Flat Bottom Girls
Brad Separk and Donald Aiken with a pair of healthy flounder including the 5.09 lb. fish that earned they and Butch Ramey first place in the 2013 Flat Bottom Girls Flounder Tournament. The flatfish fell for live finger mullet at some nearshore structure in 45′ of water off Masonboro Inlet while they were fishing aboard the “Little Money.”
A 5.09 lb. flounder earned first place in the 10th annual Flat Bottom Girls Flounder Tournament, held November 2, out of Dockside Marina, for Donald Aiken and Wilmington, NC’s “Little Money” crew. Aiken and fellow anglers Brad Separk and Butch Ramey scaled a trio of other flatfish in the tournament on their way to taking home the event’s $1000 first place prize.
The “Little Money” anglers hadn’t done any pre-fishing for the event, but they chose to target some nearshore structure in the ocean where they’ve had some flatfish success in the past.
“I’ve always been a creek and dock flounder fisherman,” Aiken explained, “but we’ve started to work on this nearshore reef thing the past few years and we’ve identified a few areas that seem to produce some larger fish.”
After netting some finger mullet for bait on the morning of the event, Aiken and his crew headed around 4 miles out of Masonboro Inlet to some bottom structure in 40-45’ of water. The decision proved to be a good one as soon as the captain got a bait in the water.
“Those guys started fishing while I got the boat squared away,” Aiken said. “When I dropped, I got bit as soon as it hit bottom.”
After Aiken landed the fat flatfish, the anglers kept at it, landing bluefish, sharks, sea bass, and three more flounder before deciding to head for the scales around 12:30 that afternoon.
Along with their 5-pounder, the anglers scaled a 4+ lb. fish and a pair of smaller (but legal) flatfish they also donated to the aquaculture programs that take home the live flatfish weighed in in the tournament.
“I’m really not sure which one of us had the big one,” Aiken continued. “It was really a team effort. Even in the photo, I’m not sure which is Brad’s fish and which is mine.”
Fellow Wilmington anglers Todd Byrd and “Team Triangle Lounge” secured a second place berth on the leaderboard with a 3.86 lb. flounder. Fred Davis aboard the “Turnitup,” also of Wilmington, rounded out the top three by scaling a 3.31 lb. flatfish.
Flat Bottom Girls is the area’s only all-live weigh-in flounder tournament, and the fish brought in by participants are donated to aquaculture programs at UNCW and several other local and regional educational institutions. The donated fish go to further research into how farm-raised flounder can reduce angling pressure and ultimately potentially enhance wild stocks of the popular food and sport fish.
More information on the tournament and flounder aquaculture research are available at www.fishfortomorrow.org.
