Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge

A very unfavorable weather forecast hampered signups for this year’s Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge, a red drum tournament put on by Fisherman’s Post and hosted out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center. The Ocean Isle event, like all five of the red drum tournaments Fisherman’s Post will host this year, has a main leaderboard based off of a boat’s single heaviest red drum, as well as numerous TWTs and other secondary prizes.

While the Ocean Isle event is a great standalone event offering numerous prizes and cash payouts, the Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge is also the start of the Inshore Tournament Trail, a season-long competition that rewards those boats that perform well over the course of the five events. These five events begin with Ocean Isle in May and end with Carolina Beach in early September.

The winning team in this year’s Ocean Isle event was Team Goof Off, taking not only the top spot on the main leaderboard, but also winning Junior Angler, Lady Angler, SeaTow, Single Big Red Drum TWT, Two Red Drum TWT, and High Roller Single Big Red Drum TWT. Their winnings totaled over $2000.

Team Kook Tacos (John Cooke, Tripp Hooks, Jimmy Deever, and Tim Disano) finished in third place in the 2024 Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge with a single heaviest red drum of 6.58 lbs. They found their leaderboard fish by targeting a school in the ICW using cut pogies.

Team Goof Off includes Scott Rivers, Trevor Rivers, Deanna Rivers, and Jacob Frick. The crew gathered an assortment of bait the day before, including shrimp, pogies, crabs, and mullet. The spot that they originally wanted to target was a little too far from weigh-in with rain and storms in the forecast, so they found a grass line between Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle with about 2’ of water and some submerged structure. 

The first two baits in the water produced two fish, including one of the two red drum they weighed in. They kept catching fish and moving down the grass line a little bit at a time and catching more fish, with all of their action coming from about a 20 yard stretch.

The team landed several fish in this location, including the 7.09 lb. tournament winner and the 6.86 lb. drum that cemented their Two Red Drum TWT first place finish. Most of their fish came on live mullet on either Carolina rigs or jig heads, and their two heaviest were in the boat by 10:00 am.

Second place went to Team C/W Skiff and Greg Cundiff and Matt Watson for a 6.67 lb. redfish that measured 25.75”. 

The team had bait pinned up bait the day before, so they started early on Saturday with 150-160 live pogies in the well when they pulled out of Morningstar Marina. They arrived at their spot at 5:45 am, a creek with long stretches of grass lines and several shell beds right on the bank. Cundiff and Watson started fishing at 6:00 am, and their second largest redfish of the day bit around 7:30 am, a 5.54 lb. redfish.

The tide was getting lower, so after a couple of bonnethead shark hookups, they decided to move around to other spots in the general vicinity. No other area produced, so they made their way back to the original spot at around 1:00. 

The team’s first bite back at the original spot was a big shark they broke off. Cundiff and Watson were now watching the time, as they wanted to be headed to weigh in by 2:30, and at 2:10 with an incoming tide, their winning redfish hit a live pogie.

Trevor Rivers, Scott Rivers, Deanna Rivers, and Jacob Frick, of Team Goof Off, won the 2024 Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge with a single heaviest red drum of 7.09 lbs., earning the team over 42000 in prize money. The fish was caught along a grassline using a live mullet on a Carolina rig.

In addition to second place on the leaderboard, C/W Skiff also took second place in the Single Big Red Drum TWT and second place in the High Roller Single Big Red Drum TWT.

Finishing in third place was team Kook Tacos, comprised of Tim Disano, Tripp Hooks, Jimmy Deever, and John Cooke. Their single heaviest red drum that took the third spot on the leaderboard weighed in at 6.58 lbs.

Kook Tacos penned up baits the day before. On Saturday morning, though, they didn’t like how those baits looked, so they went and caught fresh pogies before targeting a series of docks. 

They caught drum on all three docks, but the reds were smaller than they were looking for. They hit another dock without much success, and then focused on a school of red drum in the ICW. The ICW school produced their heaviest red drum, a 6.58 lb. drum caught on a cut pogie at around 10:00 am during the mid-falling tide.

When the ICW bite slowed, they targeted a creek, but the creek only produced smaller drum before the team headed back to the original series of docks. This time the docks produced the team’s second heaviest drum at 6.04 lbs., coming off a live pogie and on a much lower tide.

The team complemented their third place leaderboard finish with third place in both the Single Big Red Drum TWT and the High Roller Single Big Red Drum TWT, as well as a second place finish in the Two Red Drum TWT.

For a more complete leaderboard for the Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge, as well as the current standings for the Inshore Tournament Trail, you can visit www.FishermansPost.com. The website also includes information on the next red drum tournament, the Topsail Inshore Challenge that has Registration at East Coast Sports on Friday, June 28, and a weigh-in at Sloop Point Marina on Saturday, June 29.

by Fish Poster