Mike with a fat over slot on topwater

Danny with slot red on a DOA jerkbait

Small flatfish
Had a half day on Monday May 24th with my friend Mike and his brother Danny. They both got a flounder a piece and two decent reds. They got one on topwater that was a 8.5 lb pig and just barely over 27 inches. There were a couple of nice flounder and reds that pulled the hooks on the short 4 hour trip in brutal afternoon winds and some rain. Very successful short trip at Wrightsville Beach.

Hurricane Drew and I won the IFA tourney in Surf City. It has been one we have just missed a few times and was finally great to win one and a Ranger Banshee fully rigged with electronics and power pole to go with it. BTW it is for sale for a smoking deal for anyone in the market for a super skinny flats boat. Enough spam-here's how our week went. I charted the first half of the week and found scattered fish then I switched gears and pre fished two days and found lots of fish on day two. Day one of pre fish for me was finding us some low water spots around structure and deeper areas I usually don't fish. We needed a low tide game plan due to the low tide at 9:30 on game day. Many of my flats would not have water on game day except for the first hour or two of competition. I struggled to find deep water fish and finally finished up hitting one of my flats later in the day and crushing them on topwater and soft plastics for an hour or so in rain and heavy wind. The next day I hit 8-10 of my favorite flats and located scattered fish but not the tourney winners I was looking for. Later in the day I hit my favorite piece of water for the first time this year and found nice mid slots every place I went. Never beat any of the fish up but got 35-40 on topwater, pitching soft plastics to cruising fish, and spinner baits. Drew and I went separate ways and we looked at tides, wind, and water levels to determine our game plan. We were going to put some comfort fish in the boat early at three of the spots I had pre fished but changed the plan after Hurricane found two nice flats holding fish in a place we are not so familiar with. We were able to get into the spot for two hours and fish and get out of there before the tide got us and hit the low water flat. Well we miscalculated and got stuck on the flat for four hours and were not sure we were going to be able to get off the flat before check in. We boated a perfect 27 inch fish early on topwater along with about 12-15 more reds on topwater and subsurface twitch baits in the first two hours of competition. We had over 13 lbs in the well by 8:00 am recirculating at low tide as we were high and dry. Can't tell you tournament guys how important a good insulated livewell and recirculating pump is for situations like this. The water from the morning was a good ten degrees cooler than the sun-baked water that was holding on the flat at low tide-which kept our fish happy and well oxygenated all day. When the tide did start coming up our fish started roaming the flat towards us and we picked off a few 25 inch fish dead sticking soft plastics and then Hurricane stuck a 27 incher to go with our other 27 inch fish. We then left the flat and headed to Surf City for weigh in. We were confident we had two perfect length fish but were not sure how much they weighed. When our smallest fish hit the scales we were confident we were going to have some good weight. Ended up with 14.46 lbs and first place. Thanks to the IFA for putting on a good tourney and to all the anglers that showed up from out of town. I believe we had more teams from SC than NC. Hope to see a lot of you guys at the next tournament-HT3 in Beaufort, NC June19.

Fatty caught in pre fish

Our tourney fish

This past weekend Hurricane Drew and I fish the Redfish Action Series Cup one event out of Beaufort, NC. I got back into town from NEw England the Wednesday before the event so I only had two days to locate some fish in MHC area. I went up early Thursday and checked a spot I thouhgt may be holding fish although I had never fished the area. I was greeted by over two hundred reds in the upper and over slot that were totally shut down. Could not get them to hit anything. Throughout the day I found numerous fish that were shutdown the same way most likely due to the NEw Moon and low high tides during the day. THe tides were almost twice as high at night during the week and the fish were probably feeding on these tides instead of the day tides. I picked Drew up after lunch and he hopped on with me as we went to some of my favorite bad weather spots and threw spinner baits and popping corks while catching two nice slots and a few rats along with a decent trout. Left there and hit my favorite spot in NC and found some nice fish on popping corks. Left them and fished several more spots to finish our pre fishing. On tourney day hit a few creeks with spinnerbaits and put one of tow reds caught there in the well for our first legal fish of the day. Hit my favorite spot up that way and found a few decent reds and culled out the two smaller fish. Were unable to find the schools I found earlier int he week due to low water and silty water. We ended up with 10.88 lbs and 9th place out of 48 teams in the tournament. Congrats to the winners Chuck Fonvielle and Henry McFadden-first class angers from Georgetown, SC. I hope we are able to improve on our performance this past weekend in the IFA tourney on Saturday May 22.


Tight lines,
Capt Ren

Got a very mixed bag as I did and inside/outside trip Wednesday. Had my friend John Crabtree and his step dad on the boat in the morning. We hit the beach first for some bonito. We got one right off the bat. After that lone bonito we caught blues, some bottom fish, and several false albacore. Stopped by one of my flats on the way in and got two reds one on top. Then I dropped them off and went out for another couple hours. Scouted new water and got a 5 plus pound trout, barely legal flounder, and a black drum. All in all a good day and a wide variety of fish.

Got this 13 lb blue below Thursday on a jerkbait on the flats

Friday had a 3/4 day trip at WB. We caught about 200 blues, several black sea bass and other mixed bottom fish. Came inside to finish the day and searched and found a few specks in the last hour. Got a few of these on DOAs today. They were really agressive.

Had a great day on the bonito 5/1. Kept 9 that were fatally hooked and tossed back twice that many. Threw about every lure I had rigged up and they hit all of them. Got a few bottom fish as well. On the way in stopped by a flat and popped a small red in the brutal wind on a DOA. Very tough conditions as the water was coffee and blown out on the flats this afternoon. Great day on the water. The bonito were as thick as I have seen them and they have been thick this year.