Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge
The many winners in the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge after accepting their cash and prizes. Held October 19-21 along the length of Pleasure Island’s beachfront, the event attracted 401 people in 2012.
With the participants chasing fish in seven categories, a lot of anglers walked away from the 2012 Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge with substantial checks, but Wilmington’s Phillip Redmond was the event’s big winner, scaling the second place speckled trout and the first place red drum to find himself over $3,000 richer than he started the event.
The 36-hour fishing marathon attracted over 400 anglers to the sands of Pleasure Island October 19-21.
Redmond, who’s fished the event several times in the past but never with this degree of success, teamed up with friends and staked out a good spot on the drive-on beach at Fort Fisher.
“We found a little hole with a sandbar breaking right in front of it,” he explained. “We stayed right there for the entire tournament.”
The first morning of the event, Redmond had hooked some small sea mullet, pompano, and bluefish, but got a better bite on Saturday morning around 10:00. He’d cast a live finger mullet over the bar on a drum rig, but what ended up on his line was a 1.3 lb. speckled trout that ultimately earned him a check for $801.
The rest of the day proved uneventful, but around the same time the next morning, Redmond’s other big bite came on the same setup, this time with a chunk of mullet.
“I figured out that the better fish were biting on the incoming tide about midway up,” Redmond explained.
When the fish bit, he didn’t think it was anything special at first.
“It looked like another little bluefish,” he explained. “Then the line went slack, and I knew it was something. I reeled down and felt the fish and then he ran at the beach.”
When the fish ran out of room, it took an abrupt turn.
“Then he decided he wanted to go back east,” Redmond continued, “and he started peeling drag.”
Around five minutes after the bite, the angler put a healthy puppy drum on the beach. Measuring a just-legal 27” exactly, it weighed 6.7 lbs. when Redmond brought it to the scales alive per the tournament’s Red Drum Calcutta rules.
“That made my day,” Redmond concluded. “We started packing up after that. I was pretty sure it would be the winner.”
Easing past Redmond to earn first place in the tournament’s top speckled trout prize, Paul Pittman, also of Wilmington, scaled a 2.0 lb. trout to take home $1,603.
Pittman, fishing with friends and family at the drive-on beach on the north end of the island, had caught primarily small pompano and bluefish when he hooked his valuable speck on Saturday morning.
“That fish was past the second breaker,” Pittman explained. “I’d waded out waist-deep with a 12 foot rod and made a long cast past the breakers looking for a drum.”
When the fish bit his bait, a live finger mullet, Pittman was surprised when he brought a trout to the beach.
“I thought I had a pretty good fish,” he continued. “I was surprised to see it was a trout after that fight, but I was happy to see it.”
Pittman immediately made his way to the scales with the trout and secured his place on the leaderboard.
Jimmy Allred, of Greensboro, also went home with a $1,603 check for landing the tournament’s largest flounder, a 4.6 lb. fish.
Fishing with his grandson near the Fort Fisher rocks, Allred had already weighed in a 3.3 lb. fish that would also have secured his first place finish, but he put an exclamation mark on the victory when he scaled his near-citation flatfish.
A live finger mullet fished close to the beach fooled the big flatty.
“I knew that was a bigger fish than what I’d been catching,” Allred explained, “but I was afraid he would get beat since it’s been over 6 lbs. before.”
He should know, as he spent the tournament fishing next to Tony Pendergrass, the angler who weighed the 6.2 lb. fish that won in 2010. Fortunately for the Piedmont angler, no one was able to muster a bigger flounder, and he took home the first place check along with the event’s Top Senior Angler prize.
A 4.7 lb. bluefish secured first place and $1,603 in that category for North Myrtle Beach’s Allen Mungo.
Also fishing on the north end, Mungo hooked his big blue shortly before sunrise on Saturday morning. Continuing the trend, his fish also fell for a finger mullet.
“It about took the rod out of the rod holder,” Mungo explained. “It took a few minutes, maybe five, to get him in.”
After putting the blue on the beach, he immediately headed for the scales, but didn’t think the fish would hold onto the top of the leaderboard.
“I said he’d never last,” Mungo added. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on the leaderboard.”
Weighing the tournament’s heaviest black drum and taking home the Top Lady Angler honors, Darci Wilson’s 3.8 lb. fish earned her nearly $900.
Fishing at Kure Beach with a tiny piece of shrimp, Wilson was surprised when she brought in the drum.
“It was a piece of shrimp no bigger than my fingernail,” she said. “I thought it was a flounder at first but it ran too hard. I was amazed when I saw what it was.”
Garey Willis, also of Greensboro, earned the top whiting prize with a 1.9 lb. fish, and also earned a $801 check.
Fishing near E Avenue in Kure Beach with his father, Willis was quick to pass on the credit.
“Dad knows where all the good holes are and he said that’s where we were fishing,” he explained.
A sand flea fooled the big sea mullet just minutes after the tournament began, and Willis hustled it to the scales.
Dennis Curtin’s fish was perhaps the most valuable by weight in the event, as his 1.0 lb. pompano was worth $801.
Curtin’s pompano was part of a midday flurry on Saturday. He and friend Tony Camello landed around a dozen before the run was over, including the .8 lb. fish that earned Camello second.
More information on the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge and a full rundown of the leaderboard are available at fishermanspost.com.
