Fisherman’s Post Inshore Trail Championship
The Fisherman’s Post Inshore Trail Championship is an invite-only event where boats qualify based on their performance over the five Inshore Challenge events: Ocean Isle, Topsail, Wrightsville, Southport, and Carolina Beach. The season-long Inshore Trail gives boats the opportunity to qualify for the Championship by either (1) being the top finishing Trail boat in any of the five individual events, or (2) finishing the regular season in the Trail top ten.
Following the finish of the last of the five events—the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge on Saturday, September 7—the 2024 qualifying Trail boats started prepping for the one-day Championship on Sunday, September 8, out of Inlet Watch Yacht Club (the site of the Carolina Beach event).
The Trail Championship has a two red drum leaderboard, and also offers the Havana’s Single Big Fish Prize of $500 for the heaviest single red drum.
This year’s Trail champions were Ocean Isle’s Team Kook Tacos made up of Tim Disano, Tripp Hooks, Hunter Williams, and Jimmy Devers. The team weighed in a two-fish aggregate of 14.26 lbs.
Kook Tacos started their Sunday morning with bait already in the livewell because they didn’t want to waste any time on catching bait first thing in the morning. Rather, they wanted to be able to go immediately to their first spot to fish the lowest tide possible, a location where two big oyster points funneled water between them.
After 45 minutes without a single bite, the foursome moved on to a second stop, a big patch of flooded grass, and after less than one minute, they put a fish in the boat that they would end up weighing in as one of their two fish. The redfish hit a live mullet.
Ten minutes passed without another bite, and then a second fish took a live mullet, and this second fish was almost identical in weight and length to the first fish they boated. Not soon after the second drum, they landed what would be their second bag fish and their heaviest fish of the day.
Kook Tacos pulled just three fish total from this second spot, and those three fish would be the only fish they landed all day.
Second place in the Trail Championship went to Team Days Off, based out of Wrightsville Beach, with a two red drum aggregate of 13.82 lbs.
Taylor Henley and Phil Ivins, of Team Days Off, started their Sunday morning out of the Snow’s Cut boat ramp, caught live mullet just across from the boat ramp, and then headed south down the Cape Fear River. Their first spot was a grass bank, and they quickly landed 25 reds in about an hour. The fish fell for a mix of artificials (topwaters and Z-Man paddle tails) and then live mullet when the bite slowed, but unfortunately, all of their fish were 18-22”.
When the tide switched, and with a couple of 22” fish in the livewell that they hoped to upgrade, they decided to move to a second spot, another grass bank but with more oysters nearby. On one of the first casts at the second spot, Henley threw a gold spoon to a point, and he hooked what would be their biggest red drum of the day, a 7.20 lb. fish (26 3/4”) that would win the Havana’s Single Big Fish prize.
After 30 minutes or so, they picked up, headed back to their original spot, and continued throwing gold spoons to points and placing live baits down grass lines and near eddies created by water funneling out of small feeder creeks. This time the spot produced a red drum bigger than 22”, a 26+” fish that would be their second bag fish and weigh 6.62 lbs.
Team Rock Creek Land Company, comprised of Southport’s Jonathan Lanier, Marty Lanier, and Logan Lynch, finished in third place in the Trail Championship with a two red drum weight of 13.23 lbs.
The team couldn’t fish a couple of their better spots because of the wind and bad weather, so they bounced around until late morning when they found both of their fish on some oyster rocks. They were fishing live mullet near the end of the rising tide.
The heaviest of their two red drum weighed 7.15 lbs., measuring right at 27”, and their second fish weighed 6.08 lbs. and measured 25 1/2”.
Team Reel Nutts finished in fourth place with 12.73 lbs., and Team Marine Warehouse Center ended in fifth place with 12.42 lbs.
The Trail Championship happens every year on the Sunday immediately following the one day of fishing (Saturday) for the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge.
Those interested in fishing the 2025 Inshore Trail can visit www.FishermansPost.com and click on Tournaments and then Inshore Trail for more information, including rules, payouts, dates, and registration. Also on the website are the complete results of the regular season of the 2024 Inshore Trail.
