Added on Thursday, June 3, 2010  Fish Post

Dixie Chicken Fishing Funament

The Dixie Chicken Fishing Funament has been good to the Tucker family, from Badin, NC, and 2010 was no exception, as Shonda Tucker captured the largest flounder weighed in the tournament, bringing home not only the first place check, Lady Angler honors, and trophy, but the $2500 Flounder Frenzie bounty put on the largest flatfish by the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Fishing with her grandfather, Jamie Tucker, and Jordan Pannel on an 18’ Cobia the family won in a king mackerel tournament, the crew had a game plan for taking the event’s entire inshore division, a feat they accomplished in 2003 and 2004.

“You gotta have a game plan,” Tucker explained. “We strategized and knew it would be calm in the morning and rougher later in the day, so we went out to try for a spanish mackerel.”

The mackerel wasn’t to be, however, and after trolling for a few hours, the crew decided it was time to look for a flounder. They had a pretty good idea where to start.

“In me and my great-grandma and mom’s secret flounder hole,” Shonda Tucker replied when asked where the anglers caught the 5.72 lb. flounder that took the money.

Fishing a 12’ deep hole in the marsh towards Ocean Isle, the anglers found flounder action almost immediately.

“We actually caught 12,” Tucker said, “and 7 of them were keepers.”

Though the bite was hot from the time they anchored up, a 3 pounder was the largest they’d managed until the big fish struck a pogy that Shonda was fishing on a Carolina rig.

“That was the last one we caught,” Tucker continued. “We went trout fishing after that. Oh yeah, we got pretty excited.”

The trout proved elusive, however, and the anglers had to settle for winning the Flounder Frenzie instead of again taking the entire event.

Capt. Kyle Hughes, who runs Speckulator Charters out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center, and his father, Nathaniel Hughes, captured the Inshore Aggregate division win, hauling a speckled trout, a spanish mackerel, and a flounder totaling 7.18 lbs. to the scales to cement their victory.

“We started out the day running from the lightning,” Hughes explained, “so we got kind of a late start.”

Deciding to begin their day trout fishing, it only took the elder Hughes one cast with a live shrimp to realize it was a sound move.

“I caught one on the first cast,” Nathaniel Hughes confirmed.

After making a series of short moves along and around the Little River jetties, the anglers picked up the 3.5 lb. speck they weighed in, and then decided to go flounder fishing.

“We ran back up to Shallotte,” Kyle Hughes said. “We fished about three hours and only picked one flounder up.”

Their 2.6 lb. flatfish fell for a live, Carolina-rigged pogy in the Shallotte River. After landing the fish, the anglers continued their flounder hunt for another 30 minutes before Kyle made the call to put a spanish in the boat, giving them the three species they’d need for the aggregate division.

“I wanted to keep flounder fishing for a bigger one,” Nathaniel Hughes said. “He had to talk me out of it.”

After nosing the 22’ Century out Shallotte Inlet, the Hughes’ duo deployed a spread of Clarkspoons, began trolling, and didn’t have to wait long for action.

“We put a spanish in the boat pretty quick, and that was an extra pound right there,” Kyle Hughes explained.

At the scales, that extra pound turned out to be exactly what they needed, as without it, they’d have lost the Inshore Aggregate by just .02 lbs.

Posting a 6.2 lb. aggregate, Ocean Isle Beach’s Brian and Austin Aycock pulled off second place. Third went to Myrtle Beach’s Jeff Wallen.

A 4.00 lb. flounder secured the Inshore Junior Angler award for Skyler Hribar of Myrtle Beach.

Walter Neal and the crew aboard the “Fansea” earned the top honors in the Offshore Aggregate competition, posting a 47.36 lb. weight comprised of a blackfin tuna, a wahoo, and a dolphin.

Along with Neal, Jim and Debbie Williams, Matt Bass, and Jake Neal fished the event aboard the 48’ Ocean Sportfisherman.

“We’ve got some places we usually fish,” Jim Williams explained, “pretty much straight south off the inlet. We just fished our normal places.”

Dodging thunderstorms during the morning, the crew were marking fish on their electronics, but not getting many bites.

“We were on the fish, but we couldn’t get them to come up,” Williams continued. “There was a lot of lightning.”

Around 10:30, the “Fansea” crew’s luck changed and they began slowly picking away at the fish while they trolled rigged ballyhoo and Lehigh Lures along a small weedline.

“It was real spotty,” Willams said. “We’d pick one here and one there, but we got our wahoo, tuna, and mahi. Mostly they hit on the corners; we didn’t get any bites long.”

The bites they did get include the 24.10 lb. dolphin that earned Debbie Williams the event’s Lady Angler prize.

Though they had all three fish for the aggregate, they had no clue they’d be topping the leader board.

“We were surprised in no small quantity,” Williams said of finding out they’d won. “We’d like to thank Ron and Kathy. They do such a good job on this tournament.”

Rick Edwards, of Whiteville, NC, earned second place in the Offshore Aggregate category, weighing in 43.78 lbs., and Wayne Huggins, of North Myrtle Beach, weighed in 32.14 lbs. to round out the top three.

Chase Carnes, of Monroe, NC, hauled in a 20.36 lb dolphin to secure the Offshore Junior Angler award.

This year was the Dixie Chicken Funament’s 11^th year, and the event attracted 72 boats overall. Proceeds from the event benefit the Jim Caudle Artificial Reef Foundation, an organization which has turned the once paltry Little River Inshore Reef into the Jim Caudle Artificial Reef, the most visited AR by divers and fishermen in the entire state.

More information about the event and the reef is available at www.dixiechickenfunament.com.