Added on Thursday, October 1, 2009  Fish Post

NC Flatfish

With a massive flounder that nearly could have taken the two-fish aggregate tournament on its own, Wilmington’s Troy Philip and Chris Hanson, fishing out of a 16’ jon boat, scaled a pair of flounder weighing 15.92 lbs. to earn first place in the Second Annual Fisherman’s Post NC Flatfish Championship, held September 18-19 out of Joyner Marina in Carolina Beach.

Along with the crown of NC Flatfish Champs, the local anglers took home a check for $2,448.75, a framed trophy, a mount of their largest fish from Custom Saltwater Taxidermy, and, for besting the previous tournament record, a copper flounder artwork courtesy of Marine Copper Design.

The anglers didn’t have to wait long to find some flounder action in the Cape Fear River on tournament day, as they had both the fish they weighed in the boat just a half-hour after the event’s lines in time of 7:00 AM. Live pogies on jigheads were the anglers’ weapons of choice for the tournament.

“We were fishing a grassy mud bank we just found about a month ago,” Hanson explained, “on the east side of the river. There’s not really a drop-off there. It’s more of a flat.”

On Hanson’s second cast towards the bank, a 3.66 lb. flatfish inhaled his pogy, a solid start to the morning.

It only took six more casts towards the bank to produce the doormat that secured victory for the anglers.

“That big one hit on my eighth cast,” Hanson reported. “He was lying right up in the grass.”

When he hooked the fish, Hanson had no idea how large the creature on the end of his line was.

“He didn’t hit like a big flounder,” the winning angler said. “He just started swimming along the bank. I thought he was decent but not huge. When the fish came up, there was a big swirl, and we both just said, ‘Whoa!’”

After giving the anglers an idea that they’d hooked a substantial fish, the flounder began a fight worthy of its size.

“He came up and half jumped out of the water,” Hanson continued. “Then he went back down and stayed down for 30 seconds or so. When Troy saw it, he wouldn’t even net it because it was so big, so I eased him in the net.”

When the flounder hit the deck, the anglers made certain it wasn’t going to get out of the boat.

“When we put him in the boat, both of us jumped on top of him hooting and hollering,” Hanson explained. “We put the fish, the net, and everything in the cooler, and both of us held down the lid while the fish went crazy.”

“We weren’t letting that thing out of the boat,” Philip added. “If it had gotten out, I’d have cried.”

With the 32” fish in the box, the anglers still had no idea how much it actually weighed.

“We were fluctuating,” Hanson explained. “We were saying we thought it was 8 for a while.”

The anglers continued fishing the riverbank for the remainder of the tournament, catching several more flounder, but none that topped Hanson’s first two fish.

After wowing the crowds in the weigh-in line, the big flatfish finally hit the scales. When the numbers settled, the official weight was 12.26 lbs.

In addition to making up the lion’s share of their winning aggregate weight, the doormat flounder handily topped the single big fish TWT and earned Philip and Hanson the Got-Em-On Prize, an award for the heaviest flatfish caught by a member of the Got-Em-On Live Bait Club.

Posting a pair of flatfish weighing 12.58 lbs., Wilmington’s Eddie Stewart, Sr., Eddie Stewart, Jr., and Norman Tonucci earned second place in the Flatfish Championship. Fishing aboard a 21’ Carolina Skiff, the anglers started their day at Carolina Beach Inlet, but they didn’t have much flatfish action until Tonucci hooked up around 10:00 AM while casting Carolina-rigged finger mullet to a ledge dropping to 30’ in the inlet.

“I thought I was hooked on the bottom at first,” he explained. “Then he took off. I played him for quite a while.”

When Tonucci finally worked his fish to the surface, Stewart was waiting with the net and dipped up a solid flatfish that ended up going 6.8 lbs. at the scales.

“That was my first citation flounder,” Tonucci reported. “I moved down here 6 years ago, and I’ve been trying for one since then. I’m used to just catching bluefish, skates, and all those other rascals. I was pretty tickled.”

With an excellent start of nearly 7 lbs. in the boat, the anglers fished the inlet a short time longer, and then decided to move in the search for another fish.

“We moved around after that,” Stewart said. “We fished a dock, we fished in Snow’s Cut, but we didn’t find much, so we pulled back and anchored up at the inlet again.”

At first, the return to the inlet was unproductive.

“We were there for 30 minutes and starting to get a little agitated,” Stewart explained. “Then I hooked up. It kind of felt like the bottom, but then it started pulling a little bit and ran off and I knew it was a flounder.”

 

After a 3-4 minute fight, another stout flounder surfaced, and the anglers netted and boated their second citation fish of the day, this one 5.78 lbs. The pair were plenty to secure second place by over 1.5 lbs.

Last year’s NC Flatfish Champion, Scott Scarola of Wilmington, landed two flounder weighing 10.75 lbs. to lock up third place. Scarola’s crew from the previous year was unable to fish, and he teamed up Aaron Enright and Winston Church aboard his 23’ Sea Fox for the tournament.

Returning to the area where they hooked last year’s winning fish, a rockpile in 25’ of water in Snow’s Cut, the anglers found fast action but little satisfaction at first.

“We missed about four bites right off the bat,” Scarola explained. “Then we got into the 8.”

Enright finally connected on a fish that fell for a Carolina-rigged finger mullet, but initially didn’t think he’d hooked a flounder.

“I kept saying it was a ray,” he said.

“The current was whipping through there,” Scarola continued. “It took at least 10 minutes to get that fish to the boat.”

When the fish finally came up, instead of a ray the anglers saw a doormat flounder, and Scarola went for the net, recalling a broken net that almost cost him the heaviest flounder in last year’s tournament.

“I bought a new net with some of last year’s winnings,” Scarola explained. “It turned out to be a good investment.”

When the fish hit the deck, the anglers grew excited.

“With that being our first fish, we were feeling really good,” said Scarola. “We just needed one more.”

The anglers got it shortly thereafter, landing a 2.5 lb. fish from the rockpile half an hour later.

The scales revealed that the team’s big fish was the second heaviest caught during the event, at 8.22 lbs., and combined with their second fish it was plenty to keep them high on the leader board for the second year in a row.

Carolina Beach’s Mike Coleman, Ashley McDavid, and Lynn Williamson put together a 10.42 lb. aggregate to finish fourth.

Fishing grass islands in the Cape Fear River, the trio found a solid bite in the late morning after catching a fresh batch of finger mullet for their livewell.

“We caught four fish right in a row,” Coleman explained. “Each one we caught just got bigger and bigger.”

Rounding out the top five, Cory Padgett weighed in a pair of flounder going 10.33 lbs.

Chase Davis earned the event’s Top Junior Angler title with a 5.30 lb. flounder caught while fishing with his parents Matt and Kelli in the Cape Fear River.

A 7.22 lb. flounder took home the Top Lady Angler honors for Maria Denton, and Cleveland Godbold’s 7.37 lb. flatfish secured the Top Senior Angler award.

An additional $10 per flounder was offered to all teams who weighed in their fish alive in the tournament, with many of the live fish going to further UNCW’s flounder aquaculture program and the rest released to fight again.

The Second Annual NC Flatfish Championship attracted 73 boats, nearly 20 more than in its inaugural year. Fisherman’s Post Newspaper would like to thank everyone who fished the event and the sponsors who made it possible.