Tidelines – July 21, 2011
Fisherman’s Post Newspaper’s expansion this year to cover the Neuse, Pamlico, and Outer Banks has created a new opportunity for me that I am very much looking forward to—participating in the Oriental Rotary Tarpon Tournament.
The tournament isn’t new, as 2011 marks the 19th year of the event. And the tournament isn’t new to Fisherman’s Post, as we’ve done a few coverage articles on it over the past few years. However, now that we have a regular Pamlico section in our fishing reports pages, I felt that the expense of fishing in the tarpon tournament could easily be justified with our accountant. And even more importantly, The time investment (fish Saturday and Sunday) could be presented as a legitimate business trip to my wife (and not, as she will still charge, as just a gratuitous fishing getaway).
Tarpon have steadily been on my mind since last summer when Capt. Charles Brown of Old Core Sound Guide Service called me at 5:30 one morning in the office and had me drive up on the spot to Cedar Island to go searching that day for the “silver kings.” One moment I was in my pajamas, drinking a cup of coffee, and looking at a pile of work on my desk. A short 15 minutes later I was leaving Wilmington behind and driving up 17 North with visions of tarpon grandeur.
Charlie delivered that day, and my fishing world has been a little bit different since. That beast of a fish humbled me and had me walking in circles on Charlie’s gunnels (I think it was a total of about 12 laps around the boat).
Charlie and I have been talking tarpon on and off all year since that summer day when we released a 100+ lb. class tarpon. He calls on a regular basis, and often with a new strategy for hooking the elusive tarpon. When I can make out his Harkers Island brogue over the cell phone, I’ve heard bits and pieces of plans to troll spoons for them, kite fish for them at night, use croakers in a new and original way that others haven’t tried (whatever it was, it was legal, though), and I think at one point he thought he had a way to cast topwaters to tarpon.
However, Charlie won’t be my guy for the 2011 tarpon tournament. He’s out of town for a few weeks working on an oil tanker, so he and I have an August tarpon date (I don’t know what his latest plan for those fish are, but this is Charlie Brown so the tarpon better beware).
For my inaugural year in the Oriental Tarpon tournament, an event based out of our new coverage area, I’ll be (fittingly enough) with a captain from this new area, a captain that now provides fishing reports for each issue—Capt. Richard Andrews of Tar-Pam Guide Service out of Washington, NC.
The Oriental Rotary Club has made some big changes in 2011, changes that are designed to make the tournament more “angler friendly.” At the top of the list, they have eliminated the use of observers on the boat. Observers can be great at providing validity with leader board fish, but they were a clunky part of the tournament’s check-out process.
In the past, all boats had to go to Oriental each morning to pick up an observer. If Oriental is the center of your fishing grounds, then no problem. For the Cedar Island guys, as well as the Bath and Washington guys, though, this made for either (1) a lot of boat riding or (2) being forced to fish water that you don’t really want to fish.
This year the use of digital cameras will supplant observers, and this means Richard and I will be comfortably leaving each morning from his home waters of Washington.
So I get to leave Wilmington for a long weekend, fish for two days in a row (not a small accomplishment in the midst of our weekly print schedule), spend time with a captain that we first made friends with back in January at the Raleigh Bass and Saltwater Expo, hopefully see tarpon rolling and encourage a few (or at least one) to take a bait, and have a chance at winning a lot of cash.
Not bad for a gratuitous fishing trip that I can write off on my taxes.
