Far Out Shootout
Frank Johnson, Capt. Brody Heath, and the crew of the “Emma Rose” earned first place in the 2014 Far Out Shootout by pairing this 28.5 lb. dolphin with a 39.1 lb wahoo for a 67.6 lb. aggregate. Their fish bit ballyhoo paired with glass head trolling lures near the Blackjack Hole.
Scaling a 28.5 lb. dolphin and a 39.1 lb. wahoo on the event’s first fishing day, Frank Johnson and the crew of Ocean Isle Beach’s “Emma Rose” didn’t even need a tuna to hold off the field in the remainder of the weeklong Far Out Shootout, held May 9-17 out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center. Their 67.6 lb. aggregate was good enough to finish at the top of the leaderboard and earn the crew the top spot out of the 28 participating vessels.
With Capt. Brody Heath at the helm of the 43’ Rodman walkaround, mates John Bass, and Josh Ashton, and anglers Dan Myers, Stuart Anderson, and Rachel Wordsworth, the crew headed out of Shallotte Inlet for the Blackjack Hole before daylight on Friday, May 9.
They dropped a ballyhoo spread in the water just inshore of the break and quickly hooked an amberjack, but decided to push offshore in search of some of the three eligible species in the tournament.
“We trolled out towards the ledge,” Johnson explained, “and when we got out there we were hooking three dolphin at a time.”
The anglers quickly amassed a solid collection of the brightly-colored fish in their fish box, and the action held up for the rest of the morning, culminating when Myers landed the big dolphin they hauled to the scales.
“There weren’t any weedlines out there,” Johnson continued, “but there were flying fish everywhere. When we caught a fish, we’d mark the spot and come back over it. We had three fish on three different times at one spot.”
Fishing a fairly small area, the “Emma Rose” crew had an impressive dolphin haul by early afternoon, but they needed to land one of the other eligible species in the event to add some weight to their total.
Finally, around 2:30, the anglers got a slightly different strike, and Wordsworth was able to land their big wahoo.
Ballyhoo under hand-blown glass trolling lures fooled the wahoo and most of the crew’s larger dolphin.
They added a smaller wahoo to the box before deciding it was time to head for the scales with their two big fish.
“I told Brody we needed a tuna because I thought everybody else would have three fish,” Johnson said, “but the ice started to go out on us and we had a bunch of nice fish that I didn’t want to go bad on us. We got to the scales at 6:00—two hours before we had to be in.”
Despite their lack of a tuna, the anglers’ fish fended off their competition by over 5 lbs. at week’s end, and the “Emma Rose” crew were crowned the 2014 Far Out Shootout Champions.
Zach Faulkner and the “Get Floor’d/OIFC” fishing team scaled the event’s biggest tuna, a 19.05 lb. blackfin, along with a wahoo and dolphin for a 61.2 lb. aggregate weight good for second place overall in the event. Rounding out the top three were Toby Russ and the “Mr. Goodhands/OIFC” team with a dolphin, tuna, and wahoo weighing 55.75 lbs.
Patrick Bellamy and the “Mining My Bidness” weighed in the tournament’s heaviest dolphin, a 42.95 lb. fish, and Michael Lee and the “Streamin’ Live” took home the top wahoo bounty with a 39.7 lb. ‘hoo.
The “Scale Bound” and “Reel Relief” crews each released a billfish during the Far Out Shootout to earn their names on the event’s Don Leonard Memorial Billfish Trophy.
Full results and more information on the Far Out Shootout are available at www.oifc.com.
