Tournament Report: Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge
The weekend of July 21-22 marked the return of Fisherman’s Post’s annual Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge, with weigh-in once again conducted at Wrightsville Beach Marina but with Tex’s Tackle serving as the new location for Registration and Awards.
This year’s main leaderboard offered opportunities to win based on a team’s single heaviest red drum, and the event also featured several TWTs, including Single Big Red Drum TWT, Two Red Drum TWT, and a “Trash Fish” TWT (heaviest oyster toad or lizardfish).
The Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge’s format includes one day of fishing, allows for any number of team members on a boat, lets teams fish natural or artificial baits, rewards anglers to weigh their fish in alive through bonus payouts, encourages a family atmosphere by awarding the top junior, lady, and senior anglers, and is part of the Inshore Trail, a season-long competition staged in the background of all five Inshore Challenge events.
Team Marine Warehouse Center, led by Mason Porter, took home first place overall in the event with the heaviest single red drum weighing in at 7.58 lbs. Porter’s Marine Warehouse Center team had a full boat Saturday morning, including fellow Wilmington anglers Richard Porter, Carter Porter, George Bryan, and Aaron Bryan.
Camille and Rennie Clark, of The Inshore Journal, earned second place in the 2023 Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge with a 7.28 lb. red drum. The fish was caught off a small creek mouth in the Cape Fear River.
With a low tide in the morning, the team had plans to run south and fish some of their well-known waters around Southport and Bald Head. They began their efforts targeting deeper channels in oyster-lined creeks off the lower Cape Fear River.
The team chose to go heavy on the bait fishing tactic, utilizing both Carolina-rigged live and cut mullet. They fairly quickly found a nice school of reds and were picking off a couple fish when George Bryan hooked into the eventual 7.58 lb. winner.
With a large upper-slot fish in the boat backed by another 6 lb. class slot red drum, the team began to work their way north towards the Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach areas. The tide was now rising, so they were able to get onto some marsh flats that featured 2-3’ of water. They knew fishing in this type of area required a slight tactic change, so they started fishing live mullet under corks. Eventually, Mason Porter got a strike from the 7.42 lb. red drum that was a great upgrade.
The Inshore Journal Team, comprised of Wilmington angler Rennie Clark and his daughter, junior angler Camille Clark, earned second place overall in the event with their single red drum weighing 7.28 lbs.
The team had done some pre-fishing and knew an area to target on lower tide the morning of the event. They ran south to try little creek mouths in the Cape Fear River that they were confident would produce. As Camille got to working the topwater plugs, the action they expected came almost right away. Their only problem was that the schools they first found consisted of mostly over-slot reds.
Team Marine Warehouse Center were the big winners in the 2023 Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge. They weighed in a 7.58 lb. red drum caught using a Carolina-rigged bait in the lower Cape Fear River.
Around 11:00 am, Camille was able to find a slot 7.28 lb. red drum. After catching around 20 over-slots and a few slots, The Inshore Journal chose to head back to the ICW side of Carolina and Wrightsville Beach to target some of the marshes.
The tide was now high, so they targeted grass lines in the marshes until Camille hooked into a great backup fish weighing just short of 7 lbs. (6.99 lbs.). With a competitive two red drum bag in the live well, they went to weigh-in early to avoid the approaching afternoon storms.
The Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge benefits the Wilmington Elks who give back to our community through youth programs and honoring the service and sacrifice of our veterans. The Wilmington Elks also volunteer at weigh-in, helping to release all of the fish brought to the scales alive (the event released approximately 90% of the fish weighed in).
For a complete leaderboard, visit FishermansPost.com or the Fisherman’s Post Facebook page. You can also keep up to date on the Inshore Trail leaders, as well as find details of the next two Fisherman’s Post events, the Southport Inshore Challenge (two red drum leaderboard) hosted August 18-19 and the Carolina Beach Inshore Challenge (one red drum leaderboard) hosted September 8-9.
