Tournament Report – Riley Redfish Shootout
Sticking to the game plan they’d made for another tournament, Lee Padrick and Dwayne Smith proved it a good one in the Riley Rods Redfish Shootout Series Championship, scaling a pair of red drum weighing 12.32 lbs. to take home the victory in the event, held November 7 out of Sneads Ferry.
Padrick and Smith had been pre-fishing for another red drum event prior to the Shootout, but scheduling conflicts caused a swap in dates. Their scouting proved valuable nonetheless.
“We knew there were some 25-inch fish that were weighing about 6 lbs. off of Core Creek,” Smith explained, “and we thought if we made the run for those fish we ought to be pretty competitive in a 10-boat event.”
Lee Padrick and Dwayne Smith hold the 12.32 lb. pair of red drum that earned them victory in the Riley Rods Redfish Shootout Championship. They hooked they fish in Core Creek on a Salty Bay Red Devil soft plastic and a gold spoon.
The anglers made the 1.5 hour run without incident after the checkout, and they found their fish cooperative and feeding where they hoped they would.
Casting a Salty Bay Red Devil soft plastic under a popping cork once they arrived at Core Creek, Smith quickly hooked the first red the anglers hauled to the scales. Padrick was quick to answer, following Smith’s fish with one slightly larger that attacked a weedless gold spoon.
“Those first two fish we caught were the two we weighed,” Smith continued.
The anglers continued casting at the school, hooking several more fish before a falling tide forced them out of their spot.
“We had both those fish at 8:30 and were back across Bogue Sound by 10:00,” Smith reported. “We were fishing in my Shallow Sport, and that boat has low sides so we wanted to make it back across the sound by the time the wind got up.”
With hours to go before the scales opened up, the anglers fished around Swansboro and then Sneads Ferry, hoping they’d come across an even larger red to cull one of the two in their livewell. Though they hooked more drum while casting at the two spots, none bested the pair they already had aboard.
As the 3:00 weigh-in neared, the anglers stowed their gear and headed for the scales.
“We figured those fish would put us in the money,” Smith said, “but we didn’t know they’d win.”
The fish indeed were heavy enough to win the tournament, and Padrick’s 6.45 lb. red was also good to take home the check for the Single Big Fish TWT.
Sliding in just behind the Padrick/Smith crew were Capt. Jason Dail and the Dail/Mason team, whose 11.81 lb. aggregate earned them second place. Team Durako/Gilligan rounded out the top three with a 9.19 lb. bag.
