Tournament Report – 2023 Spanish Mackerel Open
This year’s annual Spanish Mackerel Open, presented by Fisherman’s Post, was held the weekend of June 9-11 in a Captains’ Choice format where teams were able to pick the best fishing day, either based on weather or personal scheduling, between Saturday and Sunday.
The weigh-in was once again at Motts Channel Seafood, but for the first time in tournament history, the registration and awards were not hosted at Wild Wing Cafe. The recent closing of Wild Wing Cafe, the location of Friday’s Registration and Sunday’s Awards since the event’s inception, was relocated (thanks to the hospitality of Arlen, Ben, and crew) to Intracoastal Angler, setting up under a big tent in the side parking lot.
The main leaderboard offered opportunities to win based on a team’s total weight of a three-fish aggregate of spanish mackerel, and the event also offered chances to further a team’s winnings via three voluntary TWTs—Single Big Spanish, Three Spanish, and Single Big Bluefish.
The Spanish Mackerel Open is an extremely family oriented event, with prizes also awarded to the top Junior Angler (ages 0-8), Pre-Teen Angler (ages 9-12), Teen Angler (ages 13-17), Lady Angler, and Senior Angler.
Team Miss Sherry, made up of anglers Art Morton, Joe Sebes (left), Matt Dunn, and Jon Barnes (right), finished in second place in the 2023 Spanish Mackerel Open with a three-spanish aggregate weight of 16.56 lbs. The team found their winning fish while trolling live pogies near the shoals below Fort Fisher.
Team Kill Box, with Wilmington anglers Chris Hunt and Eric Dowdy, took home first place overall in the event (for the second year in a row) with a three-fish weight of 18.25 lbs.
Their plan on Sunday was to target a series of ledges and wrecks south of Carolina Beach Inlet. It was an area where they had success before, and they knew this tournament wasn’t about just catching spanish mackerel but catching large spanish mackerel. They launched early and then quickly found all the live peanut pogies they’d need.
The team started dropping lines south of the inlet over their first target area in the 25-30’ range. What they found were sharks, and lots of them, losing about 20 rigs over the morning to the wrong toothy species.
Fortunately, they also found in that morning bite what they were looking for—big spanish mackerel. Thanks to the help of Blue Water Candy blue/orange skirts, by 7:00 am, Chris had landed his largest ever spanish at 7+ lbs. The team landed their other two keepers, including Eric’s 8+ pounder, all before 8:30 am.
Team Miss Sherry, comprised of Wilmington anglers Art Morton, Joe Sebes, Matt Dunn, and Jon Barnes, finished second in the tournament with a three-fish weight of 16.56 lbs.
The team, looking at Saturday’s mild forecast, planned to run well south of Carolina Beach and fish the shoals. On a smaller boat, they knew the longer run would cut down their time to capitalize on the morning bite, but flat calm seas made the ride quicker than expected.
Around 8:00 am, they hadn’t even dropped their second rig back when they hooked their first spanish. The team fished #1 Clarkspoons behind planers in the early morning with good success, but they chose to make the switch to live bait fishing to target a larger class of fish. The call was the right one, with their two largest fish, including Jonathon’s 6+ lb. citation, striking at peanut pogies in the later morning hours.
After pre-fishing Friday and coming up empty handed, Team Miss Sherry was glad to see their game plan went as designed, if not better.
Team Mackerel Assassins was a group of Carolina Beach anglers made up of Jeremiah Taylor, Ron Taylor, Nick Miller, and Lisa Russ, and their combined weight of 11.69 lbs. earned them third place in the weekend’s event.
The team had done some pre-fishing and planned to stick close to their home inlet of Carolina Beach and utilize both spoons and live pogies in their efforts. Along with many other teams, they ran out Saturday morning to find tons of surface action. There were active birds, bait balls, and fish skying, and this gave the team a great feeling of confidence.
Eric Dowdy and Chris Hunt, of Team Kill Box, took the top spot in the 2023 Spanish Mackerel Open with a three-spanish aggregate weight of 18.25 lbs. They were fishing south of Carolina Beach Inlet using live pogies.
A live pogie ultimately attracted a strike from Lisa’s team-best 6.23 lb. spanish almost right after putting lines in the water (around 6:45 am). Boating one large fish instantly gave the team the will to fight through the plentiful sharks and pesky birds to fill out their limit and run back to weigh-in to secure their place on the leaderboard.
The Spanish Mackerel Open benefits First Fruit Ministries, a non-profit organization that has grown to serve over 20,000 hot meals, provide emergency groceries to over 5,000 households, and shelter over 24 homeless women and families annually.
To see the complete Spanish Mackerel Open leaderboard and find out more about this and other great Fisherman’s Post events, visit FishermansPost.com or check out Fisherman’s Post on their Facebook page.
