Flat Bottom Girls
John Hargett (pictured) and Dan Spencer eked out victory in the 2011 Flat Bottom Girls Tournament by a tenth of a pound. Spencer hooked their fish under a Banks Channel dock after it struck a live finger mullet.
Squeezing out the victory by just a tenth of a pound, Wilmington’s Jon Hargett and Dan Spencer scaled a 3.4 lb. flounder to take home $1000 first place check in the 2011 Flat Bottom Girls Flounder Tournament.
The pair, fishing aboard a 19’ Jones Brothers Cape Fisherman, began their day in Hewlett’s Creek, hitting some holes that have produced money-winning fish in Flat Bottom Girls of years past. Casting live mullet they’d caught the day before and Gulp baits, they only found one short fish before deciding to abandon the creek around midday.
Running low on bait, they began looking for some more mullet, and things turned around for the anglers after lunch.
“It all happened between about 1:00 and 1:30,” Hargett reported.
The anglers finally found a decent school of mullet across from the Wrightsville Beach boat ramp, and caught plenty to fish the afternoon in three throws of the net.
“As soon as we put that bait in the livewell,” Hargett continued, “we ran over to Banks Channel to a dock where a friend lost a big fish earlier in the week.”
It didn’t take long for the dock to produce, as something bit one of their fresh mullet moments after they arrived.
“Dan hooked that fish three minutes after we got there,” explained Hargett.
Spencer put the fish in the boat quickly with a landing net assist from his partner. Though it wasn’t a massive doormat, the anglers rightly assumed that other teams had also had a tough day, and it could earn them a check.
“I talked to Tim Barefoot on the phone after we caught it,” Hargett said, “and he said he hadn’t seen a fish yet.”
Despite the encouragement, Hargett and Spencer kept fishing hard, hitting more Banks Channel docks until the 5:00 weigh-in deadline loomed near.
“I heard about the 3.3 lb. fish,” Hargett said, “So we kept banging it out till the end, but I talked to Tim one more time and he said we’d better not be late.”
At the weigh-in, the fish squeezed by the 3.3 pounder and earned Spencer and Hargett the victory.
Hargett also captured the event’s Kay Crocker Sportsmanship award, a memorial trophy in honor of one of the area’s longtime fishing and boating champions.
“Jon’s been dedicated to this tournament since day one,” Tournament Director Tim Barefoot explained. The event, the area’s only all live-weigh in flounder tournament, donates live flounder to UNCW’s Aquaculture facility and other local aquaculture programs to further research into farming flounder for commercial sale and to replenish North Carolina’s historically huge flounder stock. More information about the event and the cause are available at www.fishfortomorrow.com.
