Tournament Report – Crystal Coast Surf Fishing Challenge
Landing the largest overall fish in the event and topping one of the other four leaderboards, Wilson, NC’s Kevin Payne was the big winner in the inaugural Fisherman’s Post Crystal Coast Surf Fishing Challenge, a 36-hour surf fishing derby held from Bogue to Beaufort inlets with weigh-ins at Emerald Isle’s Reel Outdoors and Atlantic Beach’s Chasin’ Tails Outdoors and Freemans Bait and Tackle. Payne’s 4.0 lb. black drum and 2.0 lb. bluefish took the top spots and earned him first place checks on each of those species’ leaderboards.
Scott May with the 3.2 lb. second place black drum in the Crystal Coast Surf Fishing Challenge. Weighed in at Freeman’s Bait and Tackle.
Payne traveled to fish the event with his son and his daughter’s boyfriend, and the anglers chose to fish a stretch of beach off Channel Drive near the point at Emerald Isle. He didn’t have to wait long before putting his first valuable catch on the sand, as the black drum bit less than an hour after the start of fishing at midnight on May 16.
Shrimp fooled the drum, and Payne credited his bait’s freshness with part of his success.
“My son works for the DMF in Morehead and he went on a shrimp boat the night before,” he explained. “He asked for some of the shrimp at the end of the night, so I think we had the freshest ones on the whole island.”
Fishing close to the beach, Payne had landed the drum by the time he shined a headlamp on it and realized what he’d caught.
The winning angler’s bluefish bit later in the day on Saturday.
“I was fishing a chunk of sea mullet hoping to catch a red drum,” Payne reported.
After landing the 2 lb. blue, Payne threw it in a cooler and thought little else of the fish before going to weigh in later that day.
“I had no idea that fish would win,” he explained. “I just fish for fun.”
Scott May took second place in the tournament’s black drum division with a 3.2 lb. fish, and Wayne Carlson’s 1.7 lb. bluefish earned him the second place check in that category.
Scaling the event’s only flounder was Ramon Asa Singleton, of Atlantic Beach. Singleton’s 1.5 lb. fish was some of his first action over the course of the event.
“I was happy to finally catch something,” he explained, “and I knew no flounder had been weighed in yet.”
The flatfish winner realized that no flounder were on the leaderboard early on Sunday morning and targeted a slough off the Atlantic Beach shoreline near Fort Macon.
His number was called around 9:30 on Sunday morning when the flounder fell for a Gulp Jerkshad that Singleton was working through the slough, and he wasted no time taking it to Chasin’ Tails Outdoors to weigh it in.
Wilmington’s Richard Osborne topped the tournament’s sea mullet category with a 1.1 lb. fish that he also hooked on Sunday morning.
Osborne chose a spot just south of Bogue Inlet Pier to fish the tournament, and he had caught only some small sea mullet and other bottomfish by the time his fish bit around 9:00 on the final morning of the event. Cut mullet fooled his valuable fish.
A 1.0 lb. sea mullet secured second in that category for Caleb Gordon.
Christy O’Neal topped the tournament’s Lady Angler competition with a 1.4 lb. bluefish.
For more information on the Crystal Coast Surf Fishing Challenge and all Fisherman’s Post events, visit the “Tournaments” tab at www.fishermanspost.com.
