Fisherman’s Post NC Flatfish Championship 2008
Scott Scarola, Marc Lozier, Aaron Enright, Winston Brown, and Brian Libonati with the 7.24 and 3.86 lb. flounder that earned them the title of NC Flatfish Champions and $1,804. They caught the fish on live mullet and pogies around rockpiles in Snow's Cut.
While it applies to many situations in life, the old adage “better to be lucky than good” is particularly apt when applied to fishing, and especially tournament fishing. Scott Scarola, Marc Lozier, Winston Brown, Aaron Enright, and Brian Libonati would definitely agree, as luck played a major role in their landing the 7.24 lb. flounder that anchored the 11.08 lb. two fish aggregate weight that secured their victory in the inaugural Fisherman’s Post Newspaper NC Flatfish Championship, held September 19-20 out of Carolina Beach’s Joyner Marina.
“This is the first flounder tournament we’ve ever fished,” said Scarola, minutes before the anglers accepted the signed winner’s print and $1,804 check they earned for first place in the aggregate category and the big fish TWT.
Deciding to target Snow’s Cut in their search for prize-winning flatfish, the Wilmington anglers caught several flounder, including two in the 3-4 lb. class, while fishing a number of rockpiles and holes in the Cut over the morning’s incoming tide. After unsuccessfully fishing another rockpile in 15′ of water, they decided to move to their next hole around midday, but they couldn’t get their anchor free from the craggy bottom.
“We probably spent five minutes trying to get the anchor up, and I finally said ‘we’re stuck guys, I hope you like this spot’,” Scarola explained. “I was saying ‘I hate the Cut’ at that point.”
Electing to fish their remaining baits in the hole instead of immediately cutting the anchor line, Scarola got a strike on a Carolina-rigged pogy shortly after the tide began falling at 1:00.
“I felt him hit, but I thought I was snagged because of the current,” he said. “So I opened the bail and let him run out a little bit. I set the hook and thought I was snagged again, but as I pulled it he moved.”
With only 10 lb. line on the rod he was fishing, Scarola had to treat the fish gently in the current rolling through the Cut.
“Everyone asked if I was hung up,” he continued, “and I said no. Then I brought him to the surface. When he came up, everybody got really excited.”
With only a broken freshwater trout landing net in the boat, the anglers had a conundrum on their hands.
“We were trying to back this truck of a fish into a broken net that was just a trout net,” Libonati explained, “and everybody was just yelling at each other. It was fantastic.”
Finally, the anglers were able to bring the big flounder aboard their 23′ Sea Fox.
Kevin Perry, of Wilmington, with the 1.20 lb. flounder that earned him second place Junior Angler in the NC Flatfish Championships.
Fishing for a short while longer, they prepared to cut their anchor line and head for the scales, and miraculously the anchor pulled free. The anglers were the second team to weigh in, and they watched nervously as 27 more teams brought their fish to the scales. No one, however, was able to best either their big fish or their aggregate weight.
Also fishing Snow’s Cut, Wilmington’s Fred Davis and Hank Martinez, aboard the 19′ Triton “Turn It Up,” earned second place in the event with a 6.60 lb. big fish supporting a 10.19 lb. two-flounder aggregate despite some difficulties with bait.
“It was tough,” Davis reported. “We caught some really little mullet right at daylight and started off with those, but I don’t think we even had a bite on them.”
Deciding to go looking for some better baits while the tide was still rolling too quickly through Snow’s Cut to fish effectively, the “Turn It Up” anglers headed for Carolina Beach Inlet and netted some larger mullet.
After returning to Snow’s Cut, the anglers began working grass banks on the waterway’s south side with the trolling motor.
“I was surprised we could even use the trolling motor right in the wind we had, but it worked out,” Davis explained.
Around 9:00, Martinez got a strike that led to the team’s first flounder, just over 3.5 lbs. They continued fishing, and at 10:30 Davis got a solid bite.
“He hit and I told Hank ‘That felt like a good one.’ Then he kind of moved off and laid up,” said Davis. “When I hit him, I told Hank to get the net because I didn’t budge him when I set the hook.”
Earning second place in the overall competition, second in the big fish TWT, and first in the High Roller’s TWT, among other prizes, Davis and Martinez took home a total check for $2,367.
A pair of flounder weighing 9.26 lbs. earned Wilmington anglers John Olsen and Sam Sodini, fishing as team “South Bay Fiberglass,” third place overall, and their 5.95 lb. big fish took third in the TWT. Sodini also earned the event’s Top Senior Angler honors for the near-6 lb. flattie.
Olsen and Sodini, fishing aboard a 17′ Pro-line, started the day at a creek mouth just south of Wrightsville Beach, and they quickly picked up a few fish.
“I had caught some fish there before,” Olsen explained, “and we caught two around 3 lbs. there early, which kind of kept us there for a good while.”
Unfortunately, the high lunar tides pushed the bait in the area way up into the marsh grass, and the anglers didn’t hook another flatfish for the next few hours.
“The fish quit biting, and we made a last minute decision to head south. Everybody and everything you read says the big fish are from Carolina Beach south,” he continued.
Stopping at Carolina Beach Inlet for a final attempt before heading for the scales, the anglers began a drift through the inlet. They hadn’t gotten far when Sodini had a solid strike on a Carolina-rigged finger mullet.
“I had an idea it was a decent fish,” Olsen said, “but it just kind of swam up to the boat.” When it did, Olsen netted it and brought it aboard.
“We kind of figured it was a money fish,” he continued. They headed for the scales shortly after landing the fish and, indeed, it was a money fish, earning the anglers $828.
Hobie Weaver and Chris Smith, both of Wilmington, weighed in two flounder for a total of 7.27 lbs., earning fourth place overall and $444.
Rachel Scott, fishing on the "Wild Child," took the Top Junior Angler honors in the first annual NC Flatfish Championships with this 1.93 lb. flounder. She fished with her parents Carol and Patrick Scott.
Weaver and Smith targeted grass islands in the Cape Fear River they’d been fishing all year, but they found a somewhat slow bite on tournament day.
“It was hit and miss,” Weaver explained.
After picking up a 2.5 lb. flounder earlier, the anglers were pressed for a larger fish until Smith got a strike just before 3:30.
“We didn’t know it was a big fish,” Weaver said. “I was taking one off the hook and asked him if it had any size. He said no, but then he saw the fish and told me to get the net.”
With the scales closing at 4:00, it was time to head out once they boated the near-5 lb. flattie.
Weighing in 5.32 and 1.53 lb. flatfish, Southport’s “Uncle Jake” crew-Jason McDowell, Ricky Bishop, and Mike Fields-took home fifth place overall and second in the High Roller TWT, earning $850.
After fishing around Bald Head Island and the Southport Waterfront, the anglers had only a 1.5 lb. fish to show for their efforts by early afternoon.
“After the day we’d had, morale was pretty low,” McDowell reported. The anglers decided to try their luck at the Pfizer dock, and soon after they got there, Fields got a solid strike on a live finger mullet.
“He thought it was a good one from the strike,” McDowell said. “Then when he hooked it, the fish started dumping drag pretty good.”
After Fields fought the fish to the boat, Bishop netted it and brought it aboard.
“We were really trying to catch another one, but it didn’t work out,” he said. Maybe not, but courtesy of the High Roller TWT, the anglers cashed the third largest check in the event.
Austin Eubank and the “Clearly Hooked” crew earned sixth place in the Flatfish Championship’s aggregate category with 6.82 lbs. Seventh went to Jim Meeker aboard the “4 Reelin” with 6.16 lbs. It was 6.03 lbs. of flounder that took eighth for Chris Smith and the “Rough C’s.” Eddie Stewart, fishing the “Crack of Dawn,” scaled a 5.56 lb. aggregate for ninth, and Kenneth Crisco, Sr. rounded out the top ten with 5.16 lbs. aboard the “Harley’s Roost.”
The event’s Top Junior Angler was Wilmington’s Rachel Scott, aboard “Team Century,” who weighed in a 1.97 lb. flounder to earn a rod and reel combo. Christina Boston, fishing on the “Flat Dawg,” took home the event’s Top Lady Angler honors for a 4.11 lb. flatfish.
In keeping with the event’s commitment to conservation, Fisherman’s Post offered a $10 per flounder bonus for fish weighed in alive and in releasable condition. Troy Rezek, of UNCW’s Aquaculture Program, took care of handling the live fish, and collected them for the program in order to further their research into flounder farming methods that will eventually help reduce pressure on wild flatfish stocks.
The event also served as a fundraiser for the NC Coastal Land Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving ecologically important lands and waters in the coastal plain.
