Pleasure Island Team Surf Challenge Welcome

April 11 – 13, 2025

WELCOME

It’s our pleasure to welcome everyone to the annual Pleasure Island Team Surf Fishing Challenge. This is the first fishing competition on the calendar that Fisherman’s Post hosts every year, so we especially look forward to reuniting with our regular surf fishing anglers, as well as meeting new ones, after a winter of hibernation.

This spring surf fishing event on Pleasure Island is different from the fall event in that it is a team-based event. Surf fishing has always meant camaraderie to Fisherman’s Post, and this spring you will once again be able to grab up to three friends and fish against other teams of up to four anglers.

Our wording of “up to four anglers” is to let you know that you are able to fish a team with less than four anglers, but the team entry fee is still the same price whether you have two, three, or four total anglers.

Each team (no matter how many anglers) can have a total of up to eight rods in the water at one time. This allows a team to monitor a teammate’s rods while he/she is running for supplies, or it allows a team of less than four anglers to still be as competitive as a full team of four.

Teams will be competing in four main categories—bluefish, red drum, sea mullet, and black drum—and the leaderboard will be based on each team’s three-fish aggregate weight (up to three fish) in each category. So if your team can weigh in the heaviest total weight of three bluefish (or at least be in the top three in aggregate weight), then there will be a prize check for your team on Sunday. And if your team can also weigh in the heaviest total weight of three sea mullet or three red drum or three black drum, then there will be even more prize checks on Sunday.

In addition, there is a Team Aggregate TWT, based on a team’s heaviest four-fish aggregate of a single fish from each of the four categories, and a Team Hall of Fame Award, going to the team that weighs in the heaviest total weight of all fish from all four categories (up to 12 fish).

We know that people like plenty of ways to win money and prizes, so we are also offering a $100 gift card to each team that weighs in the single heaviest fish in each category.

For this team event, there will not be any weigh stations open around the clock. Teams are still allowed to fish from Friday 11:59 pm until Sunday at 11:00 am (one hour shorter than the fall event), but all teams will weigh in together on Sunday, with scales open at Lazy Pirate from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon.

Lazy Pirate is again the Tournament HQ for this event. We will be onsite on Friday signing up teams and placing wristbands on every angler, and then we all meet once more at the Lazy Pirate on Sunday for weigh-in, an awards dinner, and the awards ceremony. Everyone on the island knows that the Lazy Pirate is a good time, and the Lazy Pirate promises great hospitality all weekend long for our surf fishing participants.

In addition, the Pleasure Island Team Surf Fishing Challenge is the first qualifying event in the Surf Series Trail, a season-long points competition running in the background of the five surf fishing events we host every year. Though the Surf Series Trail is individual-based and the Pleasure Island Team is team-based, individuals can still use Pleasure Island Team fish towards the Surf Series Trail–click here for more info and the complete rules of the Surf Series Trail.

Also returning this year will be our beneficiary, First Fruit Ministries. First Fruit Ministries began in 1998 and has grown to serve over 20,000 hot meals, provide emergency groceries to over 5,000 households, and shelter over 24 homeless women and families annually, and they will receive the donation of all fish weighed in by all anglers over the course of the weekend.

So grab up to three friends, come up with a team name, and get entered. This is the chance for you and your team to start the year spending a weekend on the beach, catching fish, and heading home with prize checks in hand.

Gary Hurley / Tournament Director
(910) 452-6378
surf@fishermanspost.com