Added on Thursday, June 10, 2010  Fish Post

Spring Inshore Challenge

“We know the bay, we got in there first thing, and we got him,” said Eric Wingo, of the “Marine Warehouse” fishing team, regarding the 7.07 lb. flounder that earned the crew the top spot in the 2010 Fisherman’s Post Spring Inshore Challenge. Wingo fished the event with Dave Benson and Alec Wessell aboard a 20’ JVX Carolina Skiff, and the fish that the trio caught in Buzzard’s Bay early on Saturday, June 5^th, earned them $1,423 and a plaque commemorating their win.

“That JVX can run 50 in 8” of water,” Wingo explained, “and with that early morning low tide, the only other people we saw back there were the kayakers.”

After netting some pogies early on the morning of the tournament, the “Marine Warehouse” crew navigated their way into the bays behind Fort Fisher and began their hunt for a money-winner in a slough around 7’ deep. They didn’t have to wait too long for action.

“We went in there and caught a couple drum and then we got that big flounder,” Wingo continued.

Casting a Carolina-rigged pogy into the slough, Benson got the fateful bite around 8:30 am.

“We’d caught a couple skates,” Wingo said, “and at first it acted a lot like one. Eventually, it was a little different and we started to get an idea of what we had. We just took our time with it and got it to the boat.”

Getting the doormat to the boat didn’t prove to be the hardest part of the battle for the “Marine Warehouse” anglers. When Wingo tried to net the huge fish, he was surprised to see that the net was too small.

“I couldn’t get him in the net,” he explained, “so I had to gill him to get him in the boat. If you pull a flounder’s head out of the water for even a second, he’ll spit that hook right out. So Dave put the rod tip in the water and we just took it easy.”

The cautious approach worked, and Wingo was able to slide a hand into the fish’s gills and lift it over the Carolina Skiff’s gunnels.

“We felt good about that fish,” he said. “It was a real happy boat for about five minutes. When you put a flounder in the cooler and his tail curls up the side, that’s a pretty good feeling, especially in a tournament.”

The anglers continued flounder fishing for a short time after boating the seven pounder, then decided they had what they needed in the boat. Satisfied with their flatfish, they chose to target speckled trout in the hopes of landing one that would get them into competition for the tournament’s trout and flounder aggregate division.

“We started throwing popping cork rigs along the rock wall,” Wingo said, “but we didn’t catch anything but drum.”

Finishing out their day in pursuit of a trout that never materialized, the anglers headed for the scales around 2:00. After weighing in the big flounder and assuming the lead, the anglers anxiously waited at the scales to see if their fish would hold up.

“There were a couple of guys that came in with big fish that scared the heck out of me,” Wingo explained, “especially that 6 pounder that came in a couple minutes behind us.”

As the scales closed at 4:00, however, the “Marine Warehouse” flounder held onto the lead by nearly a pound, and it was celebration time for the anglers.

Hauling a 4.81 lb. speckled trout to the scales, Wilmington’s Fred Davis and Hank Martinez, fishing aboard the “Turn It Up,” took home the top prize in the Inshore Challenge’s trout competition. They paired their big speck with a 4.63 lb. flounder to place 7^th in flounder and dominate the aggregate leader board as well, earning the anglers a total of $1,022.

“Our game plan was to trout fish at first,” Davis explained. “And it worked out—we were lucky.”

Heading down the Cape Fear River to Southport, Martinez and Davis began their day fishing creek mouths on the west side of the river.

“We threw plugs and some other lures at first,” he continued. “Then we started casting live pogies under floats.”

Around 8:00 Saturday morning, the anglers began to have some action.

“We missed the first one,” Davis said, “and it felt like a nice trout, but then we got the big one around 8:30.”

Fishing a creek mouth near Southport, Davis got a solid strike on a live pogy.

“Oh yeah, it was a good bite,” he recalled. “I was thinking it was a trout the way he hit, but he never came up, just stayed down like a drum. Eventually he ran off a little bit of drag and shook his head and I knew.”

When Davis battled the fat speck back to the boat, Martinez was waiting with the net and put the trout in the boat.

“I put him right in the livewell,” Davis continued. “I try not to handle them more than I have to.”

After boating the big trout, the pair went back to casting and landed a few red drum before deciding to head upriver in pursuit of a flounder.

“We started fishing back up the river and ended up in the Cut,” Davis said. “We ended up with 9 flounder overall.”

It was around midday in Snow’s Cut when Davis got the bite that that materialized into the seventh place flounder.

Casting to some rocky structure in the cut, Davis hooked the near-5 lb. fish on a Carolina-rigged pogy, and he easily brought it to Martinez, who was standing by with the net.

“I felt pretty good at that point,” Davis said, “but you never know. I thought that flounder might place, but I was feeling good about the aggregate category.”

The “Turn it Up” anglers also weighed both of their fish in alive, taking advantage of the tournament’s $20 bonus payouts for all flounder and trout making the leader board that are weighed in alive and in releasable condition.

A 6.18 lb. flounder earned second place in that category for Wilmington’s Vince Lewis, aboard the “Flat Crazy,” earning him $960.

Taking second place in the speckled trout competition with a 4.45 lb. trout was Jacksonville’s Capt. Ricky Kellum, of Speckled Specialist Charters. Kellum’s fishing partners, his son Rendel and uncle Larry Hill, took the top honors in the Junior and Senior Angler divisions, respectively, earning the crew a total of $476.

“I hadn’t caught much this past week,” Ricky Kellum explained. “On my trip yesterday, my biggest fish was 14.5”, so I probably wouldn’t have even fished if my uncle hadn’t been planning on coming from Indiana.”

It was a good thing the crew decided to fish, as their second-place trout was in the boat less than five minutes after the tournament’s 6:00 am lines-in time.

“We had that fish at 6:04,” Kellum reported. “I had two more nice ones on and pulled the hooks.”

Fishing live shrimp on slip-float rigs near Brown’s Inlet, the family team caught a few more trout before the bite slowed and the anglers decided to search for a flounder.

“We had to go look for a flounder,” Kellum said. “We went out to AR-360.”

After catching nothing but sharks at the artificial reef, the anglers came inshore and continued their flounder quest, working their way down the waterway from Sneads Ferry to Wrightsville Beach.

Unfortunately, they were unable to find a flatfish before the 4:00 scale closing, though they held out till the end, weighing in just before the cutoff. Like the “Turn it Up” anglers, the “Speckled Specialist” crew weighed their trout in alive to earn a $20 bonus.

Last year’s Inshore Challenge champion Dennis Durham, of Wilmington, scaled a 5.61 lb. flounder to finish third overall in the flounder competition, also capturing the $250 bounty for the largest flatfish weighed in by a Got-Em-On Live Bait Club member to take home $945.

“It was almost an exact repeat of last year, right down to the weights of the fish,” Durham explained. “I started in the river, caught a 4.5 pounder early on, then worked my way back to the cut and caught that big fish around 1:30. The only thing different than last year was I didn’t catch a trout.”

After fishing all morning and catching a decent number of flounder, but none larger than his early fish, Durham headed for Snow’s Cut around midday.

“I was fishing in about the same area,” he revealed, “along the grass banks, but the fish was on the drop-off out off of the bank.”

When his big fish struck, Durham didn’t realize it was anything to get excited about at first.

“When I set the hook he came to the top shaking his head, and I knew it was a good fish,” Durham continued.

A good one indeed, but it was a bit under a pound light to earn Durham back-to-back championships.

Barry Yopp, of Sneads Ferry, another perennial leader board presence at the Inshore Challenge (and the tournament’s speckled trout record holder), scaled a 4.20 lb. speck in 2010 to take home third place and $327.

Liz Pitts, fishing with Adam Meyer of Charter Lakes Marine Insurance on the “Sandbarge,” landed a 5.52 lb. flounder to earn the team 4^th place flounder and take the event’s Lady Angler crown. Tournament flounder record holder Jason Frazier scaled a 5.24 lb. flatfish to round out the top five.

A 2.25 lb. speckled trout earned Bruce Fields, on the “Flat Dawg,” fourth in the trout competition, and Melton Bordeaux, on the “Knot Tellin,” took fifth with a 2.18 lb. fish.

The Spring Inshore Challenge is in its 7^th year, and proceeds from the event this year benefit the Cape Fear Community College Marine Tech Club.

For more information about the event or to see the full results, go to www.fishermanspost.com.