Cape Fear Flounder Classic
Wes Knox and Lynn and Adam Sellers took home first place and over $3,000 in the Cape Fear Flounder Classic, held July 30 out of Southport Marina. Lynn Sellers landed their 6.50 lb. winning flounder after it bit a live menhaden on a flat in the Cape Fear River.
Sliding by the second place boat by a tenth of a pound, Bolivia, NC’s Adam Sellers, his brother Lynn, and teammate Wes Knox weighed a 6.50 lb. flounder to take home first place in the 2nd Annual Cape Fear Flounder Classic, put on Saturday, July 30, out of Southport Marina by the Southport-Oak Island Chamber of Commerce. And they took home more than bragging rights, pocketing the event’s guaranteed $2,000 first place check and TWT money totaling $3,147.50.
Fishing aboard an 18’ FlyCraft center console, Knox and the Sellers brothers found and cast-netted some menhaden early Saturday morning and began fishing a series of spots that have been good to them in the past in the Cape Fear River.
“We started catching fish first thing,” Adam Sellers explained.
They picked steadily away at the flounder over the course of the morning, pausing to catch some more menhaden in the middle of the day.
After they’d reloaded the livewell, the anglers finally got the bite they were looking for in the early afternoon.
Fishing a stumpy flat in the Cape Fear River, Lynn Sellers got a strike around 1:30 on a Carolina-rigged menhaden. The anglers quickly figured out they had a big fish.
“I knew it was a big one,” Sellers said. “It was fighting like one.”
When his brother worked the citation flatfish to the boat, Sellers was ready and slid a landing net under the fish.
“Oh yeah, I was excited,” he reported. “I always get excited when we catch a big one, especially in a tournament.”
Though they had a big fish in the boat, the anglers continued fishing hard, looking for an ever fatter flatfish.
“I knew that fish would be up there pretty good on the leader board,” Sellers went on to say, “but I didn’t know it would win it. We were looking for an 8 or 10 pounder.”
The rest of their afternoon produced more fish, but none that topped the 6.5. Sellers estimated the trio had boated 14 flatfish by day’s end.
Blake Stone, of Supply, NC, was nipping at the winners’ heels, weighing in a 6.40 lb. fish to earn second place and take home $1,688.
Oak Island’s Andy Broadwell secured third place in the tournament and a $959 check with a 6.10 lb. fish.
A 4.95 lb. flounder earned fourth place for Fred Davis, from Wilmington, and Kevin Carson, of Castle Hayne, NC, rounded out the top five with a 4.30 lb. flatfish.
