Redfish Action Cup #2
Capts. Jeff Cronk and Mike Taylor, team "NC Charter Fishing," with the 14.25 lb. pair of red drum that earned them victory in Redfish Action Cup Two, held June 23 out of New River Marina. Their fish bit Gulp baits near an oyster bar in Bogue Sound.
Taking the top spot in both the two-fish aggregate leaderboard and the big fish TWT, Capts. Jeff Cronk and Mike Taylor—Team NC Charter Fishing—scaled a pair of red drum weighing 14.25 lbs. to win the Redfish Action Challenge Cup Two event, held out of New River Marina on June 23.
Though the pair usually keeps tabs on the area’s red drum population through their jobs as charter captains, they hadn’t done much inshore fishing in the weeks leading up to the event.
“We’ve both been running offshore flounder charters nonstop,” Cronk explained, “so we didn’t really get to do any pre-fishing.”
The anglers were able to do a bit of scouting after their charters were over, and they found some fish, but nothing they were too excited about.
“We located a little pod of smaller fish,” Cronk said. “We thought we’d be weighing a pair of 25-inchers at best.”
Fishing the first few hours of the event during a falling tide, not the captains’ favorite, they managed to land a decent number of reds, but nothing that would land on top of the leaderboard.
“We caught 10-12 pups and lost one big one,” Cronk continued.
Finally as the tide began to rise, the anglers located a better group of reds around an oyster bed in Bogue Sound.
“We saw a pod of 20-30 fish in some clear water,” Cronk said, “but we spooked them. We backed off and left them alone for 10 or 15 minutes before we started casting back into them.”
Though topwater plugs figure heavily into the NC Charter Fishing game plan, the finicky fish weren’t interested in their surface offerings on tournament day.
“We had one blow up on a topwater all day,” Cronk recalled. “We caught every fish we had on Gulps.”
Casting Gulp pogies and shrimp into the group of fish, the pair began to hook up with regularity.
“We caught ten fish out of that school,” he continued, “with four between 26 and 27 inches.”
Their final 27-incher presented a bit of a dilemma.
“There was a 26.5” fish in the livewell,” Cronk said. “And as we brought the 27-incher, he was acting funny like he wasn’t going to live. It turned out he was deep-hooked.”
The anglers had to decide whether to hang on to their 26.5” fish or try to resuscitate the clearly heavier, but deeply hooked red. They chose the gamble, and the gamble paid off.
“Mike held that fish’s mouth against the intake of the livewell for a long time,” Cronk reported, “and he made it.”
As it turned out, the 1 lb. penalty assessed for bringing a dead red to the scales would’ve been inconsequential, as the pair slid into the winner’s circle by over a pound.
The Dingbatters—Capts. Rennie Clark and Drew Arndt—earned second place in the event with a pair of reds weighing 13.04 lbs. Team Parkin/Waters rounded out the top three with a 12.69 lb. two-fish aggregate.
More information about the Cup Two tournament and all the Redfish Action events is available at www.redfishaction.com.
