Ed Sewell Memorial Trout Tournament
Capt. Chris Sewell presents the winners' check in the Ed Sewell Memorial Speckled Trout tournament to Buddy and Jake Gainey. The Gainey's scaled five speckled trout weighing 17.93 lbs. to take the top spot in the event, and also topped the TWT with a 2.82 lb. fish.
Pre-fishing paid off big for Hubert, NC’s Buddy and Jake Gainey, as the anglers returned to an area Buddy found the day before to land the five speckled trout weighing 17.93 lbs. that topped the 8th Annual Ed Sewell Memorial Speckled Trout Tournament, held November 7th out of Swansboro’s Casper’s Marina. Not only did they take the event’s $1000 first prize, the anglers also topped the event’s single big fish TWT to earn an additional $525.00.
“I pre-fished the two days before the tournament,” Buddy Gainey explained, “and I found some big fish. I had one over 6 and one over 5. I happened on those fish on Friday afternoon, so we went back there for the tournament since we haven’t been catching many big fish around Swansboro lately.”
Returning with his son to the area where he’d caught the gators the day before, a creek off the White Oak River, the anglers began fishing live shrimp under float rigs and catching fish almost immediately.
“We moved up and down that creek and caught fish pretty much all day,” Gainey continued.
Targeting deeper 7-8’ areas in the creek, the anglers found some smaller specks in the 2 lb. class at first and had to weed through them to catch the 3-4 lb. fish that earned them the victory.
“We’d catch a good one, then catch 2 pounders for about an hour,” Gainey said. “We probably caught 20-30 over the course of the day to end up with the five nice ones we weighed.”
With such a solid bite, the Gaineys stayed in the creek all day looking for a few of the 5-6 lb. fish Buddy had found the day before.
Unfortunately for the father/son team, they never found the gators, but their five largest fish were enough to earn them victory by over 1.5 lbs.
In addition, their next largest speck, a 2.82 lb. fish, topped the event’s single big trout TWT (the five weighed in for the primary category aren’t eligible for the TWT).
“I never thought we’d win the TWT with that one,” Gainey said, “but I guess everyone else weighed all their big fish in for the main tournament.”
Hauling five specks weighing 16.23 lbs. to the scales, Grumpy Midgett and Robert Goodwin took home the Ed Sewell’s $500 second place bounty.
David Moore and Mike Phillips rounded out the top three with 16.11 lbs. and earned $350.00.
A 2.16 lb. trout earned the Top Junior Angler title in the event and $175.00 for Garrett Boucher, and Kristyn Hall scaled a 3.18 lb. speck to earn Top Lady Angler honors and $100.
Aside from foggy conditions the morning of the tournament, the event was blessed with perfect speckled trout fishing weather, and as the sun burned off the fog that morning, most competitors reported that the trout bite turned on.
Capt. Chris Sewell wished to express his gratitude to all the 50+ anglers that fished the event, and particularly to host Casper’s Marina and all the event’s sponsors for making it the annual success it has become.
