Tournament Report – Far Out Shootout
Anchoring their winning weight with a 72.7 lb. wahoo, the “Free Spool/Hooked Soul” fishing team added a 27.5 lb. dolphin to accumulate a 100.2 lb. aggregate weight that handily earned them the top spot in the 2015 Far Out Shootout, held May 9-16 out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center.
Hailing from the Charlotte area and Elkin, NC, anglers Chris and Rob Cartwright, Bryan Johnson, and Ken Reel elected to fish Saturday, May 16, the tournament’s final fishing day. The crew identified some water they liked on a satellite surface temperature shot from the day before and headed south from Ocean Isle on their chosen fishing day.
Chris and Rob Cartwright, Ken Reel, and Brian Johnson–the “Free Spool/Hooked Soul” fishing team–with their winning fish from the 2015 Far Out Shootout, a 72.7 lb. wahoo and a 27.5 lb. dolphin.
“I’d studied the chart like a fiend the night before,” Chris Cartwright explained. “There was a temperature break perpendicular to the coast down near the Winyah Scarp, and that’s where we headed.”
After zig-zagging on the last leg of their journey to find the 72-74 degree break they were looking for, the anglers deployed some high-speed wahoo lures and began to work their way further south.
“We’d had them out for about 45 minutes,” Cartwright continued. “I said we were going to pull the high-speed stuff in in 15 minutes and that’s when the fish bit.”
With the boat going 15 knots and wahoo speeding away in the other direction, the fish’s initial run almost spooled the reel.
“We had a 200 yard topshot and 300 yards of braid on that reel,” said Cartwright, “and there wasn’t much left by the time we got him settled down.”
As the run slowed it was time to bring the fish and boat closer together, and Chris Cartwright settled in to do the cranking as his brother held the rod to keep it from coming out of the holder.
“He came in slow,” the angler reported. “There was a lot of putting line on the reel by hand.”
Slowly but steadily, the anglers worked to bring the fish to the boat, and around 20 minutes after the bite, the big wahoo was on the deck.
“We were feeling pretty good at that point,” Cartwright said. “Lines-in was at 8:00 and we had that big monster fish in the boat at 9:15.”
Knowing their odds at a larger wahoo were slim, the anglers elected to work some rips in the area in the hopes of landing a healthy dolphin, and this plan, too, came together smoothly.
“We had him in an hour,” Cartwright said of their big ‘phin. “We caught five others with another 20+ lb. fish, so we were feeling pretty good.”
Though they were confident in their catch, the tournament’s format is based on the aggregate weight of a single dolphin, wahoo, and tuna and the “Free Spool/Hooked Soul” anglers decided to try and add a tuna to their haul.
“I really don’t know how to try and catch a tuna,” Cartwright said. “We put out all the green machines we had in the boat and trolled out a little deeper.”
Though their tuna quest was fruitless, the anglers elected to head for the scales an hour before the event’s lines-out time with some confidence their fish would put them in the money.
“We didn’t know if we’d win, but we all figured we’d need to be back for the awards ceremony,” Cartwright added.
The “McAttack” fishing team scaled a respectable 88.4 lb. aggregate weight made up of a 59.7 lb. wahoo, an 18.8 lb. dolphin, and a 9.9 lb. blackfin tuna to earn second place in the event. A 56.4 lb. aggregate put the “OIFC Carolina Cat” crew in third.
For more information on the Far Out Shootout and a full leaderboard, check out www.oifc.com.
