Cape Fear Riverwatch Striper Tournament
Dustin Chambers (age 14), from Wilmington, NC, with a 24" striper caught, tagged, and released while trolling near downtown Wilmington in the Cape Fear River. He was fishing with Capt. Cord Heironymous in the 2nd Annual Cape Fear River Watch Striper Tournament.
Despite water temperatures in the 30’s at the beginning of the day, and muted expectations for the bite during the event, the nine boats participating in the 2nd Annual Cape Fear Riverwatch Striped Bass Tournament managed to land and release 26 stripers over the course of the day on January 16, and every fish swam away with a tag in its flank.
For the second year running, angler Duane Auman, fishing with Wrightsville Beach’s Capt. Jot Owens, took home the honors for largest fish in the event with a 27.5” striped bass. Owens’ other angler, Todd Byrd, landed a 26” fish good for second place, and the fish together earned the team the prize for largest two-fish aggregate with 53.5”.
The winning anglers started out in the NE Cape Fear River, and they found the bite as cool as the water during the morning hours.
“Those fish were really cold,” Owens said. “The water was 39 degrees when we got started that morning.”
After fishing hard over the morning hours, the trio worked their way to the lower Cape Fear, where they finally found more promising conditions after lunch.
“It was a good, sunny, relatively mild day,” Owens continued. “By noon, the water temperature was rising and we were hearing of more fish caught by the other boats. Some bait started coming out and things were looking better, and then the fish started biting.”
Kevin Bloome, Robert Bongard, and Capt. Jamie Rushing, of Seagate Charters, accept the awards for Most Fish Tagged. They tagged and released 10 stripers in a flurry of action in the afternoon.
After landing a pair of stripers while trolling diving crankbaits, the anglers slowed down and hooked into their big fish.
“We caught the rest of our fish power-drifting, which isn’t something I do much,” said Owens. “We were fishing a drop-off from 5-12’ of water and using the trolling motor to stay near the bank, but drifting with the current.”
Texas-rigged Powerbait and Saltwater Assassin soft plastics in pearl white proved too much for the tournament’s largest two fish to resist.
Capt. Stu Caulder and anglers Phil Metz and Bruce McGranahan earned second place in the tournament’s aggregate category with two stripers totaling 50”.
Releasing 10 of the 26 fish caught to earn the Most Fish Tagged prize were anglers Robert Bongard and Kevin Bloome, fishing with Wilmington’s Capt. Jamie Rushing of Seagate Charters.
Even with 10 releases, the bulk of the day was slow for the team.
“We started out in the NE Cape Fear,” Rushing explained, “and fished up there for most of the morning. And we struck out. I knew in the last two hours we needed to change the game plan.”
Duane Auman, of Wilmington, and Capt. Jot Owens took home the prize for largest fish at the Cape Fear Riverwatch Striper Tournament with a 27.5" striper that fel for a Texas-rigged Saltwater Assassin soft plastic.
Rushing decided to head back to the Cape Fear for the final hours of the event, and after some searching, found the fish he was looking for.
“We finally found a wad of fish in a creek mouth and whooped up on them,” Rushing continued. “We caught 10 in the last 45 minutes.”
Bongard and Bloome earned their trip to the winner’s circle working 5” soft plastic jerkbaits, hooking up time and again while casting to the a drop-off in front of the creek mouth. Pink/white and chartreuse were the stripers’ color of choice.
The 2010 Striper Tournament also featured a new category—an essay contest for Junior Anglers. Dustin Chambers wrote the prize-winning paper and earned a spot on Capt. Cord Hieronymus’ boat for the event. Like most of the other competitors, Dustin had a slow day at first, but capitalized in the eleventh hour, tagging and releasing a 24” striped bass in the final minutes of the event and in full view of the crowd on the docks.
Started last year by Cape Fear Riverkeeper Doug Springer and the Cape Fear Riverwatch organization with the mission of “restoring the once bountiful Cape Fear River fishery to its former glory,” the event has made a lot of progress towards that end in just two short years. Funds raised by the tournament go toward fishery restoration projects like the construction of rock weirs around dams that allow striped bass and other species to access their historic spawning grounds.
In addition, since every fish caught during the event is tagged and released, the event furthers research into these once prolific Cape Fear predators.
Visit www.cfrw.us to learn more about the striper tournament and other Cape Fear Riverwatch projects and programs.
