Tournament Report – Pamlico County Shrine Club Inshore Slam
Staff Sgt. Tony Jackson and Capt. Dave Stewart with Jackson’s winning 11.22 lb. slam catch in the 2014 Pamlico County Shrine Club Speckled Trout Tournament. His fish bit D.O.A. Shrimp and live finger mullet near Morehead City.
Altering his usual approach to up his odds at a flounder paid off for Havelock’s Tony Jackson, who landed the flatfish, a red drum, and a flounder totaling 11.22 lbs. to take home first place in the Pamlico County Shrine Club Inshore Slam, held October 25th.
“I usually fish the lower Neuse River,” Jackson explained, “but it’s tough to get a flounder there.”
Electing instead to fish around Morehead City, Jackson and fishing partner Chris Lane started out in the Newport River marshes and found the first part of Jackson’s slam relatively quickly.
“I was working a D.O.A. Shrimp under a popping cork,” he continued. “I’d caught 10-15 short trout before that one, but I finally got one 21-22 inches around 9:00.”
With a solid trout in the boat, the anglers decided it was time to find the red drum part of their slam and headed into Core Creek from the Newport River.
They pulled Jackson’s 19’ Intruder into a bay off the creek and again, didn’t have to wait long for action.
“We pulled up into that bay,” he explained. “And I stuck that red at our first little spot in there.”
The same D.O.A. Shrimp fooled Jackson’s red, but he didn’t think it would slide under NC’s 27” maximum size for keeping red drum at first.
“That fish was only 25.5 inches,” he recalled. “But it was so fat up towards the head I thought there was no way it would measure. It ended up being over 7 lbs.”
Once he’d assured himself that the red was indeed small enough to bring to the scales, Jackson figured his chances at landing a heavier red drum were minimal, so the anglers took off in pursuit of a flounder.
They came back out Core Creek and the Newport River and began soaking live finger mullet around the Morehead City port wall, an area notorious for producing doormat flatfish.
When Jackson did finally hook up, his flounder was no monster, but proved long enough to keep and thus, complete his inshore slam.
“He was just over 15 inches,” the winning angler said, “but I’d been confident going in that if I could catch a flounder, I’d have a shot. I knew somebody would probably have a real big trout or a big red but with the inshore slam taking precedence this year I thought I might win it.”
When Jackson and Lane made the scales at the Pamlico Shrine Club in Minnesott Beach, his catch proved indeed to be the heaviest inshore slam weighed in and gave the Havelock angler the title.
Just behind Jackson’s fish were those of Benny Rose, who weighed in a 10.64 lb. slam to finish second. Blace Nalavany’s 10.16 lb. slam proved strong enough for third place. Cameron Guthrie secured fourth with a 8.92 lb. inshore slam, and Bryan Miller’s 7.52 lb. weight rounded out the top three.
