Carousel Center Flounder Tournament 2009
Charles Hughmacher and Mike Tallen with the 12.2 lb. flounder that took first place and $1000 in the 7th annual Carousel Center Flounder Tournament. Hughmacher hooked the doormat on a Carolina-rigged pogy at the west end of Snow's Cut.
How happy would landing a double digit flounder make a man? How about it if was during a tournament? Happy enough to get knocked out of the boat and pop to the surface smiling, apparently.
“I came up laughing,” Charles Hughmacher, of Delco, NC, explained.
“We had a little anchor excitement,” his fishing partner Mike Tallen, from Wilmington, explained. “It was stuck, he was pulling on the rope, and I cut the motor without telling him, and he went overboard.”
The laughter was brought on by the 12.2 lb. flounder Hughmacher and Tallen had put on ice a short time before, the same 12.2 lb. fish that earned them $1000 and first place in the Carousel Flounder Tournament, held June 13 out of Carolina Beach’s Inlet Watch Yacht Club.
Hughmacher didn’t have to wait long after the tournament began to hook his huge flatfish. Around 6:30, as he and Tallen were anchored up on some structure near the west end of Snow’s Cut, the lucky angler got a strike on a Carolina-rigged pogy.
“I knew what it was when he hit,” Hughmacher said. “He took off with that bait.”
Setting the hook a few moments after the flounder swam off with his pogy, Hughmacher could feel that this wasn’t just a run of the mill keeper.
“He fought hard,” the winning angler explained. “He ran hard twice.”
After a back and forth battle that lasted the better part of 10 minutes, Hughmacher finally worked the fish to the surface.
“Let me put it this way,” Tallen reported. “When I saw the fish, my eyes got as big as dinner plates, and my jaw hit the water.”
Seth Hewlett, of Wilmington, with the 7.47 lb. flounder that earned second place and $500 in the 2009 Carousel Center Flounder Tournament, held June 13 out of Inlet Watch Yacht Club. Hewlett hooked the fish on a Carolina-rigged pogy while fishing with Capt. Bruce Fields.
Though apparently in awe of the size of the flounder, Tallen was able to net it on the first try, and the anglers had a flounder in the boat that was exactly double the size of last year’s Carousel Center winner, a good reason to smile.
Continuing to fish the same spot for a short time, Tallen landed another stout flattie, but at 4.4 lbs., it was nearly a throwback compared to their big fish. Deciding to prospect for an even larger fish, the anglers tried to pull anchor but found it stuck.
“I caught that big old fish and then he threw me in the river,” Hughmacher said.
After trying a variety of other spots for the rest of the day with nothing to show for it but a toadfish, the anglers gave the spot where they’d hooked the monster another shot, but they didn’t land another fish.
“I had another good one and lost him,” Hughmacher said, “but he wasn’t like that big one.”
Scaling an impressive flatfish of his own, Wilmington’s Seth Hewlett earned second place and $500 with a 7.47 lb. flounder. Hewlett fished with Capt. Bruce Fields, of Carolina Beach’s Flat Dawg Charters, and the pair also hooked their money-winning fish early.
“That was our first flounder of the day,” Hewlett explained. “He bit about 6:30 or 6:40 this morning.”
Anchored up on a deep hole where Carolina Beach Inlet meets the waterway, it didn’t take long after catching bait for Hewlett to get the fateful strike.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know he was big until we got him to the side of the boat,” Hewlett continued. “When I got him up, he was staying down, doing that flounder flop.”
After he finally worked the flounder to the surface, Fields slid a net beneath it, and the pair were still surprised at the fish’s size when they put it in the boat, and again at the scales.
“I thought he was 5 or 5.5 in the water,” the second place angler continued. “When Bruce put him in the boat, I was thinking 6 or 6.5, but he was over 7. We were feeling really good about it, but Mike and Charles had to blow the wind out of our sails with that 12.”
After fishing their deep hole for a short time longer, the duo fished a number of spots around Carolina Beach. They found fish at every one, but none bigger than their first of the morning.
“We caught fish everywhere we went,” Hewlett said, “in the river, the cut, and the basin. We had 6-7 keepers and a 3.5 lb. speckled trout for the day.”
Rounding out the top five for the Carousel Center event were Jesse Christopher, who scaled a 5.40 lb. flattie to earn $250. April Evans weighed in a 4.8 lb. flounder to earn $100 and fourth, and Brandon Mills took home fifth place and $50 for a 4.75 lb. fish.
This was the Carousel Center Tournament’s seventh year. As the name implies, proceeds from the event go to support the Carousel Center, an organization working for and with abused children. The event attracted 120 anglers this year, up nearly 50% from last year’s turnout, and the increased turnout and sponsorship enabled the tournament to raise $17,500 for the center in 2009.
At the awards ceremony, the Carousel Center’s Director April Pickett thanked all the anglers and sponsors of the event for making the contributions to the center possible, and she expressed her gratitude to Tournament Director Tom Banks, who has been doing the lion’s share of the work to put the tournament on for all 7 years running.
