The second stop of the Cabelas IFA redfish tour, Atlantic division , was held in my home waters of Surf City NC this past weekend. The field consisted of 45 boat boats  and 90 of the best redfish anglers from Ga., SC, and NC. My tournament partner, Capt. Jason Dail and myself set out early Saturday morning to compete against the best of the best. Jason and I fished the area for a couple of days prior to Saturday’s event in hopes of finding where the winning fish might be hiding. The day of the tournament started out with the ringing of the alarm clock at 0315 Saturday morning. The Vantage was prepped and we hit the road for Surf City a little after 0400. We launched the boat around 0500 at the wildlife boat ramp in Surf City in anticipation of the 0530 start. Just like in Charleston, we drew a late start and were one of the last boats to leave from the checkout point, but we didn’t let that late start discourage us.

Once we were released from the checkout, Jason and I had about a 45 minute run to get to our “A” spot.  We knew that our time there would be limited as the tide was falling and soon there would be no water on the flat that we were fishing. I proceded to climb atop the poling platform to pole us around the flat while Jason took his spot atop the casting platform. It didn’t take long to find tailing redfish up against the grass and soon Jason was hooked up with the first fish of the day. Unfortunately, after landing the fish, a quick measurement revealed that this fish was over the slot limit of 27-inches and had to be released. We continued fishing near the grass as long as the water held out and had several more oportunites at catching fish. These fish were super spooky and just didn’t want to commit to anything we had to offer. We had fish follow several different baits, but they just wouldn’t bite. Soon Jason got another fish to bite a top water plug, but it pulled the hook before we could get it to the boat.

Realizing that the water was falling fast, we moved away from the grass and soon spotted several more schools of redfish out in the middle of the flat. We worked these fish and cast time and time again into the schools with the same results, lockjaw!! Our “A” spot soon became the only spot we would fish as the tide dropped to a point that we counldn’t get off of the flat and were forced to anchor down in the only spot of deep water we could find and wait for the tide to turn and the water to re-flood the flat. After a quick lunch, the water started to return and soon we were able to move around again in search of the fish that had eluded us most of the day.

With the change of the tide, Jason and I switched places and I took over on the casting platform while Jason poled me around. It didn’t take long to relocate the fish and we were back to trying to get a bite. After trying several of the lures in my arsenal, I decided to try a white and silver flaked DOA paddle and tail and it was a good choice. I made a cast and my rod bent over as I drove the hook into the mouth of a redfish. After a nice battle of the light spin tackle, the fish came to the net and this time, it measured, Into the live well he went. We were on the board!!! As luck would have it, that would be our last bite of the day and at 1400, we packed up and headed back up the ICW to make the 1500 weigh in time.

Though we only had one fish to weigh, it did weigh in at 5.70 lbs. A very respectable 25-inch fish. With only one fish to weigh, we placed 28th out of 45 boats. If only that first fish would have been a 1/2-inch shorter. Congratulations to Capt. Rennie Clark and Capt. Drew Arndt on their victory in Surf City. They weighed in two redfish for a total combined weight of 14.46 lbs. and took home a new Ranger Banshee Extreme!!

The next and final stop for the division will be in Georgetown SC in Sept. Jason and I will next be competing in Morehead City in the Redfish Action series in June.