Tournament Report – Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge
Fall flounder ruled the day at the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge, as the largest two flounder of the Inshore Tournament Trail were weighed in, along with a healthy amount of red drum. Swansboro’s “Team Blackjack” took the Red Drum Division leaderboard with a two-fish aggregate weight of 12.32 lbs., and local team “Hemmed Up” took the Flounder Division leaderboard, with a whopping 15.78 lb. two-fish aggregate weight.
David Banks, of “Team Blackjack,” along with Jeremy and John Collins, had a strong game plan going in on the first of two days of fishing. They started the day on the flats in Swansboro, but as the tide started running out around 10:00, the crew moved into the river. The winds on the river proved to be frustrating for the team, so they settled back on the flats out at the mouth of the New River, and that’s where they picked up quality fish.
Team Blackjack David Banks, Jeremy Collins, and John Collinswith two out of the four drum the team weighed in the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge. With an aggregate weight of 12.32 lbs. the team won the Red Drum division of the event.
“We probably caught 15 to 20 fish, and then upgraded the weight around 2:30 with the 5.8 lb. fish,” said Banks. “John Collins caught it on a dead stick and a Gulp shrimp.” After landing the bigger red and having a second nice fish in the boat that fell for a topwater, the guys headed to weigh-in.
Fishing from the Swansboro area proved to be quite the haul, and the team put about 225 miles on the boat over the course of the two day tournament.
Going into day two of the competition, “Team Blackjack” was in third place. “We changed the strategy and decided to try White Oak River, and it paid off pretty early. We caught the first red right about 7:30-7:45 am,” explained Banks. Their second big red of the tournament fell for a white 4” Gulp shrimp.
“We caught fish all day, a lot of them being rat reds, but we weren’t able to upgrade the fish from there,” said Banks, so at 2:30 the team made the second run back down towards Inlet Watch Marina.
“We were still unsure how we would end up on the leaderboard, with a 7 lb. fish weighed in the day before. It’s easy to pull 15-16 lb. pairs of reds out of the Cape Fear.”
However, the total combined weight of their two big fish from both days of fishing ended up being 12.32 lbs., and it landed them at the top of the leaderboard in the Red Drum Division.
“We struggled with the dirty water from the storm last week, but we stuck to our strategy and it paid off. We stuck to our guns,” said Banks.
Team “Lunar Low” fell into second place, with a close total weight of 12.10 lbs., and Team “Parker” secured third place with an aggregate weight of 11.99 lbs.
The flounder division in this year’s CBIC brought big flatfish to the scales, with team “Hemmed Up,” consisting of Devin Anderson, Chase LeBlanc, and Kyle Jefferys, taking the win. Jefferys explained that the team didn’t have much of a plan heading into day one at 7:00 am. “We just sort of flew by the seat of our pants,” said Jefferys. “We started in the river, and then moved to Snow’s Cut where we caught the flounder from Saturday.”
Devin Anderson, Chase LeBlac, and Kyle Jefferys, of Team Hemmed Up, with their winning pair of flounder, weighing in at 15.78 lbs. The aggregate weight was enough to win the 2016 Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge Flounder Division.
The team caught roughly six fish in the Cut that morning, and using live mullet on a Carolina rig, the group found success when Devin Anderson hooked up with a 10.16 lb. flounder.
“We thought we had a real good fish, and we were excited about it,” said Jefferys. “After we caught that fish, we tried to catch some reds with no luck, so we decided to bring it all in.”
After day one, team “Hemmed Up” was in first place heading into Sunday, and they stayed with the same strategy as the day before, fishing the river before heading to Snow’s Cut. The team brought in two decent flounder to the scales the following day, but their two heaviest fish came from the first day, winning them the top spot in the Flounder Division.
Team “Flounder Nutz” brought fierce competition for the second spot, weighing in a single flatfish weighing 12.72 lbs., but their second fish only gave them an aggregate weight of 15.12 lbs. and the second spot on the leaderboard. Team “Salt and Battery” took the third spot with a total weight of 7.76 lbs.
More information on the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge and a full leaderboard for the event and the season-long Inshore Tournament Trail can be found at www.fishermanspost.com.
