Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge 2008

Pictured are the winners of the 2008 Fisherman’s Post Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge, held Oct. 24-26. They competed in flounder, speckled trout, red drum, bluefish, black drum, whiting, and pompano divisions.

Surf fishermen are known as a dedicated, if not fanatical lot, and with good reason. Quite often, the best fishing in the breakers can coincide with weather that would drive most in their right minds from the beach.
For the second year in a row, a forecast ripe with wind and rain did little to stop scores of anglers from registering and fishing in the Fisherman’s Post Pleasure Island Surf Challenge, held October 24-26 along the length of the island’s three beaches.
With the 36 hour fishing marathon starting at midnight on Friday, October 24, the 205 participating anglers took to the beaches in 20-30+ knot winds and rain, with some fishing through the entire night. Fortunately, as the sun rose on Saturday, things calmed down a bit, and the game was on for the entire pack.
Topping the tournament’s red drum TWT, Wilmington’s Michael Arslen landed a 26″, 7.6 lb. puppy drum Saturday morning around 10:00.
“I was fishing by the pilings at the north end,” Arslen said. “There’s a deep hole just to the left of them where we’ve caught a lot of drum before.”
A whole shrimp threaded on to a hand-tied flounder rig with an egg weight fooled Arslen’s valuable red, and he reported that it struck hard.
Landing his fish after a five minute fight, Arslen knew he needed to hurry to a weigh station, as the red drum TWT requires that all fish be weighed in alive. He put the fish in a bucket of water and headed for Island Tackle and Hardware, the central weigh station for the event.
After weighing in the red, the angler released it and returned to his hole on the north end, fishing there for the rest of the event, landing black drum, whiting, and bluefish, but no other prize winning fish.
Richard Osborne, from Pleasant Garden, NC, landed the tournament’s largest of many black drum brought to the scales, at 3.3 lbs. Osborne traveled from the Piedmont to fish the event, and he also landed his fish in the mid-morning hours on Saturday.
“It was still pretty rough where we were,” Osborne said. “We were using 4 oz. weights, and I had two on there. We went and got a little breakfast earlier that morning and bought some 5’s and 6’s.”
Just after returning to the spot he was fishing, near the Scotch Bonnet Lane beach access, Osborne hooked the winning black drum on a shrimp bait.
“He ran straight out,” Osborne said. “I thought it might be a red at first. After I got him turned, he was running up in the waves.”
Landing the fish through the steep shorebreak presented another challenge, but the angler soon had his fish on the beach, and weighed it in at Island Tackle at 10:51 Saturday morning.
Jeff Grier landed a 3.3 lb black drum as well, but he didn’t weigh it in until just after midnight on Saturday, and the tournament breaks ties based on the earliest fish weighed in, so Grier took second place.
Homer Chestnut, of Wilmington, landed the event’s winning pompano at 0.7 lbs., and he didn’t even know he had the fish on.
“I guess you could call it a secondhand catch,” Chestnut explained. “I caught the pompano and a 2.4 lb. black drum at the same time, and I didn’t even realize the pompano was there until I got it to the beach.”
A bottom rig baited with shrimp fooled the black drum and the flounder while Chestnut was fishing in front of the Pelican Watch condos, between Carolina and Kure Beaches. The fateful double strike came around 9:00 Saturday morning.
After finishing in the money in the pompano division in last year’s Surf Challenge-with a smaller fish that he wasn’t even planning on weighing until a friend saw the leader board and urged him to-Chestnut was definitely bringing this fish to the scales, and the 0.7 lb. fish held on to the top spot in the pompano category for the rest of the event.
Deborah Fleming landed a 0.6 lb. pompano on Saturday to earn second place.
Michelle Brianne, of Elizabethtown, NC, landed a 1.6 lb. whiting around 10:00 Saturday morning to top the whiting category.
A sand flea fished on two hook bottom rig fooled the big whiting as Brianne fished with her family in front of the car wash near Lake Park at Carolina Beach.
Brianne also landed the event’s second place flounder, a 4.3 lb. fish she hooked on cut shrimp just after the tournament began, during the heart of Saturday night’s storm. The flounder also garnered her the event’s Top Lady Angler title.
Tyler Adams landed another 1.6 lb. whiting, forcing the tournament to break another tie based on time, as he weighed his fish in at 10:40 Saturday evening to take second place.
Dwayne Smith, of Carolina Beach, took first place in the flounder competition with a 5.6 lb. fish he caught at Kure Beach Saturday morning.
A 3.5 lb. bluefish weighed in at the south end weigh station at 1:15 Saturday afternoon gave John Jones the win in the bluefish category.
Jarett Kiser secured second place with another 3.5 lb. bluefish weighed in just one minute later at the north end’s weigh station.
The tournament also awards prizes for the heaviest speckled trout, but since none were weighed in, the tournament committee elected to raffle off the top three trout prizes to randomly selected anglers.
A 3.2 lb. bluefish caught by Noah Cox was the heaviest fish weighed in by a youth during the event, earning Noah the Top Junior Angler title. Justin Rockwell captured second place with a 1.9 lb. blue.
Alex Sneed topped the Senior Angler competition with a 2.8 lb. black drum, and Delmo Lanier was right on his heels with a 2.4 pounder.
Aside from providing a fun weekend of competitive angling in one of NC’s most popular surf fishing destinations, the Pleasure Island Surf Challenge has a higher purpose-supporting the Big Buddy program of Wilmington. Not only does the event raise funds for the organization, Tournament Director Eddie Hardgrove conducted a Big Buddy/Little Buddy fishing day in front of the Fort Fisher aquarium on Saturday morning as part of National Make a Difference Day.
“It was great to see 45-50 youths,” said Hardgrove, “with big smiles on their faces after catching fish and enjoying the sport we love so much. Thanks go out to the many volunteers who took part in this community-wide event which made a difference on a Saturday in 2008.”