Tidelines – July 24, 2014
Team “Head Hooker” with a flounder weighed in at the Wrightsville Beach Marina fuel dock.
While we at Fisherman’s Post enjoy traveling the NC coastline putting on fishing events, it’s also nice to stay at home and host one in our own back yard. And that’s what we did this past weekend at the Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge.
Interviews with the top finishers come later in the paper (see page 30), so I’m using my Tidelines space to ask our staff to share with you some of their highlights of the weekend.
For Sarah, perhaps her strongest memory was seeing the soft-spoken Ray Fowler come up to the scales (understandably proud) with his 10+ lb. flounder. Ray has been fishing with us for a couple of years now and often produces quality fish, but so far this year he hadn’t weighed in a fish at any of our Inshore Trail events. So this weigh-in was especially satisfying for him.
For Max, the new location of our scales stood out as a highlight. This year the scales were no longer on the cement pad beside Bluewater Restaurant (and 50’ or so from the ICW). Instead, Sam at Wrightsville Beach Marina had us set up right beside the dock house, which is right beside the fuel docks and in the heart of the action on a busy summer Saturday.
It wasn’t, Max tells me, all the boat traffic with girls going by in bikinis that he most appreciated. It was catching aquarium fish with the UNCW Aquaculture Program volunteers, with a 4-inch tautog topping the list of new residents invited to join his saltwater tank at home.
Friday’s Registration memories for all our staff seemed to focus on the crowd that gathered under and around the tent at Wild Wing Cafe. While we very much appreciate the great support that all of our sponsors and advertisers give to these events, we are especially proud when they also decide to fish with us, and the list of sponsors fishing with us in Wrightsville is extensive, including such names as MarineMax, Budweiser, Tex’s Tackle, Penn, Wells Marine Insurance, Donat Marine Service, Do Good Real Estate, and Fulford HVAC.
And also adding to the community feel of the event for us were the number of local charter boat captains that decided to take a day off of fishing (work) to fish with us (play). The captains list, like the list of sponsors, is long and includes such names as Wayne Crisco (Last Resort Charters), Jon Huff (Circle H Charters), Jason Dail (Silverspoon Charters), Jamie Rushing (Seagate Charters), Jot Owens (Jot It Down Charters), David Baxley (Headhunter Outdoors), and Rob Koraly (Sandbar Safari Charters).
For me, deciding on the top highlight of the weekend wasn’t easy. I love the hospitality that Micah, the General Manager of Wild Wing, gives our event, rolling out a full dinner buffet for all our participants and generally making the entire weekend easy on me. And I also love that the event is so close that my wife can bring the kids, who climb up on the display boats (sorry, MarineMax and Service Department), try to talk into the mic (I’m sure, though, that everyone thinks it’s as cute as I do), and sneak Sprites (uh, at what age do they switch from Sprite to other beverages?).
However, my favorite memory this year was my heavy-set, a little angrier than he needs to be, quickly aging with an artificial hip and grandmother reading glasses, grammatically incorrect to the point of embarrassing, grass cutter friend Bruce winning the 50/50 raffle for the second year in a row. He needed it. I’m happy for him.
Ultimately, though, the success of all of our events is due to the anglers that choose to fish with us, and in that spirit we present you with a selection of photos taken at weigh-in. These anglers might not have walked away with a first place trophy, but I bet just about all of them finished the weekend with a leaderboard check, a raffle prize, or at least some free food and drink.
Fisherman’s Post thanks you all, and we hope to see you at the next event.
