Friendly City Speckled Trout
Scaling a trio of speckled trout weighing 14.92 lbs., Morehead City’s John Moore, Jr., aboard the “Skinny Water,” took home first place and over $1,400 in the 19th Annual Swansboro Century Club Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament.
Moore pre-fished several days before the event, finding a body of fish to return to in the marsh off the North River.
“I actually caught bigger fish the week before,” Moore said. “I was fishing a 6’ hole in the marsh there.”
Returning to the hole on the morning of the event, the angler found action almost immediately.
“I started catching them as soon as I got there,” he continued.
Moore enticed the trout with live shrimp pinned to popping cork rigs, drifting them through the hole, and he encountered big fish early on.
“I had all the ones I weighed in in the livewell by 10:00,” he explained. “I felt pretty comfortable with them.”
As the falling tide slowed and turned, Moore went searching for an even bigger trout closer to home.
“When the tide went slack, the bite slowed down in the North River,” he said. “For some reason they just don’t bite as well on rising water in there. I do better on the Morehead side when it’s incoming, so I went over there and fished some spots.”
Hop-scotching through some spots in Bogue Sound, he found more action but no fish to cull out the trio of 5 pounders already in the livewell.
At the scales, Moore’s fish handily topped the three-trout aggregate leader board, and his 5.14 lb. big fish also earned him second place in the event’s TWT.
Jake and Buddy Gainey, from Hubert, NC, pulled off second place with three trout weighing 11.08 lbs.
“We actually fished the New River,” Jake Gainey reported. “My dad had caught some nice fish around Swansboro on Thursday, but I thought we could find some better ones in the river.”
Settling on a 20’ hole far back in French’s Creek, the anglers also found fast action the morning of the tournament while drifting float-rigged live shrimp.
“We caught fish all day,” Gainey said. “We never moved the boat once. We’d catch two or three, then have nothing for about a half-hour, then catch two or three more.”
While putting together the fish they weighed in, the Gaineys dealt with some unusual bycatch for a speckled trout angler, releasing five largemouth bass from the same spot.
Swansboro’s Mike Phillips and David Moore earned third place with a 9.92 lb. three-fish aggregate.
“We fished up toward Morehead,” Phillips said, “in Core Creek. We fish the bridge, the docks, and a bunch of hidden drop-offs and ledges in there that everybody doesn’t know about.”
Casting float-rigged live shrimp to a variety of spots in the creek produced a 25-fish day for the anglers, including the three they weighed in.
Topping the event’s big fish TWT with a 5.44 lb. fish and earning fourth place for their 9.70 lb. aggregate were Hubert’s Capt. Robbie Hall and Thomas Jones. Capt. Chris Sewell and Jessie Satterwhite rounded out the top five with an 8.24 lb. stringer.
Betty Fairchild topped the event’s Lady Angler leader board with a 2.7 lb. speck, and Charles Kellum’s 2.64 lb. fish earned him the Top Junior Angler honors.
