Oak Island Pier Open 2009
Garrett Bell, from Winston-Salem, NC, took first place in Oak Island Open's Category Two and $300 with this 6 lb., 8 oz. sheepshead. Bell hooked the fat sheep on a branacle dangled next to a piling.
Earning $300 and a first place trophy in the first fishing tournament of his life, Garrett Bell, of Winston Salem, NC, landed a 6 lb. 8 oz. sheepshead to top the competition in Category Two of the Oak Island Open Pier Fishing Tournament. Bell traveled to Oak Island with his stepfather, Barry Crews, and Keith Ramer (who finished second in Category Two) to fish the event on Ocean Crest Pier.
“I’d caught two sheepshead fishing from Surf City Pier in 2007,” Bell reported, “and fished for them once here but didn’t catch one.”
The day started off well for the 15-year-old when he hooked and landed a 3 lb., 4 oz. sheepshead in the early morning of Saturday, June 21, and it got even better when the big sheep struck around 11:30.
“I saw that one at the top of the water, and he looked like a good one,” continued Bell. Dropping a barnacle bait on the piling where he’d seen the big fish, he was fishing another rod when it bit.
“I looked over at that rod and saw it bouncing, so I went over and set the hook,” he said.
Garrett usually fishes a right-handed rod, but the barnacle that fooled the sheepshead was pinned to a left-handed stick, so he had to fight it with his off hand.
“It was hard to fight reeling with my left hand, especially with a bigger fish,” the winning angler explained.
Wayne "Lucky" Eastman, of Fayetteville, NC, with the 1 lb., 11 oz. pompano he hooked on a live shrimp from Ocean Crest Pier that earned him first place in Category One Oak Island Open Pier Tournament. The fish earned Eastman $250.
It may have been hard, but the effort was worth it, as Bell had the fish to a drop net in under a minute.
“I was so excited when that fish hit the pier deck,” he said. “I knew it looked big, and I thought I had a chance at winning. I was just worried about the other pier.”
Fortunately for the teenager, no one fishing from Oak Island Pier landed a heavier fish in Category Two, and Bell’s fish held up through Sunday’s fishing to earn him the top prize.
Besting the competitors in Category One, Wayne “Lucky” Eastman lived up to his nickname, weighing in a 1 lb., 14 oz. pompano to take home $250. The Fayetteville angler traveled to Oak Island and also fished the event on Ocean Crest Pier with friends John Hollis and Monty Robinson (the number two and three finishers in Category One).
Eastman’s big pomp fell for a live shrimp pinned to a treble hook several feet above a 2 oz. weight.
“We fish shrimp like that 4-5’ above the sinker because it puts them in the strike zone,” Eastman explained. “We’re usually targeting trout, but we catch a lot of nice pompano and whiting like that, too.”
Eastman caught shrimp in the Oak Island backwaters with a cast net, and he hadn’t had much luck on Saturday until the big pompano bit mid-morning.
The pompano put up a strong fight on Eastman’s 12 lb. spinning outfit, and the angler thought the fish would be too much to handline up to the pier. So Monty Robinson assisted him with the net, and the fish was soon on the deck.
“He was de-hooked as soon as he hit the deck,” Eastman said. “That treble hook just fell right out.”
Eastman’s luck held up as the pomp stood strong through the rest of Saturday and Sunday’s fishing, and he earned Category One’s top honors.
A 5 lb., 5 oz. sheepshead earned second place in Category Two and $200 for Keith Ramer. Monroe Brady was right on his heels with a 5 lb., 4 oz. fish that took third and $100.
Category One’s runners up were the aforementioned John Hollis, who weighed a 1 lb., 11 oz. pompano to earn $125, and Monty Robinson, who took home $75 for a 1 lb., 8 oz. pomp.
Topping the Junior Angler Competition, Colin Minor weighed in a 2 lb., 13 oz. speckled trout to win $75. Rakene Chowdhury’s 1 lb., 9 oz. trout took second, and Brady Story rounded out the top three Juniors with a 6 oz. spot.
The Oak Island Open is a town-sponsored tournament pitting the top anglers at Oak Island Pier against those at Ocean Crest Pier in three different categories. Category Three, which awards prizes for the largest cobia, king mackerel, amberjack, tarpon, or jack crevalle, saw no qualifying fish this year, so the prize money was raffled off. Benson’s Garrett Bradley lucked into Category Three’s top spot for 2009, pocketing $425.
