OIFC Spring Classic 2008
“We’re from the other side of Charlotte, so this is just kind of like a vacation for us,” Ronnie Spangler explained just after accepting the check for the overall victory in Capt. Kyle’s Spring Inshore Classic, held May 3-4. Spangler, who fished the event with his son Josh, may have considered it a vacation, but the family team certainly didn’t fish like tourists, besting the field of the 18 mostly local inshore teams that fished the event.
The Spanglers, who hail from Lawndale, NC, brought a 3.4 lb. speckled trout and a 1.1 lb. flounder to the scales at Ocean Isle Fishing Center, earning themselves a 4.5 lb. aggregate weight that bested the field by over 1.5 lbs. The trout and flounder were also the fourth and third heaviest weighed in in their respective categories.
Like many of the teams fishing the event, the father/son duo felt their best chances of catching a money-winning speck would come while drifting live shrimp around the Little River Jetties. They spent the majority of the morning at the jetties, and were rewarded with two trout, including the 3.4 lb. fish that anchored their aggregate weight.
Deciding to leave the jetties in search of a keeper flounder, the anglers finally found one while fishing near the Sunset Beach Bridge in the mid-afternoon.
“It was right at low tide,” Ronnie Spangler recalled, “right around 2:30 when Josh got that fish.” The flatfish fell for a white curly tail grub.
Putting the flounder in the boat made the Spanglers one of only three teams to weigh in a speck and a flounder, and it handily carried them past the competition.
A monster 8.3 lb. speckled trout took first in the trout category for local angler Brandon Sauls, fishing aboard the “Bone Crusher.” Sauls fished the tournament with partner Capt. Willie Southard, and the two began their day with the opposite game plan of the overall winners, starting at the Sunset Beach Bridge, then heading for the jetties after casting for two hours without a weighable fish.
“We caught two trout at the jetties,” Sauls revealed. “Then we moved around a little bit and caught a red. We hooked another fish right behind that, and we thought it was another red, a big one, but then I saw a little flash of silver in there and I knew.”
When Sauls worked the mega-trout close enough, Southard slid a net beneath it, and the anglers had an inkling that they might have the trout category licked (this took place just one week after Sauls took first in another Ocean Isle tournament with a near-6 lb. trout).
“We were done at the jetties by 10:30,” Sauls said, “so we went to Calabash Creek to try and get a flounder. We fished for four hours, but we couldn’t find a keeper flounder.”
With only a single undersized flounder caught over the rest of the day, Sauls and Southard headed for the scales to weigh their sow trout, which topped the second place speck by over 4.5 lbs.
The event’s top flounder, a 2.0 lb. fish, was weighed in by Laurinburg, NC anglers Ken Jacobs and James Fay. Jacobs and Fay found their money-winning flounder while anchored up around some docks in Tubbs Inlet.
“We caught that one around 9:30,” Jacobs explained. A live finger mullet fished on a Carolina rig fooled the flatfish. After boating the flattie, the anglers continued fishing Tubbs Inlet, landing five more flounder with three more keepers.
“We stayed at Tubbs until 1:45, then we shot down to Sasspan Creek to look for a trout,” said Jacobs. After a fruitless search for a speck to get them in the money in the aggregate category, the anglers headed for the scales and found out they had the winning flounder.
In the aggregate weight category, local angler Clay Morphis took second with a 1.7 lb. flounder (second in the flounder competition) and a 1.15 lb. trout for a 2.85 lb. aggregate. Third place went to another local fisherman, Capt. David Hooks, for a 1.75 lb. aggregate weight made up of a 1.0 lb. flounder (fourth place flatfish) and a .75 lb. speck.
Robert Hughes had the 3.7 lb. second place speckled trout with Adam Sellers right on his heels, weighing in a 3.6 lb. speck to take third. Fifth place went to Mike Fields for a 3.15 lb. fish.
The Spring Inshore Classic’s Top Junior Angler honors went to Noah Quaintance and Alex Mercer for a 2.7 lb. speckled trout caught while fishing with Noah’s father Scott. Heather Quaintance was also aboard and reeled in the event’s Top Lady Angler award.
This tournament attracts much of the same crowd from year to year, and tournament director Capt. Kyle Hughes wished to thank everyone that fished the event for making it a success yet again.
