Fisherman’s Post Spring Inshore Challenge 2007
The Fisherman’s Post Newspaper Spring Inshore Challenge, with major sponsors Tex’s Tackle, Anglers Marine, and Wild Wing Cafe, offers entrants a wide variety of ways to win cash and prizes, and 2007 champ Mike Fields, fishing on the “Split Rail,” took advantage by placing first in several of the tournament’s divisions. The 4.75 lb. flounder that Fields brought to the scales at Wrightsville Beach Marina captured the top spot in the flatfish category, and combined with his 3.69 lb. speckled trout also handily won the Aggregate Division.
Fields, who hails from Supply, NC, fished the Fisherman’s Post tournament, held Saturday, May 19, with friends Adam and Lynn Sellers aboard his 21’ Kenner Vision bay boat. In addition to topping the Flounder and Aggregate Divisions, the “Split Rail” crew’s trout was the third heaviest weighed in by the 80 teams fishing the event.
Fields and the Sellers began their day at the Little River Jetties looking for a trophy trout to start off the morning. The official lines-in time for the event was 6:00 am, and at 8:30 the team landed a solid speckled trout. Knowing that the trout competition would be stiff, the crew decided to stick it out at Little River and try and find a larger fish.
“We had three trout that were cookie cutters,” Fields explained, “and we just had to pick one of them out of the livewell and weigh him in.” Live shrimp drifted beneath float rigs fooled all the team’s trout, and they caught the shrimp by trawling the Brunswick County ICW.
After spending another hour at the jetties looking for a bigger trout, the “Split Rail” team made the decision to go searching for flounder to fill the tournament’s one trout and one flounder aggregate weight requirement. They caught some finger mullet in the ICW, and then began the hunt.
Fishing one of the mullet on a Carolina rig in the vicinity of Shallotte Inlet, Adam Sellers got a strike around 12:30. “He hit, I waited on him, and then he just came straight to the boat,” Sellers said. The hit turned out to be a big flounder, and when Sellers got the fish near the boat, Fields netted it and pulled it over the gunwale. At the scales, the flatfish weighed 4.75 lbs., beating out the second place flounder by only six hundredths of a pound.
One of the many ways the Fisherman’s Post Spring Inshore Challenge supports local fishery conservation is by encouraging anglers to bring their fish to the scales alive. An additional $20 is paid out to all placing fish that are weighed in alive, and the “Split Rail” brought both their trout and their flounder to the weigh-in alive.
The $40 live release bonus was added to the $3002 that the “Split Rail” crew earned for first place flounder, first place aggregate, and third place trout for a grand total of $3042 in tournament winnings.
The tourney’s first place trout, a 6.17 lb. speck, was landed by Capt. Brent Banks, of Specktacular Inshore Charters out of Sneads Ferry. Banks is no stranger to placing high in trout tournaments, as he took second in last year’s Inshore Challenge with a 4.74 lb. speck.
Banks was fishing Saturday with his cousin A.K. Reeves, aboard the “Specktacular,” his 22’ Triton LTS. Like the crew of the “Split Rail,” Banks believed his best chance to catch a tournament-winning trout would be at the Little River Jetties. Drifting float-rigged live shrimp along the jetty proved productive, and Banks and Reeves landed a number of quality trout (up to 5 lbs.) fishing the rocks.
“I figured a 5 pounder would put us in the top 3, so I said we might as well go looking for a flounder,” Banks revealed. He and Reeves located some pogies in the ICW, netted them, and went flounder fishing.
While dragging a 5” pogie along the bottom underneath the Oak Island Bridge, Reeves hooked a nice fish. “We had to pull on him a while,” Banks said. “Both of us thought we had a big flounder on.” When it came to the surface, however, the team realized that they’d hooked yet another big trout, this one even larger than the Little River fish they already had in the box.
With one trout over 4 lbs., one over 5 lbs., and the winning 6.17 lb. fish, Banks and Reeves could have taken first place in the trout division three times over. They also brought in their fish alive, and the release bonus, in addition to the first place trout and first place trout TWT money, totaled $1340.
Banks’ 6 lb. class trout was also the tournament’s overall heaviest fish, earning him a fiberglass reproduction by Hunter’s Haven.
Wilmington’s Dennis Durham brought in a 4.69 lb. flounder, securing second place in the Flounder Division. Durham fished the Spring Inshore Challenge alone aboard his 22’ Mitch Craft.
After catching a live well full of peanut pogies Saturday morning in the Dredge Pond behind Kure Beach, Durham began looking for flounder in the Cape Fear River. The bite was not exactly hot that morning, however, at least in the spots Durham tried. “I didn’t get my first fish until 12:00,” he said.
Although the bite started slow, in the afternoon the flounder went on the feed. Around 1:00 pm, the second place flatfish struck a pogie Durham had pinned to a Carolina rig. Durham was casting to a dock extending into the river when the fish hit. Along with the second place flounder, Durham caught another 4 lb. flounder, several in the 3 lb. class, and a few smaller ones.
Durham weighed in his fish alive as well, and earned a check for $1383 for second in the flounder and flounder TWT categories. He also won the tournament’s Club Cup, a prize awarded to the fishing club member that catches the heaviest fish. Durham, of the Got-Em-On Live Bait Fishing Club, brought the trophy home to their club for the fourth year in a row.
Brandon Dean, of Southport, NC, caught the third place, 3.00 lb. flounder. Fishing with friends Keith Blizzard and Ed Bass aboard the 21’ Nauticstar “Top Priority,” Dean decided to target the Southport/Oak Island area for leader board worthy fish.
The “Top Priority” found the third place flounder in the back of a creek behind Oak Island. Dean was casting a New Penny colored 3” Gulp! Shrimp on a red jighead when the fish struck around 8:30. “He was pretty lethargic and didn’t put up much of a fight,” Dean said.
Dean was able to transport the 3 lb. flounder to the scales alive, and walked away from the awards ceremony with a check for $1132. Dean also weighed in the heaviest fish by a SeaTow member, winning him a free year’s renewal.
Rounding out the top five spots on the flounder leader board were Wilmington fishermen Greg Kokoski, who caught a 2.81 lb. flounder, and Mark Armstrong, with a 2.56 lb. flattie.
Jacksonville’s Capt. Ricky Kellum, of Speckled Specialist Charters, took second place in the speckled trout category with a 3.81 lb. trout. The fish also brought Kellum’s fishing partner Larry Hill top honors in the Senior Angler competition. The pair were fishing Saturday aboard Kellum’s 22’ Triton LTS.
When asked where he found the second place trout, Kellum replied, “In the first place hole—a creek off the New River.” The fish struck a white Billy Bay Halo Shrimp. Hill and Kellum caught a total of 14 trout over the course of the day, but they boated the 3.81 lb. trout at 10:05 Saturday morning.
Kellum brought the second place trout in alive, and with the live release bonus, as well as $50 for weighing in the heaviest fish by a CCA member, took home $812.
Allen Cain, of Wilmington, caught the fourth place 3.19 lb. trout and $180.
Fifth place in the trout category, for a 2.88 lb. fish, and second place in the aggregate category went to Capt. Doug Cutting, of Mount Pleasant, SC. Cutting fished the tournament with Chris Pope and Capt. Greer Hughes.
The team found the trout behind Bald Head Island where it struck a New Penny colored Gulp! Jerk Shad that Cutting was fishing on a white jighead. It hit around 8:00 am. Their flounder, which weighed 2.19 lbs., hit a pogie in the river several hours later.
The trout and flounder combined gave Cutting, Pope, and Hughes an aggregate weight of 5.07 lbs., and the team earned a check for $465.
The Inshore Challenge’s top Junior Angler was Angus Keffer, aboard the “Bing Duby” who brought in a 1.56 lb. flounder to win $100. Dillon Pinkston took second place Junior Angler and $50 with a 1.06 lb. flounder.
Leslie Balch, fishing aboard the “C’mon Cletus,” was the event’s top Lady Angler, winning $100 by weighing in a 2.56 lb. flounder. Second place in the Ladies Division and $50 went to Kelli Davis on the “Chase This,” who weighed in a 2.50 lb. flounder.
The number of checks doled out at the awards ceremony is only one of the reasons to fish the Fisherman’s Post Spring Inshore Challenge; entrants also enjoy weekend parties sponsored by Jersey Mike’s, Wild Wing Cafe, Budweiser/Jackson Beverage, Coca-Cola, and LeBleu.
Tournament Director and Fisherman’s Post Publisher Gary Hurley said, “We released most of the trout, we donated all of the live flounder to local hatcheries, we raised some money for the CFCC Sea Devil Club, and it seemed like all the participants had a good time. Those were my goals.”
For a complete list of the top finishers, you can visit www.FishermansPost.com
