Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge
The 2024 Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge featured a weekend of favorable weather and (mostly) cooperative fish for the 93 anglers that signed up to fish in the Pier Division and the 145 anglers entered in the Surf Division.
In this event, pier anglers only compete against other pier anglers, and surf anglers only compete against other surf anglers. The Pier Division’s leaderboard features bluefish, spanish mackerel, sea mullet, and black drum, with a Trout TWT, and the Surf Division’s leaderboard offers bluefish, trout, sea mullet, and black drum, with a Red Drum TWT.
Anglers can fish any or all of the 36 hours from midnight on Friday until noon on Sunday, with weigh-ins located at the three piers (Jolly Roger, Surf City, and Seaview) and East Coast Sports (Tournament HQ).
June Mashburn, from Seagrove, NC, with the Pier Cup that he earned for Jolly Roger Pier in the 2024 Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge. He won the Pier Cup and the Pier Bluefish category with a 10.1 lb. blue that hit a live pigfish on the bottom.
In the Surf Division, the heaviest bluefish was weighed in by James Kolikas, of Culpepper, VA, who landed the 10.4 lb. blue on Saturday morning at 6:00 am while fishing cut mullet on a Carolina rig. He was on the south end of the island less than a mile from the inlet. Kolikas landed four more hefty blues over the weekend, but none as big as the 10.4 lb. winner.
There were no trout weighed in by any surf angler.
The Surf’s Black Drum category went to Allison Gifford, from Spring Lake, NC, who weighed in a 3.6 lb. drum. She was targeting an area to the right of Seaview Pier using cut shrimp and clams on a hi-lo rig. The winning black drum hit on Saturday morning around 7:30, and it was just behind the first set of breakers.
The Sea Mullet winner was Julian Espino for a 1.7 lb. fish.
The biggest prize check of the weekend is always the Surf Red Drum TWT winner, and that honor this spring went to Emily Johnson (age 14), from Stedman, NC. She was fishing the north end of the island when the red drum hit a piece of cut shrimp on a hi-lo rig. The bite came at sunrise, and the tide was near full high. Johnson’s red drum measured 24.5” and weighed 5.6 lbs.
In the Pier Division, the Bluefish winner was June Mashburn, from Seagrove, NC. He was fishing from Jolly Roger Pier early Sunday morning when the 10.1 lb. bluefish hit at about 4:00 am during an outgoing tide. Mashburn was fishing the end of the pier in the south corner, and the big blue hit a live pigfish on the bottom.
Mashburn’s 10+ lb. bluefish was the heaviest fish weighed in from a pier angler over the course of the weekend, earning Mashburn and Jolly Roger Pier the Pier Cup title (until it must be defended again in the fall).
Emily Johnson (age 14), from Stedman, NC, weighed in the heaviest red drum in the 2024 Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge to win the Surf Red Drum TWT. Her 24.5″, 5.6 lb. redfish hit a piece of cut shrimp on a hi-lo rig on the north end of the island.
The Pier Division’s top spanish mackerel was weighed in by Duane Hubbard, from Goldsboro. He was fishing from Jolly Roger Pier on Saturday morning when the 2.4 lb. spanish struck around 6:25 am as daylight was just breaking. He had been seeing a few bluefish popping on the surface, but his spanish came while blind casting a white Gotcha plug with a red head. Hubbard caught several smaller spanish on Sunday, but the 2.4 lb. spanish was his only one on Saturday.
The winner of the Pier Black Drum was Justin Williams, from Chapel Hill, who weighed in a 5.7 lb. fish. Williams was fishing from Jolly Roger Pier on Saturday morning when the drum hit at around 6:30 am. He was floating a live shrimp close to the breakers, and it was his only black drum of the weekend.
The Pier Division’s heaviest sea mullet came from Seaview Pier. Benjamin Allred, of Fayetteville, NC, landed a 1.7 lb. sea mullet early Saturday morning. The fish hit a piece of cut shrimp on a Carolina rig, and he was fishing close to the pier’s cleaning station.
Harry Sholar, from Wallace, NC, won the Pier Trout TWT with a 1.8 lb. speckled trout caught while fishing from Surf City Pier. Having no success shallow, he found the trout floating a live shrimp in deeper water. He caught two trout over the weekend, with the second trout measuring short.
The Awards Dinner is provided courtesy of East Coast Sports and the Medlin family, and they always use the local Boy Scout Troop 777 to provide the menu of BBQ, sides, and sweet tea.
Allison Gifford, of Spring Lake, NC, won the Surf Black Drum category of the 2024 Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge with a 3.6 lb. drum caught using cut bait. She was fishing to the right of Seaview Pier.
All of the fish weighed in in the Topsail Spring Surf & Pier event are collected by NCDMF for the purpose of data collection, and then all fish are donated to First Fruit Ministries, a local food bank in Wilmington that serves over 20,000 hot meals, provides emergency groceries to over 5,000 households, and shelters over 24 homeless women and families annually.
There were 36 surf anglers entered in the Surf Series prior to the Topsail event, and two more anglers signed up to fish the season-long competition at Friday’s Registration. Interested anglers can still sign up prior to the next surf fishing tournament offered by Fisherman’s Post, the Hatteras Island Surf Fishing Challenge on September 27-29, or you can go online at www.FishermansPost.com for more information on the Surf Series, the Hatteras Island Surf Fishing Challenge, or the next Topsail event, the Topsail Fall Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge on November 8-10.
FishermansPost.com also has a complete final leaderboard for the Topsail Spring Surf & Pier Fishing Challenge.
