Yesterday capped the Redfish Action Series in Beaufort, NC. My partner Drew and I went into the last event in first place for the overall series by 7 points, the largest lead we have ever had going into the last event of a Redfish Series. I went up two days prior to the event to pre fish in the Morehead City area because my skiff only does 30mph and that eliminated us from being able to make the run home. I covered more water in two days than most cover in a lifetime. The first day I found a pod of fish mixed up from 50″ to about 22″. I bumped the school with my boat and cast out front to the school moving away from me with a popping cork with an exude plastic underneath. The fish sat down 10 yards in front of the boat and a 40 plus inch fish slammed the popping cork rig and ripped off over 100 feet of line and then turned around, went under the boat, and pulled the hook. Threw into the pod of fish two more times and pulled a 24 and 25 inch fish back to back. Left them alone and then fished a couple more spots and only found small fish. The next day I searched several miles of flats only to find a few single fish. Then I checked a couple more spots and found a nice school of fish being harassed by a couple large sharks. The fish pounced on a soft plastic and after a good fight I brought it to the boat-a perfect 27″ fish. I went on to catch about 9 more from this school and all were 24″ to 30″. As I was leaving the fish to find some more I found another school of about 75 fish that looked perfect. Turned around as the fish were moving away in crystal clear water and led them with a cape lookout gold spoon and wacked a 26.6″ fish. Left those fish alone and went to find more fish between them and the tournament check out. At one of the next two spots I found very aggressive fish but not many of them. I broke off the first fish on a popping cork rig. The next fish crushed my popping cork and then came after it again. I have had this happen in the past but have always been able to lift the cork up where the bait is on top of the water and have the fish eat the soft plastic. I thought this is what the fish did in this case but when I landed the fish I noticed the popping cork was wedged in the fish’s mouth and stuck in its crushers-how awesome. The fish was 25″ and fat as a football and as bronze as a goldfish. I caught one more nice fish and left this spot. Covered quite a bit more water and only found small reds at each spot. Drew came up to Morehead City Friday night and we headed out of Town Creek Marina in Beaufort on game day at 6 am. We hit the spot I found the two schools first and barely got to them due to low water. Looked for about 15 minutes for them and finally located them. I saw the fish run under the boat and told Drew to cast toward the back of the boat and he hooked up instantly and then I threw in them and hooked up as well. He landed a 26 3/4 inch fish and my fish was 21.” Great feeling having two fish in the live well early. My next cast yielded another hook up and as Drew put the net under the fish I knew it was a good one. The fish measured the same as Drew’s fish. We had two near perfect fish very early in the tournament. We caught one more red and a flounder at this spot and left these fish as the tide was rising to try and find some fatter fish. We hit the spot I found the aggressive fish a day earlier and I hooked into two reds at this spot and the last one was nice and fat but not an upgrade at 5.6 lbs and 24.” We noticed some pretty nasty weather closing in on us so we moved to avoid it. We caught a trout and a red at the next spot and then moved again to avoid the rain. We hit several other spots and never found any upgrades. We weighed our two fish in and they yielded 12.98 lbs-not very heavy for two nearly perfect 27″ fish. With this weight we landed in 3rd place for the tournament and secured the 2012 Redfish Action Series Team of the Year by a good margin. Congrats to my partner for another great year and to all that fished the Series. The number of teams was down this year but North Carolina’s top inshore anglers and guides showed up and duked it out with us.
