Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament 2007
Shattering the tournament’s previous record, Captains Jeff Cronk and Mike Taylor, along with Taylor’s son Ryan, scaled three trout weighing a staggering 23.12 lbs. to earn the win in the 2007 Swansboro Century Club Speckled Trout tournament, held November 10 out of Casper’s Marina.
Not only did the aggregate earn the crew the $2,106 overall winner’s check, their monster 8.76 lb. speck won the big fish TWT, adding another $945 to their winnings.
After catching several trout above the 4 lb. state citation mark while pre-fishing the week before the event, Cronk and Taylor were confident they could come up with a solid 3 fish stringer, but they were still unprepared for the explosive action they enjoyed on tournament day.
“I was anticipating that we’d get 3 in the 4-5 lb. range,” Cronk said, “based on what we saw pre-fishing, but that day was just incredible.”
The trio were fishing channel edges in the Middle Marsh and Newport River marshes. Although the tide was wrong when they arrived at their first spot the morning of the event, the anglers put a 5 lb. trout in the boat on their second cast. They continued catching 3-5 lb. trout, and by the time the tide turned around 11:00 the anglers already had a 15 lb. aggregate in the boat.
Once the tide began moving again, the bite continued, and the crew soon caught three trout near 7 lbs., raising their aggregate weight to near the 20 lb. mark.
“It’s rare to bring in a 3 fish aggregate of 18 lbs. in a trout tournament,” Cronk said, “but we watched 3-4 boats around us catch some really big ones, and we heard a boat around a bend hooting and hollering twice.”
After seeing and hearing about the stout fish landed by other boats, the crew continued searching for an even larger trout. Around 1:45, Cronk hooked a fish he first thought might be a big sheepshead, but the fish soon surfaced and was clearly the largest they’d hooked that day. When Cronk finally got the fish to the boat, his teammates slid a net beneath it and boated the TWT-topping 8.76 lb. trout.
With a near-9 lb. trout boosting their confidence a bit, the anglers fished long enough to land 3 smaller specks before heading to the scales. At the weigh-in, a 6.96 lb. and a 7.4 lb. trout joined their near-9 lb. fish to make up their unbeatable aggregate.
What may be even more impressive than the aggregate are the 10 more trout the anglers caught between 4-6.75 lbs., for a total of 13 state citation trout over the day. Their fish fell for both live shrimp and Gulp shrimp fished on slip float rigs.
“We fished the Gulps on a 1/8 oz. jighead and the live ones on a split shot rig,” Cronk revealed, “setting the floats anywhere from 6-10′ to keep them about 1′ off the bottom.”
Cronk wished to express his gratitude to sponsor Pure Fishing/Berkley for their contributions to the team’s success.
Continuing a streak of high finishes in local trout tournaments, Buddy Gainey and his son Jake finished second overall, posting a 16.34 lb. aggregate weight to earn $1,053. In addition to second, a 6.24 lb. trout earned the anglers an additional $378, and Jake’s 4.58 lb. speck took the top spot in the event’s Youth Angler division.
The Gaineys targeted a creek off the New River in their hunt for money-winning specks.
“We pre-fished a good spot,” Buddy Gainey said, “but it was pretty much a race to see who could get there first. I thought someone would beat us there, but they didn’t.”
Fishing a drop-off near a point where two smaller creeks meet, the father-son team began catching trout around 8:00 the morning of the tournament. By 11:00, they had a 20 fish limit to cull their aggregate weight from, and, like the winning team, they had a number of citation-worthy specks.
“We probably had 6 or 8 over 4 lbs.,” Gainey explained. “We caught most of them on shrimp, but we got several 4 pounders throwing grubs, too.”
Trout weren’t the only fish interested in the Gaineys’ live shrimp, as they dealt with a number of nuisance alligator gar as well over the course of the day.
Reversing their finishes in the Ed Sewell Trout Tournament, John Gainey, fishing with partner R.D. Benedict, finished just behind his brother Buddy, weighing in a 16.14 lb. aggregate to end up third overall and pocket $526. The angler’s heaviest trout, at 6.70 lbs., took second in the TWT, adding $567 to their winnings.
Rounding out the top five, David Moore and Mike Phillips took fourth with a 15.14 lb. aggregate, and Ricky Kellum weighed in 13.54 lbs. of trout to finish fifth.
Diana Parkins took the tournament’s Top Lady Angler honors with a 2.64 lb. speck.
A 2.48 lb. flounder earned first in the event’s flounder category for John White.
The Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament attracted 52 boats for 2007, the event’s 16th year. The event benefits the Swansboro Century Club, which supports P.E. and athletic programs at Swansboro Middle School and Swansboro High School.
“We had cold and windy weather this year, but it’s usually that way when the trout fishing’s good,” Tournament Director David Pearson said.
Pearson wished to express his gratitude to the event’s principle sponsor, First Citizen’s Bank, as well as Casper’s Marina, all the other sponsors, and the anglers who fished the event.
