CCA Deep Water Shallow Water Rodeo 2007
In an effort to introduce the Coastal Conservation Association to southern NC anglers, the Ocean Isle Fishing Center held the inaugural North Carolina’s Deep Water/Shallow Water Fishing Rodeo on September 14-22. The weeklong event featured an SKA Division 9 king mackerel tournament in addition to blue water and inshore prize categories, and offered entrants the opportunity to fish two out of the seven possible fishing days.
Samuel Cernugel’s “Coon Dog” team, hailing from Wilmington, took top honors in the king mackerel competition; with a fish weighing 32.45 lbs. Cernugel fished the event with Jeremy Padgett and Chris Nealon aboard his 36’ Mercury-powered Yellowfin.
The winning king bit as the “Coon Dog” crew was trolling at the Yaupon Reef. The fish inhaled a naked pogy trolled on top around 3:15 Friday afternoon, and Nealon was first to the rod. He picked up the rod as the fish ran on the surface, and after Cernugel and Padgett cleared the spread, they began to chase the fish.
“She stayed on top the whole time,” Cernugel said. After Nealon had been fighting the king for around 15 minutes, the fish surfaced near the boat. “She came right up, and we nailed her,” Cernugel, who gaffed the fish, explained.
The crew headed to the scales at Ocean Isle shortly after boating the big king, which was one of three they caught around the Yaupon Reef on Friday. Their next largest fish was in the mid-teens.
Atop the leaderboard with one day of fishing left, the “Coon Dog” anglers headed to the 90/90, where they caught the 36 lb. third place king in June’s Jolly Mon King Classic, to search for an even larger fish. Though they landed 10 kings Saturday, none broke the 20 lb. mark. Fortunately, the 32 lb. fish held the lead by less than one pound through Saturday’s fishing.
On both days, the “Coon Dog” crew had little difficulty finding bait, which they caught between the piers on Oak Island.
Samuel Cernugel wished to express his gratitude to the “Coon Dog” sponsors: Yellowfin Boats, Mercury Outboard Motors, and Southport Concrete.
The “Reel Music” fishing team, captained by Gaston Hughes, weighed in the second place 31.65 lb. king mackerel. The Wilmington-based team fishes aboard a 23’ Contender.
Third place in the king mackerel competition went to Forrest Taylor’s “That’s My Dog” team for a 31.00 lb. king. The “Mr. Goodhands” crew took fourth, weighing a 29.55 lb. fish, and a 27.35 lb. king secured fifth for “No Alibi.”
The inshore and blue water competitions’ winners were determined by the highest three fish aggregate weight, of tuna/dolphin/wahoo for blue water, and red drum/trout/flounder for inshore.
A one pound bonus was added to the weight of any inshore fish brought in live and released.
Crushing the competition by nearly 7 lbs., Brandon Sauls’ “Bone Crusher” crew took first place in the inshore competition with a 22.10 lb. aggregate weight anchored by a 26 7/8”, 9.15 lb. red drum and a 9.40 lb. flounder. A 1.5 lb. speckled trout finished out their aggregate.
Fishing on Wednesday, Sept. 19, with Capt. Kyle Hughes, Sauls hooked the big drum while fishing a piece of cut mullet beneath a dock off the ICW between Ocean Isle and Little River. “He wound me up in the dock,” Sauls said, “and we had two anchors out, so we pulled the anchors. Kyle ran the boat up to the dock and got down on the bow, reached out, and scooped it up with the net.”
Once they had the big drum in the boat, Sauls and Hughes headed up a nearby creek to search for a speckled trout. They hooked their 1.5 lb. speck on a float-rigged live shrimp, and with the fat drum and a speck in the boat, headed to the scales.
Sauls and Hughes waited until Saturday to fish their final day, when Hughes’ father Nathaniel joined them aboard the boat. This time they were out for flounder, and headed up the ICW to Southport. It didn’t take the trio long to put a big flatfish in the boat.
“I caught a 7 lb flounder, and we decided to go try and get a better trout,” Sauls said, “but they wanted to go back and catch a bigger flounder.” After returning to Southport, Nathaniel Hughes soon had a strike on a 6” finger mullet fished on a Carolina rig.
“They said ‘you’re hung up’,” Hughes explained, “but then it started moving off. I caught a 10.55 flounder last year, and he came up in 30 seconds, but this one wanted to fight.” After his father spent five minutes trying muscle the circling flatfish off the bottom, Kyle Hughes had an idea. “I put the boat in gear, and we just planed him up,” he said. The technique worked, and the crew soon slid a net under the fat flattie.
At Saturday’s weigh-in, the big flounder put the final stamp on the “Bone Crusher” anglers’ victory, although their “small” 7 lb. flounder combined with the big red drum would have been enough to hold on to the top spot in the inshore category.
The “AS boat” took second place in inshore competition with a 15.80 lb. aggregate. Third went to Tim Parnell, with a 15.40 lb. total.
In offshore competition, Capt. Drew Shytle’s 31’ Yellowfin “Crowd Pleaser” needed only one fish to top the other boats’ aggregates—a 45.25 lb. wahoo. Making up the rest of the Little River based-team for the tournament were Neil Shytle and Ace Parker.
After starting the day out at the Knuckle Buoy and seeing only sailfish, the “Crowd Pleaser” crew headed out to the Steeples and hooked the wahoo after only 15 minutes of trolling. The money-winning wahoo ate a ballyhoo beneath a blue/white Islander around 12:30.
After boating their wahoo, the “Crowd Pleaser” anglers, who were also fishing the king mackerel category of the event, headed inshore to try and catch a king to weigh. While they didn’t find the big king, at the weigh-in the wahoo took first place in the blue water competition by over 15 lbs.
The “Top Shelf,” also from Little River, took second in the offshore competition with a dolphin and a wahoo weighing a combined 28.65 lbs.
Though high winds kept the ocean rough from Sept. 14-21, the Deep Water/Shallow Water Fishing Rodeo’s weeklong captain’s choice format allowed boats to wait out the weather. Most of the king mackerel and blue water teams chose to fish on Friday and Saturday, and they reported a wide open bite both in the Gulf Stream and at nearshore king mackerel hotspots.
