Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament
John Hislop and Capt. Rick Patterson, of Team Truline, with two of the three speckled trout that earned them first place in the Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament. Their 18.90 lb. aggregate weight was anchored by the 8.50 lb. speck Patterson is cradling.
Despite double digit rainfall amounts in the days preceding the event, the competitors in the 18th Annual Swansboro Century Club Friendly City Speckled Trout Tournament managed to haul some serious specks to the scales, including the 7.3 and 8.5 lb. trout that carried Hubert, NC’s “True Line” fishing team to the winner’s circle.
John Hislop and Capt. Rick Patterson added a 3.1 lb. fish to their gators for a three-fish aggregate of 18.90 lbs., and they took home a total of over $1,600 for their efforts.
Hislop pre-fished several days during the week before event, and gathered some valuable information—where not to fish on tournament day.
“I fished a few days,” Hislop explained, “but we’d had all that rain and there were nothing but small fish around Swansboro.”
Deciding to run northeast, Hislop and Patterson headed for Core Creek, near Morehead City, and ran far back into the creek to begin the hunt for money-winning speckled trout. They didn’t have to wait long for action.
“We ran almost all the way to the cut in the back of the creek,” Hislop continued, “and we caught a lot of fish. We just started working our way down the creek and looking for clear water. The water in the main channel was really red and syrupy-looking, but the eddies along the sides of the creek had some cleaner water, and that’s where we found the fish.”
Floating live shrimp in the cleaner water, the anglers had plenty of bites at first, but most were 2-3 lb. class fish—solid trout, but not tournament winners. As they worked their way further down the creek, Patterson hooked up on something unquestionably more substantial.
After battling the fish for several minutes, the captain brought a gator to the surface, and Hislop slid the net beneath it. Adding the 7.3 lb. fish to the 3 pounders already in the boat buoyed the anglers’ confidence significantly. They continued to work the clean water eddies in Core Creek, and continued to catch fish, but nothing even close to rivaling their big fish.
After becoming satisfied that they’d worked Core Creek as hard as they could, the anglers began hop-scotching their way back to Swansboro and the scales, pausing to cast for another kicker fish for their three-trout aggregate.
“We hit all the local spots off the waterway that everybody knows about,” Hislop said.
It was at one of these local spots that Patterson hooked the pair’s largest fish of the day on another float-rigged live shrimp.
“He hooked the big one and we thought it was a drum at first,” Hislop continued, “but then it slowed down and started acting like a trout. I probably never would have caught that fish, but Rick played it about three times as long as I could have stood to. I finally slid the net underneath it, and the hook fell out right then.”
Unfortunately for the big speck, it was already in the net when the hook broke free, and the anglers slid the fish into the livewell and headed for the scales, where they were crowned the champions.
Swansboro’s John Gainey and R.D. Benedict posted three speckled trout weighing 17.78 lbs. to easily take second place and earn over $900. The anglers did some pre-fishing for the event, finding enough promise that, in Benedict’s words: “We knew where we were going.”
On tournament morning, they headed for the creek off the ICW near Swansboro where they’d found some fish and, like the winners, found early action but not much worth taking to the scales at first.
“We caught fish pretty much all day,” Benedict explained, “but we caught all the big ones in about 45 minutes. We had seven fish over five pounds and two over six.”
After landing one 5 lb. speck on a pearl Gulp bait, the anglers switched over to live shrimp and kept catching 5-6 lb. fish on cast after cast.
“That started at about 10:30,” Benedict said. “Then a few boats started showing up and the bite finally died around 12:30.”
With a pair of six pounders and five more over five in the boat, Gainey and Benedict didn’t mind the bite slowing down when the competition showed up.
Buddy and Jake Gainey brought a trio of trout weighing 10.16 lbs. to the scales to earn third place in the Friendly City event. Like the winners, pre-fishing convinced the anglers that there wasn’t any reason to stick around Swansboro, and they made the run all the way south to Wrightsville Beach to fish the Masonboro jetties.
“We got down there in about an hour and a half,” Gainey explained, “and Jake caught our biggest fish on the first shrimp we put in the water.”
Having caught some 4-5 lb. class trout the day before at the jetties, Gainey had high hopes, but the anglers couldn’t find the big fish bite on tournament morning.
“We only caught eight fish that day, and just couldn’t get that 4-5 lb. bite,” Gainey said.
Maybe not, but the run proved worthwhile as the specks they did catch were plenty to secure third place.
