Tournament Report – Riley Rods Redfish Shootout
Despite a cloudy, overcast day around Topsail on November 12, Mike Oppegaard and Eric Luke brought two winning fish to the scales, totaling 12.0 lbs., and they took the win in the final event of the year in the Riley Rods Redfish Shootout Series.
Both Oppegaard and Luke pre-fished days prior, and they mostly just found small fish, until they found a school of larger reds sitting in a big pond out of the current.
The day of the event, they returned to that spot first thing. “We had a plan, stuck to it, and that was it,” explained Oppegaard, as they hooked their two winning fish first thing in the morning in the very place that they had staked out.
“It’s funny… my drum fishing this fall has been so-so, but it looks like the drum are starting to show back up,” said Oppegaard with a laugh.
Mike Oppegaard and Eric Luke with their winning fish in the last event of the Riley Rods Redfish Shootout Series which took place November 12. The 12.0 lb. aggregate was enough for the pair to take top spot on the leaderboard of the event.
All the fish were caught on Z-Man jerkshad in pearl white, and Oppegaard hooked both the winning fish that morning.
“We continued to fish all day to see if we could catch anything bigger. We probably caught 30-50 fish throughout the day, but those in the morning remained the biggest,” said Oppegaard.
Coming in second place for the day was Rennie Clark and Drew Arndt, with an 11.61 lb. fish aggregate, and taking the third spot on the leaderboard with 10.1 lbs. was Mike Pedersen and Gage Henley.
For more information on the Riley Rods Redfish Shootout Series, visit their website at www.redfishshootoutseries.com.
