the top Lady Angler, Junior Angler, and Senior Angler. In addition, the event offers a Pier Cup Champion, celebrating the pier angler that weighs in the single heaviest fish, as well as recognizing the pier the fish was caught from.
This year’s Pier Bluefish champion was Stephanie Henly, from Mebane, NC. Henly was fishing the Jolly Roger Pier early on Sunday when she landed the 2.0 lb. bluefish that would finish atop the leaderboard. She was out before the sun came up, with hardly anyone else on the pier, and targeted an area just past the breakers. In less than 15 minutes after she started fishing, the bluefish hit a piece of cut bait on a bottom rig. It was the only bluefish she caught all weekend.
In the Black Drum category, it was Stewart Jones, from Jacksonville, that took the top spot. Jones was fishing the falling tide on Saturday afternoon when the 4.3 lb. drum hit a fresh, heads-on shrimp on a double-drop bottom rig. He was fishing the left side of Seaview Pier just past the breakers.Â
In addition to winning the Black Drum category, Jones also won Pier Cup honors. The Pier Cup is awarded to the angler who weighs in the heaviest single fish from a pier. The angler’s name, the weight of the fish, and the name of the pier go on the cup, and then the winning pier retains possession of the cup until it is to be defended in the next Topsail Surf & Pier event.
Brian Bray, from Wilmington/Raleigh, weighed in the heaviest sea mullet. He was fishing Surf City Pier on Saturday evening (he had placed in a Johnnie Mercers pier tournament earlier in the day), and starting at about 8:30, he landed three heavy sea mullet: a 1.4, a 1.7, and then the winning 1.9 lb. sea mullet. All were caught using live shrimp on a fish finder rig, and he targeted an area near the breakers.
There were no red drum weighed in by a pier angler, but Leonard Edwards, from Dunn, NC, won the Pier Trout TWT with a 1.2 lb. gray trout he caught at 3:00 am on Saturday morning using cut shrimp on a two-hook rig. He was targeting an area outside the breakers. Second place in the Trout TWT went to Jason Sholar with a 1.1 lb. trout.
The leaderboard winners in the 2024 Topsail Fall Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge, an event featuring both Surf and Pier Divisions, as well as over 40 different ways to win prize money.
In the Surf division, the heaviest bluefish of the weekend came from Mike Atkinson, from Clayton, NC. Atkinson was fishing in front of Rogers Bay Campground on the north side of the island. The 3.1 lb. bluefish came on Sunday morning at near dead low tide after he sent a piece of cut mullet on a drum rig out past the sandbar.
Atkinson had been catching 1.0-1.4 lb. bluefish earlier in the weekend but had landed nothing close in weight to his 3.1 lb. winner.
The Surf Trout title went to Brian Peterson, from Willow Springs, for a 2.1 lb. speckled trout. Peterson hadn’t caught a trout all weekend, and then at about 4:00 am on Sunday morning, a bite happened for about 30 minutes where he landed 8-9 specks. He was casting a jig head and grub on the north side of Surf City Pier.
The heaviest Sea Mullet from the surf came from Mona Hoppe, out of Hampstead, NC. Hoppe found her 2.1 lb. sea mullet near the first big parking lot in North Topsail. She was soaking shrimp on a three-hook rig shortly after lunch on Saturday when the fish hit. The bite happened right up against the shore, as the wind had been blowing her rig back to the beachfront.
Gregorio Vazquez Almaguer, from Richlands, pulled in the heaviest leaderboard fish from the surf, a 4.2 lb. black drum that won him the Black Drum title. Almaguer was fishing in the area of Jolly Roger Pier on Sunday morning when the fish hit a sand flea on a two-hook rig. He was fishing the rising tide and had his bait just past the breakers. The winning black drum was the only black drum he caught all weekend.
The biggest single check of the weekend is always the Surf Red Drum TWT, and this year’s big payout went to Scout Butner (age 8), from High Point, NC. Butner was fishing the north end of North Topsail on Saturday morning when the 4.7 lb. slot drum hit a piece of cut mullet on a double-drop rig. She was targeting a good slough and had the bait sitting close to the sandbar break.
The Topsail Island Fall Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge donates all of the tournament fish weighed in to First Fruit Ministry, a Wilmington food bank that provides thousands of meals annually to those in need in the community. The event finishes with an Awards Dinner, provided by East Coast Sports who brings in the local boy scout troop to prepare a bbq meal for all participants.
To see the complete leaderboard from 2024 and find out more about next year’s Topsail events (Topsail Spring Surf & Pier on May 2-4, 2025 and Topsail Fall Surf & Pier on November 7-9, 2025), go to FishermansPost.com.
