Redfish Action Event #1
Team Reel Truth's Travis and Kyle Tobin, of Garner, NC, with the pair of red drum weighing 13.9 lbs that earned them the victory in Redfish Action Challenge Cup Event #1. Their fish fell for Gulp-tipped spinnerbaits in creeks near Beaufort.
Scaling a pair of red drum weighing 13.90 lbs., Kyle and Travis Tobin, of Team Reel Truth out of Garner, NC, earned first place in Redfish Action Challenge’s 2011 Cup Event #1, held Saturday, May 21, out of Town Creek Marina in Beaufort.
“We didn’t do any pre-fishing,” Travis Tobin explained. “We pre-fish for every one of these, but Kyle was getting ready to graduate and couldn’t get out of school. We got down there just in time to register, and I joked with the guys that this would be the one we’d win.”
The joke turned real, as after a tough fishing day for much of the field, the Tobins’ two reds topped the leader board by the better part of a pound.
Without the benefit of pre-fishing, the Tobins took a run-and-gun approach to finding some fat and hungry reds on tournament day.
“We started out in South River,” Tobin continued, “but we only had one small one there.”
A foray into the Newport River also proved unsuccessful for the father/son team. Deciding to hit the marshes off Core Creek, they found their first money fish of the day.
“We got our biggest one till that point in Core Creek on a spinnerbait,” Tobin reported.
Looking for a counterpart to the 6.45 lb. red in their livewell, the anglers fished the area hard, but they were unable to come up with another upper-slot fish.
“We finally went to back creek,” said Tobin. “When we got in there, I had a 20” or so fish follow a spinnerbait to the boat. I said we needed to slow it down a little, and that’s when Kyle hung the big one. As soon as he bit, I knew it wasn’t the same fish.”
A spinnerbait with a Gulp soft bait also fooled their big fish.
“We usually throw a lot of topwater and Gulp baits on jigheads,” Tobin explained, “but when there’s a lot of stuff on the bottom we’ll go to the spinnerbait.”
After a brief battle, the younger Tobin subdued the 7.45 lb. red that secured their victory and also earned them the top spot in the White Swan Big Bite of the Day TWT.
“We caught both those fish after 2:00,” Travis Tobin said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these tournaments, it’s that you have to stick to it.”
Sticking to it worked, and at the end of the weigh-in, the Tobins’ fish were still atop the leader board.
Capts. Jeff Cronk and Mike Taylor, of Team Crystal Coast Graphics, scaled a pair of fish weighing 13.06 lbs. to earn second place in the tournament. Team Smith and Murphy rounded out the top three on the leader board with a 12.25 lb. two-fish aggregate.
More information about the Redfish Action Series and full results for Cup Event #1 are available at www.redfishaction.com.
