Tournament Report – Carolina Redfish Series
Scaling a pair of reds totaling 13.42 lbs., Capt. Mike Taylor and John Roberts—Team “Taylormade”—earned first place in the 2015 Carolina Redfish Series Event #1, held out of Atlantic Beach’s Chasin’ Tails Outdoors on May 30.
Taylor, who hadn’t planned on being in town for the event, teamed up with Roberts instead of his usual redfish tournament partner, fellow Capt. Jeff Cronk.
John Roberts and Capt. Mike Taylor–team “Taylormade”–took first place at event #1 of the Carolina Redfish series with a pair of red drum totalling 13.42 lbs. Both bit Gulp baits in a bay near Swansboro.
“Jeff and I were supposed to be in Louisiana fishing an IFA event,” Taylor, who runs Roberts’ sportfishermen “Weldor’s Arc” in offshore tournaments, explained, “but with the Swansboro Blue Marlin Tournament just over and Big Rock coming up, we decided to stay home.”
The decision proved to be a good one, as Taylor found a school of upper-slot reds while pre-fishing for the event that he hoped to return to.
After checking a few other spots out on the morning of the competition, the “Taylormade” anglers came back to the bay near Swansboro where the captain had found success pre-fishing.
“We had those fish kind of penned up in a little hole,” Taylor explained.
Casting Gulp baits on 1/16 oz. jigheads, Taylor and Roberts landed around 30 drum over the course of their tournament day. Many were ideal tournament fish approaching the upper end of the 18-27” NC state slot limit for red drum.
“We were catching and upgrading fish for the first hour,” Taylor continued. “We had four that went over 26.5 inches and two nice 26.75 inch fish.”
Despite the fish nearly too big to keep, it was one slightly shorter that gave Taylor and Roberts their final upgrade and biggest fish of the day at 6.95 lbs.
“That one that was almost 7 pounds was only 26 inches,” the captain recalled, “and one of the 26.75 inch fish was our 6.5 pounder.”
After deciding that they’d gotten the best fish they could out of the school, the winning anglers hit several other spots in Bogue Sound looking for a fatter red, but they couldn’t top the pair in their livewell.
“I figured we’d be in the top-three with the fish we had,” said Taylor, “but I thought it would take 14 lbs. to win since people have been on some nice fish in the Neuse River and Core Sound.”
Fortunately for both anglers, the Neuse and Core Sound failed to produce a larger pair of fish, and Taylor and Roberts’ bag held the top of the leaderboard by nearly a pound.
Capt. Jeff Cronk, fishing with his wife Kellee as the “Fish’n4Life” crew, was right on his partner’s heels, scaling a 12.45 lb. pair of reds to secure second place in the tournament. Team “Padrick/Smith” scaled a two-fish aggregate of 12.12 lbs. to round out the top three spots on the leaderboard.
A full leaderboard for the tournament along with a schedule and more information on the Carolina Redfish Series can be found online at www.carolinaredfishseries.com.
