Jacksonville Trout Tournament
Capts. Ricky Kellum and Walter Bateman took first place at the Jacksonville Speckled Trout Tournament with five specks weighing 13.80 lbs. The hooked their winning trout on live shrimp in Southwest Creek.
Hauling five trout weighing 13.80 lbs. to the scales at New River Marina, Jacksonville’s Capt. Ricky Kellum and Capt. Walter Bateman, the “Speckled Specialist” crew, narrowly took the top spot in the 2009 Jacksonville Speckled Trout Tournament, held October 24. Fishing together on Kellum’s 22’ Triton Bay Boat, the anglers walked away from the event $1,500 richer.
“I had no dream that we would win it with those fish,” Kellum said after the awards ceremony. “I was tickled to death that we squeezed that one out.”
The Jacksonville captains targeted Southwest Creek in their hunt for big specks, despite some excellent fishing Kellum had further down the New River the day before, lured by the gator trout the creek is famous for.
“That’s the only reason I went there,” Kellum said. “We were looking for five big bites. You can usually pull something out of that creek.”
The creek didn’t produce any gators for the anglers, but it did host nine quality fish in the 2-3 lb. range that they were able to cull their five fish aggregate from. They began the day casting Berkeley Power Shrimp, but settled into a live shrimp routine for most of the fishing day.
“I caught one on artificial,” Kellum revealed, “but it’s hard to throw both in that creek. You’ve got to commit to one or the other, and it’s tough to beat a live shrimp.”
The specks were scattered throughout the creek and not feeding particularly hard, but Kellum and Bateman stayed on the move over the course of the day, using the trolling motor to work the area thoroughly.
“We fished all three of the creeks in there,” Kellum continued. “Every time we’d move, we’d catch a fish. Our biggest was 2.9, but every fish was almost identical.”
The anglers headed to the weigh-in that afternoon with a solid creel in the boat, but no clue they’d be taking the top spot. When the scales closed, just .08 lbs. separated them from the runners-up.
With an exact tie of 13.72 lbs. each, the teams of Mike Phillips and David Moore and Richard Peterson and Steve Myslinski shared second place honors in the event, splitting the second and third place money down the middle.
Peterson and Myslinski fished upriver, targeting a creek much like the winners had.
“We had our first fish around 8:30 or 9:00 that morning,” Peterson explained. “We moved around a little bit and caught most of our fish on the move.”
Myslinki landed the team’s largest speck, a 3.75 lb. fish that fell for a MirrOlure MR17 in the electric chicken pattern. Aside from the MirrOlure, the anglers also caught fish on live shrimp and Berkeley Power Shrimp imitations.
Like the winners, they were surprised to finish as high as they did.
“We weren’t really feeling good about what we had in the boat,” Peterson said, “but it was a tough day for everybody.”
Phillips and Moore did a bit of pre-fishing for the event and located some quality specks, giving themselves an excellent idea of where they’d like to be on tournament day.
“We fished in Brown’s Inlet just off the bank,” Moore explained.
The anglers found an excellent bite in the inlet as the tide fell during the morning hours, landing fish on live shrimp beneath floats and on pink Storm soft plastic shrimp.
As the tide slacked off towards the late morning, the bite slowed down.
“It kind of slacked up there for a while,” Moore said, “but when the tide turned and started running in pretty good, we caught them again. The morning bite was a little better than the afternoon, though.”
Phillips and Moore also thought they’d be further down the leader board than they ended up.
“We really didn’t know what was coming in,” Moore continued. “I figured we’d be seeing some big fish come out of the river.”
The Jacksonville Speckled Trout Tournament attracted 33 boats.
“We had a good turnout for the bad weather,” Tournament Director Danny Sbrocco said after the awards were handed out. “I’ve got to say a huge thanks to Dale Powell of New River Marina for hosting us again. I also get a whole lot of help from family and friends. There’s no way I could do it without them.”
