Tournament Report: Cy’s World Rodeo
It was set to be a perfect North Carolina fall day with clear skies and weather temperatures reaching a comfortable 64 degrees, and anglers were lightly bundled up across 24 boats at the Ocean Isle Fishing Center, the largest field in Cy’s World history, ready to show their skills in obtaining the two heaviest fish in this one-day showdown.
Thirteen-year-old Junior Angler Lola Levine was among this group, rigged with a new combo courtesy of Cy’s World, and ready for the day’s experience on the water among some talented anglers. The Cy’s World Non-profit organization was created with this dream to build up great young people like Lola and to promote the expansion of lifelong outdoors adventures through fishing, hunting, boating, and more in youth and underprivileged persons.
Team Kook Tacos, made up of Tripp Hooks, Tim Disano, Jimmy Dever, and John Cooke, came into the event with only a little confidence despite them coming away with the first-place award in two of the last three Cy’s World events. With cooler and windy conditions in the morning, the team had a plan to kick the day off by targeting speckled trout. This was a different tactic than some teams, but recent trips gave the guys confidence they would be able to find some larger trout to compete with the red drum that would be weighed in at the event’s end.
Team Kook Tacos, comprised of Tim Disano, John Cooke, Tripp Hooks, and Jimmy Dever, won the 2022 Cy’s World Rodeo with a two-fish aggregate weight of 12+ lbs.
They began the day drifting live shrimp across a deeper hole with about 12’ of water in the back of a creek off Little River. The call showed to be the right one, as they quickly had a 5+ lb. trout and shortly after boated the 6.85 lb. speck that was their largest of the event.
With tide dropping out, the action was slowing, so they chose to run out and work some docks along the waterway looking for a bigger red drum to solidify their weigh-in. Getting close to their time to run back to Ocean Isle Fishing Center, they saw some reds breaking on a shallow flat nearby. A quick run across the channel, and another live shrimp, produced the upper 5 lb. redfish they were looking for.
Capt. Austin Aycock and Drake Adams, of Team Banana Split, were able to walk away from the day with the second-place award. Austin has a long-standing history with Cy’s World. He once had the opportunity of being in Lola’s position of “honorary” junior angler. In fact, twelve years ago, Austin was Cy’s World’s first junior angler for this event.
Team Banana Split left the dock that morning with a tank of live shrimp intending to target red drum as their two-fish limit. With a very high tide in the morning, the call was to run back into the marshes. As many event anglers found out, though, it was “the blind leading the blind” throughout the area’s backwaters. Other teams were fishing the same flooded grasses for their own two-fish red drum limits.
Drake Adams and Austin Aycock, of Team Banana Split, took second place in the Cy’s World Rodeo with a two-fish aggregate of 10.9 lbs.
The action was slow, and Team Banana Split had no luck as they finished working the tide back out of the marsh. They chose to target a creek where they had had recent success with speckled trout. The team finally got some fish in the boat, but they knew the 2-3 lb. trout were not going to be enough to place in this larger field of anglers.
In a last-ditch effort, the team ran back out to the waterway to finish the day working the shallower docks. They finally found some redfish to cooperate up along a grass line in about 1-foot of water. Their largest red (5.8 lbs.) hit a live shrimp. Then, in true back-to back fashion, the next cast out followed the pattern of the first’s success, with a 5.1 lb. fish that they believed now gave them a respectable chance at weigh-in.
Lola and team on “Cherry Pick” fished hard, but in the end they didn’t find the quality of fish worth bringing to weigh-in. Lola didn’t leave empty, though. The day was a priceless opportunity to immerse herself in the outdoor experience that many Carolina sportsmen live for and some are lucky enough to grow up in.
After live weigh-ins, the day’s fish were released, and a portion of tournament entries was marked for charity donation, with anglers splitting the rest as part of the purse.
This year marked the 12th year of the Cy’s World Rodeo, and you can learn more about supporting this great movement and about the event by visiting CysWorld.org and by keeping up to date with all the latest news on their Facebook page.
