Padrick/Smith Finish 6th at Carolina Redfish Series #2

by Lee Padrick, June 15, 2015

Checkout

Dwayne and I finished in 6th place at Carolina Redfish Series Event #2, held out of Chasin' Tails Outdoors on June 13, 2015.

We checked out that morning as Team #14, and tried something different than last tournament.  We took Dwayne's Shallow Sport 18' Bahia, and it performed beautifully in the 15-20 knot southwest winds that greeted us that morning.  We ran about 15 miles from the checkout, and while the conditions over open water that we had to cross were some of the roughest I can remember in a tournament, the Shallow Sport earned its keep and did a fabulous job getting us there safely. 

Early morning hookup

We got to our spot and it was dead high tide.  After putting 3 fish in the boat early, our bite slowed down.  We had a 5 lb fish, and another fish that was around 3 lbs, for an 8 lb aggregate weight.  Not enough to compete against the caliber of competitors in this tournament.  We boated 3 more fish, but every fish was 2.9 lbs, cookie cutters.  

Upgrade

We decided to stick to our best spot throughout the extreme low tide, and we averaged a bite about every 45 minutes.  Finally, as the tide started to fill in, we found our school and put 8 fish in the boat in a chaotic flurry.  Dwayne caught a 6 lber to upgrade our bag, and we thought we were around 11 lbs.  Given the windy conditions and low tide, we figured we were in the top 5.  Our fish weighed 11.07 lbs, good enough for 6th place.  Apparently, the top teams on the day caught some nice fish in rough conditions.  Good job to all of those teams!

Congrats to Captain Tom Roller and his partner, John Hadley with a big winning bag of 13.30 lbs.  Jake Gainey and Jerry Burns finished  in 2nd place with 11.99 lbs.  Captain Rick Patterson and John Hislop finished in 3rd place with 11.59 lbs.  Big congratulations to all the teams that weighed fish on a tough tide.

We want to thank Chasin' Tails Outdoors, PointClickFish.com, Crystal Coast Graphics, and Hook and Bones for putting on a great tournament.

We also want to thank Salt Life Optics, Grunden's, Salty Bay Baits, Deep Creek Lures, Captain Gary's Marine Care Products, Fins Superbraids, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, Bubba Blade Fishing Knives, Tsunami Air Wave Rods, Bimini Bay Outfitters, Buccaneer Bait Company, and Power Pole Swallow Water Anchors.  

Check out Randy Nelson and Explore Inshore for footage of the event.  We're going fishing with Randy and his video camera at the end of June and we're excited about the trip.

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Padrick/Smith Place 2nd at Carolina Redfish Series #1

by Lee Padrick, June 2, 2014

Courtesy of Carolina Redfish Series

On May 31st, Dwayne and I had the opportunity to fish the inaugural event of the Carolina Redfish Series, a new tournament trail that consists of three events over the course of the season.  At safe light, 18 teams competed for the 1st place prize of $2,000.  

Dwayne and I had done a fair amount of scouting in the weeks leading up to the event.  We had spent a few days in Swansboro, but did not find enough fish or a pattern that we could rely on, so we decided to focus our practice efforts in eastern Carteret County.  We found an area about 20 miles from takeoff that was holding good numbers of fish, and decided to fish there on tournament day.  

We checked out as Boat #17 on tournament morning and took our time getting to our fishing spot, since the tide was low.  As the tide rose, we were able to get to the area holding fish.  Found fish after a few casts, and caught fish in flurries of chaos during the day, ending up catching around 45 fish.  The fish were in an odd mood and seemed to prefer topwater lures, versus our Salty Bay Red Devils or gold spoons that we had caught them on in practice.  While we would have preferred to fish the single hooks of jigs/Red Devils or spoons, we listened to the fish and threw topwater, although the treble hooks cost us a few fish over the course of the day.

The wind increased to a solid 15 knots during the morning, but the fish still cooperated.  We culled fish most of the day, making half-pound upgrades here and there.  As the sun reached its midday point, the fish started to prefer gold spoons instead of the topwater lures.  We fished until 2:45 pm, then packed up our gear for the ride back to the 4 pm weigh-in at Chasin' Tails Outdoors, on the Causeway at Atlantic Beach.  We thought we had somewhere between 12.8 and 13.1 lbs of fish.

Courtesy of Carolina Redfish Series

It was a good day of fishing for most of the teams in the event, as 15 out of the 18 teams weighed in fish.  Our fish ended up weighing 12.94 lbs, just a hundredth of a pound less than Team B & G's winning bag of 12.95 lbs, putting us in 2nd place.  Congrats to Dave Bernstein and Daniel Griffee of Team B & G for their win!  And great job by all the competitors.

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.  

Our next event is August 9th at the Hook and Bones tournament, part of Carolina Redfish Series Event #2 in Swansboro.    The Hook and Bones folks and the Town of Swansboro really put together a premier event, so this should be a lot of fun.  We are looking forward to it. - Lee

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Creeking For Trout

Not a trout

by Lee Padrick, November 7, 2013

I have been spending time this week exploring some of the coastal creeks off of the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers, in search of speckled trout.  These small creeks and their wooded shorelines have granted sanctuary from the strong North winds of the past week.