Tidelines – June 13, 2013
In our last issue we published the results of our first inshore tournament of the year, the Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge, but I didn’t take the time to talk about our event in Tidelines as I used the space to replay details of my 14-hour round trip OBX cobia adventure. So here, a week after Ocean Isle and a week before our Southport event, I thought I’d share some particulars from that weekend.
There are the facts of the tournament that some may find interesting. We had 47 paid entries, with 35 in the Flounder TWT, 25 in the High Roller TWT, and 22 in the Red Drum TWT. At the scales there were 28 boats that brought in flounder ranging in weight from 5.11 lbs. to 1.96 lbs. Of the ten flounder on the leaderboard, only 1.3 lbs. separated first place from tenth.
Just five boats weighed in a red drum, with 4/10 of a pound separating the TWT 1st place payout of $467.50 from the 3rd place payout of $187. And the total cash payouts for the Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge topped $8500.
What I find interesting, though, are the stories behind the facts. Take, for instance, the newfound tournament luck of Capt. Wayne Crisco, friend of Fisherman’s Post. There was a time in the recent past that Wayne couldn’t buy a big fish on tournament day. He could find one (or two or three) on the Friday before or the Sunday after, but it seemed tournament Saturday just didn’t play out for him. Wayne took top honors in Ocean Isle in both Flounder and Red Drum, with he and his partner Clark walking away with $3200.
Starting the year with a win of that magnitude takes a little financial pressure (entry fees, gas, ice, etc.) off of fishing our other four events, and that was exactly the approach of Team Total Liability and Adam Meyer. They weighed in the third heaviest flounder, but since they were in the TWTs and the second place boat wasn’t, they went home with over $1500, quickly giving us back $500 to cover their entry fees in the next four inshore events.
The lesson of TWTs is preached at every tournament—you got to be in it to win it—and in Ocean Isle it was Team Penny Pincher, the event’s second place finisher, that served as the example of what not to do. True to their team name, they opted not to spend the money to enter any of the TWTs. So they saved $150, the cost of two TWTs, and in doing so they left almost $1100 in extra winnings on the table.
I hope you’ve noticed in our ad copy for these events that we’re awarding a Betts Nets cast net to every junior angler that weighs in a fish. The junior angler list of winners for Ocean Isle included Jacob Starnes, Jackson Simpson, and Fisher Broadwell.
Another new feature of our events that played out well in Ocean Isle was the Century Rods Raffle Prize. Every boat that weighed in a fish received a complimentary raffle ticket for a $300+ Century factory-custom rod. The winner was happy, of course, because he had been debating hard whether or not to buy one of the rods at the tournament.
Ryan, the Century representative, was on site with a booth talking about Century rods and putting the Ugly Stik bend on his products. We’re waiting for one of his rods to break, but it hasn’t happened yet. Someone bring a downrigger ball to the Southport Inshore Challenge (where Ryan will be set up again), and let’s tie it to a Century and bounce it a couple of times. Ryan may not agree to the downrigger ball test, so I’ll distract him by getting him over to the beer cooler.
Speaking of beer, we had plenty to offer over the weekend for our participants, and Max and I still had a little left over for the Fisherman’s Post office refrigerator. We’re happy if you drink all our beer, and we’re happy if you don’t.
I’ll finish with one of the strongest elements of the inaugural Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge—the Awards Dinner catered by Carolina Wing Company. Carolina Wing Company is a McMullan venture headed by Barrett, and he laid out an incredible spread on Saturday, even calling in a second order to restock.
Fisherman’s Post loves hosting events, and next is Southport. We hope to see you there, and hopefully you’ll be one of the stories of the weekend.
