Tidelines – October 23, 2014
The winners of the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge with their plaques, prizes, and checks totalling over $22,000 following the tournament’s awards ceremony and raffle.
I gave away more money this past weekend than I ever have in one day. And it felt so good to just give it away.
The Sunday total was over $20,000 (actually it was over $22,000), and I handed it out in 39 different envelopes to about that same number of people.
This past weekend was our annual Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge, and 475 anglers showed up to fish with us over the 36 hours from midnight Friday to noon on Sunday. None of the fish weighed in were especially notable (a 3 lb. class flounder won its division, a 4 lb. class bluefish won its division, and a 2 lb. trout won its division), but the payouts, for many, were very memorable.
This event, like all of our events, has a pro-rated payout schedule. We advertise that the top tier payouts for this event (flounder, bluefish, and trout) are $1000 based on 250 anglers, so more anglers mean more prize money. This year, all three major fish categories paid out over $1880.
The second level fish—black drum, sea mullet, and pompano—paid out over $900 for first place (here we had advertised $500 based on 250 anglers.).
Then there was the Red Drum TWT—the voluntary side wager. Of the 475 anglers that entered the event, 259 of them also entered the $25 Red Drum TWT. Since this prize money is only divided between first, second, and third, these checks tend to be the biggest of the weekend, and that formula held true again this year.
Our 2014 Red Drum champion walked away with a check for over $2500. In addition, he also managed to weigh in the tournament’s heaviest black drum, earning him an additional $900+. Not bad for spending a weekend camping out on the beach with chairs in the sand, food and drink in the cooler, and lines in the water.
And while our anglers like the big payouts, some of the biggest that I know about in any East Coast surf fishing tournament, the majority of the 475 anglers that fished with us (roughly 435 anglers) didn’t walk away with any prize money. Not even a dollar. Even so, they joined us on Sunday for the Awards Dinner (A&G BBQ) and Ceremony, and the mood was overwhelmingly happy and celebratory. The event is clearly a strong Carolina Beach tradition and part of its ever-growing surf fishing community.
At awards, junior anglers were celebrated with strong rounds of applause. Senior anglers were also a crowd favorite, with one especially senior angler needing some help to even stand up on Sunday as he was tired from walking his fish down the beach to the South End weigh station with cane in one hand and upside down sand spike used as a cane in the other hand. Lady anglers, too, received their checks, and more than one joke was made about not needing Lady Angler prizes because the women would just be taking the checks out of the hands of their husbands and boyfriends.
And I got to enjoy a front row seat to the whole celebration, being the one on the mic calling names, reading fish weights, shaking hands, handing out envelopes, and thanking everyone for fishing with us.
This past Sunday being a record day for prize money for Fisherman’s Post got me reflecting on prize money in general. I sent a short email to our bookkeeper, and she rather quickly responded.
I wanted to know the total amount of prize money we have given away, not just at the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge, but at all of our events over the course of the last eleven years. I didn’t even have time to form my own guess before the reply email showed in my Inbox. Our total to date is over $410,000. That’s a lot of envelopes and hand shaking.
Fisherman’s Post events will certainly continue in 2015. We like the 2014 addition of Topsail Island Surf Fishing Challenges (both spring and fall), and we will look for ways to improve upon past successes with our five Inshore Trail events and the Spanish Mackerel Open.
Right now, though, the staff of Fisherman’s Post is happy to be looking backwards at 2014 events. Thank you for another great year, and special thanks to the crowd at the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge—get your vacation days set, and see you all next year.
