Island Free Press ...Fishing

The Cape Hatteras Anglers Club hosted its 51st annual invitational surf-fishing tournament last week. The tournament, one of the oldest and largest of its kind, kicked off Wednesday afternoon with registration and an open house, followed by two days of intense team fishing, and concluded Saturday with the Bob Bernard Open Individual Tournament and the awards banquet.

This year’s tournament was successful, but it certainly wasn’t easy for CHAC president and tournament director Larry Hardham and the anglers.

Weather was the primary concern, and by Wednesday morning, wind, rain, and tide from a coastal storm had closed Highway 12 from Oregon Inlet to Avon. Hardham was concerned that teams would be unable to get to the island, and worse, that Thursday could be unfishable.

But by the end of registration on Wednesday, all 120 teams had signed up, perhaps to the dismay of the 80-some teams still on the waiting list, and the fishermen geared up for what promised to be a tough day of fishing on Thursday.

The Anglers Club tournament is set up so that each team fishes two sessions per day—a morning and an afternoon—in one of 120 designated stations, each a tenth of a mile wide, extending from Salvo to Hatteras Inlet.

In order to make the tournament as fair as possible, the schedule is arranged so that each team has a morning and an afternoon session on the northern beaches and a morning and an afternoon on the southern beaches, and no team fishes the same station twice.

This presents a unique challenge to the anglers, who have only a few hours to fish an assigned section of beach. There’s no moving to the fish and no waiting for conditions to change—not if you want to win, anyway.

Also, the anglers occasionally have to overcome the fact that, since it is a public beach, anyone can fish or surf or swim right beside them. The boundaries of each station keep the anglers in, but they certainly can’t, and aren’t designed to keep the general public out.

As promised, Thursday was a tough day for Hardham and the anglers. So tough, in fact, that between the morning and afternoon sessions, 27 of the 120 stations, all north of Avon, had to be relocated, because wind and tide from the storm rendered the beaches at those stations too narrow to fish.

Hardham said it was the first time in his 11 years as president and director that stations had to be moved.

Friday was a much better day. The weather had calmed significantly, and with a lot of sunshine and just a light breeze, it had really turned into a nice day.
But while the change in weather was certainly welcome, nice days don’t necessarily mean good fishing.

After a solid morning at stations near Hatteras Inlet had bumped them to the front, the top two teams, F-Team from Southern Shores and The Sandfiddlers from Buxton, were stationed right beside each other on some of the northernmost beaches—and neither of them was catching a thing.

Apparently, all the action was in Hatteras.

“We try to make it as fair as possible, but sometimes, it’s just the luck of the draw,” Hardham admitted.

Bragging rights notwithstanding, most of the anglers seemed happy just to be fishing. As one angler joked, “ever heard the saying that a bad day fishing beats a good day at work? Well, it’s true,” he said with a smile, before heaving his line back in the water.

With a total 2,540 scorable fish caught in this year’s tournament, for a total of 7,628 points, it doesn’t sound like there were too many bad days of fishing.

And while the estimated $20,000 worth of prizes awarded to the winners is more than enough reward, it’s the pride of winning—and Hardham’s handcrafted lighthouse trophy, which the winning team keeps until next year’s tournament—that the anglers are really after.

On Saturday, the trophy switched hands from last year’s winner, the South Jersey Surfcasters to this year’s winner, the F-Team, whose members will have the distinction of being sole champions of the largest surf fishing tournament in the world.

At least until next year.

CAPE HATTERAS ANGLERS CLUB TOURNAMENT WINNERS

First place team – The F-Team from Southern Shores. L.T. Eure, captain, and team members Larry Lewis, Tom Chance, Bill Ernst, Mark Stevens, and Bill Swindell.

Second place team – Sandfiddlers from Hatteras Island. Eddie Ochs, captain, and team members Buddy Jennette, Ricky Scarborough, David Carangi, Zander Brody, and Andy Stephenson.

Third place team – Outer Banks Sportfishers from Nags Head. Gary Oliver, captain, and team members Jerry Burch, Clif Hannah, Hank Griffin, Art Levey, and Chris Mercer.

First place women’s team – Outcasters of Chesapeake, Va. Sheryl Graham, captain, and team members Jean Flanigan, Ginger Wojciechowski, Audrey Whitlock, Pat Kohlman, and Sharon Newbold.

Team session winners – Knot Heads, Island Girls, F-Team, Bald Hooters.

Largest bluefish – male. Dennis Dill of the Mullet Heads. 18 1/8 inches.

Largest bluefish – female. Karen Cowell of the Showstoppers. 16 1/2 inches.

Largest red drum – male. Vinny Morris of South Jersey Surfcasters. 30 1/2 inches

Largest red drum – female. Nancy Giannotti of the Island Girls. 27 1/2 inches.

Largest fish other than a bluefish or red drum – male. Larry Lewis of the F-team with a 23 1/4 inch black drum.

Largest fish other than a bluefish or red drum – female. Carol Owens of the Showstoppers.

Winners in the Bob Bernard Individual Tournament included, in the adult division, Ervin Gaskins, John Jones, Andy Stephenson, Dick Shepherd, Mike McMinn, and Doug Wehner. In the youth division, the winners were Jimmy Jones and Nicholas Midgett.

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