On Saturday, September 27th, Dwayne and I had the opportunity to fish the third and final event in the Carolina Redfish Series, held at Chasin' Tails Outdoors in Atlantic Beach. Nineteen (19) teams entered and competed in the blustery northeast winds.
Dwayne and I headed eastward a few minutes after 6:45 AM. The wind was forecast to blow 15-20 kts out of the northeast, and high tide was around noon. So because of the incoming tide and the strong north winds, we would have plenty of water in our fishing spots.
We arrived at our first stop, a marsh in Back Sound, and spent about an hour blindcasting an area where we had caught some low tide fish in practice. We didn't catch anything, so we headed to our next spot, a grass island/oyster bed in southern Core Sound. The wind was increasing, and this area was exposed to the northeast winds, so we PowerPoled down and started casting popping cork rigs. Dwayne caught the first fish of the day, a small 4.5 lb red. He quickly followed that fish up with a 28.5" fish, that was outside of the 18"-27" slot limit our target fish had to meet. I hooked up, and we had about 10 lbs in the livewell. There was a school of reds around this particular grass island, as we slowly picked our way through them and upgraded the fish in the livewell.
The wind continued to increase, and the waves were literally lifting the boat up a few feet at a time, and the PowerPole was bouncing, as we kept drifting closer to the oyster bed. Several times, we repositioned the boat, only to have the boat bounce along again toward the oyster bed. We caught about 10 fish in this spot, but decided to leave, as the wind and waves were making it difficult to stand up in the boat.
Our next stop was a remote marsh along Core Banks. A very wet, rough boat ride got us to our spot, but the fish were not in their regular haunts, so we decided to head to a wind-protected bank in Core Sound. When we arrived, the tide was high and fishing the area was going to be difficult with all of the excess water, so we decided to ride out the rest of our time in the back of one of the local coastal rivers.
When we arrived at our next stop, the wooded shoreline offered us protection from the wind, so we were able to fish in relative comfort. We caught a few fish, but did not upgrade our 12 lbs in the livewell, so we moved to another nearby spot. This area yielded the best fish of the day, as we found a steady bite and slowly upgraded our fish, until we had what we thought was around 13.5 lbs in the livewell.
We headed back to the 4 PM weigh-in, and weighed in a two-fish aggregate of 13.82 lbs, good enough for 1st place in the tournament, and enough points to give us the coveted Team Of The Year title.Congratulations to all the competitors that fished the series this year.
I want to thank Hook and Bones, Salty Bay Baits, Temple Fork Outfitters, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, Fins Premium Superlines, No Slack Tackle, Bubba Blade, and PointClickFish.com for keeping us on the water. And big thanks to John Moore, Jay Feimster, and Matt Lamb, and all the folks involved with the Carolina Redfish Series for putting on a great tournament series.
Our next event is the Riley Rods Championship Shootout on October 11th at Fulchers Landing in Sneads Ferry. We are looking forward to it. - Lee-----
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