Tournament Report – Hook and Bones Redfish Open
A pair of fat, upper-slot red drum totaling 14.39 lbs. earned Capt. Mike Taylor and the “Taylormade Charters” fishing team the top honors at the 2015 Hook and Bones Redfish Open, held August 8 out of the Swansboro waterfront. Taylor and fishing partner John Roberts not only took the win in the tournament, but pulled into the lead in the 2015 Carolina Redfish Series on points, as they’d taken home the win in the tournament trail’s first event of the year, held May 30.
John Roberts and Capt. Mike Taylor with the pair of red drum totalling 14.39 lbs. that earned them the win at the 2015 Hook and Bones Redfish Open. Both fish fell for Gulp baits worked along marshy shorelines near Swansboro.
Fishing together aboard Taylor’s 23’ Ranger bay boat, the anglers didn’t do any specific scouting for the event, but Taylor’s day job as a local charter captain meant he had some ideas where the redfish might be hiding on the morning of the event.
“We just stumbled around and found them,” Taylor explained.
Hopping from spot to spot in the marshes around Swansboro, the anglers connected with some reds early in the event, but not the fish they wanted to bring to the scales.
“We had one decent one around 7:30 that morning,” Taylor continued. “We caught a couple smaller ones and I wanted to head to a place that was quite a way away, but a big storm came through.”
The storm cut off the “Taylormade” anglers’ route to their new spot and made the captain alter his gameplan.
“I changed my mind and we went to another Swansboro spot where I’ve caught plenty of fish in the past,” Taylor said.
The new spot was quickly productive, as Taylor and Roberts both hooked up quickly while working Gulp baits down a grassy shoreline.
“We had a 25-inch fish on the second cast,” the captain continued. “Then we caught an over-slot and John got our big one.”
The “big one” was a 7.52 lb. redfish that handily topped the event’s single big fish TWT.
With the action slowing down after the anglers sent the porky red into the livewell, they began canvassing some of Taylor’s other historically productive redfish spots near Swansboro.
“We went to quite a few other places after that,” he said.
They didn’t find any more fish to upgrade the two they had until late in the fishing day. Again working a marshy shoreline with a Gulp bait, Taylor connected with another upper-slot red that handily bested their 25” fish. When the anglers reached the scales, it weighed 6.87 lbs. and easily pushed the team past their competition.
Wilmington’s “Chasin’ Gingers” fishing team of Corey Durako and Richard Gilligan earned second place in the event with a pair of reds totaling 13.53 lbs. Their aggregate was anchored by a healthy 7.12 lb. big fish. Capts. Mike Pedersen and Lee Parsons—The “Riley Rods” fishing team—rounded out the top three on the leaderboard with two drum totaling 12.08 lbs.
More information about the Hook and Bones Redfish Open can be found on the Facebook page of the same name, and anglers can learn more about the Carolina Redfish Series and check out the season-long standings at www.carolinaredfishseries.com.
