OIFC Far Out Shootout 2009
Bob Chinn, Frank Price, and Andy Duskie with the 39 lb. wahoo, 24 lb. dolphin, and 12 lb. blackfin tuna hooked at the Steeples that earned them first place and over $7,000 in the 2009 Far Out Shootout, held out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center.
“We didn’t know. We were debating over even weighing in or not,” Bob Chinn, of Oak Island’s “Dirty Dog” fishing team explained at the awards ceremony for the 2009 Ocean Isle Fishing Center/GPS Store Far Out Shootout. Chinn and teammates Frank Price and Andy Duskie would have cost themselves quite a payday had they headed home for Oak Island instead of to the scales at the Ocean Isle Fishing Center, as the three-fish 74.95 lb. total they posted handily won the event and earned the crew a total of $7,675.
“I’ve seen this before,” Tournament Director Capt Brant McMullan said with a grin while handing over the winner’s check. “These Oak Island guys are known for sandbagging.”
The “Dirty Dog” crew may be guilty of some mild sandbagging, but no one can argue that their victory was undeserved. Fishing on Saturday, May 16, the weeklong event’s final day, the anglers battled rain and 7-10′ seas at 15-16 knots on their way from Oak Island to the Steeples, where they were putting a trolling spread out just before 9:00 AM.
“It was pretty slow all day,” Chinn said, “but we got our first fish around 10:00.”
Their first fish attacked a Green Machine behind a bird rig far behind the boat on the shotgun line, and Chinn grabbed the rod.
After a brief battle, a medium-sized blackfin tuna appeared behind the crew’s 31′ Contender, and instead of gaffing it, the team pulled it aboard by the leader.
“We were trying to conserve weight so we slung it on in the boat,” Duskie explained. At the scales, the tuna weighed nearly 12 lbs., and it made up the first part of their three-fish aggregate.
After their tuna, the anglers continued trolling the Steeples and picked away at some scattered dolphin over the next several hours before getting a solid hit around 1:00 PM.
Field Hucks and the crew of the "Mean C" with the dolphin, wahoo, and blackfin tuna that took second place in the Far Out Shootout with a 65.6 lb. aggregate weight.
“He ate a black and red, uhh, specialty lure,” Chinn and Duskie agreed with a quick glance, “with a ballyhoo. That one was long and on top, too.”
Duskie took the rod for this fish, and in around 10 minutes, he’d worked a fat wahoo almost boatside. Once the fish was in range, Chinn sank the gaff in it and brought the crew’s largest fish aboard. At the scales, the wahoo weighed 39.45 lbs., anchoring their aggregate weight.
After the ‘hoo, the anglers experienced a lull in the action for yet another few hours, but their “specialty lure” struck the fancy of another solid fish around 3:00.
This time, a gaffer dolphin had found the lure, and the anglers boated it after a short battle.
Sticking around the area in the hopes of a larger fish, the anglers headed for the scales around 3:45. They found that their ride home was much more pleasant than the trip out, as the seas had calmed down and were now going with the boat.
Though they claim they weren’t sure whether or not to weigh in, the team’s three fish aggregate topped the rest of the 33 boat field by almost 10 lbs., earning them first place in the overall aggregate, first place in the meatfish TWT (their wahoo was the largest fish caught aboard the entered boats), and second place wahoo. In addition to their hefty first place check, the anglers received a $500 gift certificate to the GPS Store, and won the first leg of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center’s new Masters Series. The Masters Series Championship is awarded to the team achieving the highest average finish between the Far Out Shootout and the Jolly Mon and Fall Brawl King Mackerel Tournaments, and earns the winning crew prestige and a variety of prizes including free entries to all three tournaments for 2010.
Posting a total weight of 65.60 lbs.-made up of a 23.7 lb. dolphin, a 16.25 lb. blackfin tuna, and a 25.65 lb. wahoo-Field Hucks and Murrells Inlet, SC crew aboard the “Mean C” took second place overall, and their tuna finished second in that category, earning the team a total of $3,510 and a $250 gift certificate to the GPS Store.
Tom Dickson’s “Salty Lady” finished third overall with 61.55 lbs. and caught the event’s largest fish, a 44.95 lb. wahoo.
Despite a week of windy weather, the tournament’s pick any day out of 8 to fish allowed anglers even in smaller boats to get out and fish, and the field seemed pleased with the event’s two major rule changes this year-allowing participants to register until the final Friday of the event (which took the field from 18 to 33 boats) and allowing blackfin tuna into the tuna category.
