Added on Saturday, November 1, 2025  Fish Poster

2025 Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge

Over the weekend of October 17-19, Fisherman’s Post hosted the 2025 Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge, one of the largest surf fishing tournaments on the East Coast. This year’s event drew 465 anglers to the Carolina shoreline for 36 hours of competitive surf fishing, with lines hitting the water at midnight Friday and anglers free to fish as much or as little as they wanted until noon on Sunday. After several weeks of rough weather leading up to the tournament, the weekend delivered calm surf, light winds, and bluebird sky conditions for a great weekend of fishing, fun, and camaraderie.

The standout fish of the weekend was the 7.3 lb. red drum landed by Ronnie Little, a catch made possible thanks to the support of Kure Beach Fire & Rescue, who loaned him a beach wheelchair for the event. Originally from Carolina Beach and now living in Southport, Little was fishing just south of the Civil War Museum at Fort Fisher when the big red hit a piece of fresh-cut mullet on a fish finder rig around 2:00 am on Saturday morning. 

“It was flopping in the suds, and I just dragged it up on the beach,” Little recalled. “I was kind of in shock.”

The red drum was Little’s only fish of the weekend, but it was enough to earn him the Red Drum TWT first place payout of over $4,000. In addition, his fiancé Jan Rollings landed a 1.3 lb. sea mullet that won the Lady Angler title, making it a memorable weekend for both.

Johnny Bailey, of Wilmington, took first place in the Bluefish Division with a 2.7 lb. catch landed just south of Fort Fisher. He was using a fish finder rig baited with fresh-cut mullet that he had cast netted earlier in the morning. The bluefish struck around 9:30 on Saturday morning while he was targeting red drum. 

“We were just throwing dead mullet trying to catch a drum, and he hit it,” said Bailey. 

While the overall bite was slow, his crew picked off a few decent-sized sea mullet, a small pompano, and a black drum. After more than a decade of fishing the tournament, this marked Bailey’s first time topping the leaderboard.

Thomas Ray Simmons, from Brown Summit, NC, won the Pompano Division with a 0.8 lb. fish caught on Sunday morning at Freeman Park. Fishing close to the weigh station, Simmons was using a pre-made pompano rig he’d won in last year’s prize raffle. His bait of choice was fresh sand fleas, scooped from the wash during the early morning high tide. 

“We caught croakers, a small black drum, and my uncle got into some flounder, but none were keepers,” said Simmons. 

The winning pompano bit sometime between 9:00 and 10:30 am.

Jeffrey Murphy, of Wilmington, topped the Trout Division with a 2.4 lb. speckled trout caught on Saturday morning around 9:20 am. Murphy was fishing at Kure Beach with a fish finder rig and a finger mullet. 

“It was the only trout we caught all weekend,” said Murphy. “We were shocked.” 

His crew also landed bluefish, pompano, sea mullet, and one slot-sized red drum (that didn’t quite make the leaderboard).

James McDuffie, of Castle Hayne, won the Sea Mullet Division with a 2.1 lb. fish landed on Sunday morning at 4:46 am. Fishing the Fort Fisher 4X4 Beach, he waited for the sweet spot in the tide—the final two hours of incoming—before making his move. 

He had dialed in a productive trough with a sandbar to the left and a channel peeling out in front. McDuffie eased down to the edge of the wash, pitched out two fresh sand fleas, and dropped them right into the trough, just past the lip where the whitewater folded.

 “No sooner than it settled in, he hit it,” said McDuffie, who was fishing a hand-tied leader with a long-shank Eagle Claw hook and no flashy hardware. “The big ones don’t like anything flashy,” he said. “I tie my own leaders with plain monofilament, no hardware, and no shine, and that’s what gets the bites.”

The Junior Angler champion this year was Myles Ballard, from Leland, NC, with a 2.0 lb. trout, and the top Senior Angler was James McDuffie, from Castle Hayne, NC, with a 2.1 lb. sea mullet.

All of the fish weighed in during the Pleasure Island Surf Fishing Challenge are donated to First Fruit Ministries, a local food bank that annually serves over 20,000 hot meals, provides emergency groceries to more than 5,000 households, and offers shelter to over 24 homeless women and families.

A more complete leaderboard can be found at www.FishermansPost.com, along with details for next year’s tournament, scheduled for October 16-18, 2026.