Welcome to the Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge, an early season event that’s a great way for anglers to get introduced to inshore tournament fishing, and this event also serves as the kickoff to Fisherman’s Post’s five annual Inshore Challenge events.
The Ocean Isle Fishing Center is once again our host site, and we love staging registration, captains’ meeting, weigh-in, and awards at this picturesque location (thanks to the continuing hospitality of the McMullan family).
Like previous years, our Ocean Isle event will feature an eight-place leaderboard focusing only on red drum. Fisherman’s Post prefers a more casual approach to red drum tournament fishing, offering anglers (1) the option to use live, dead, or artificial bait; (2) no live weigh-in required; and (3) the choice to fish as many anglers on their boat as they prefer. Our hope is that these relaxed rules encourage more people to join in on the fun and excitement of red drum tournament fishing.
The “red drum only” leaderboard means bigger payouts, since red drum anglers won’t have to share any leaderboard money with other species, and with a leaderboard based on only your single heaviest red drum, we believe more anglers can be competitive in a search for one (instead of two) upper-slot red drum.
Everyone likes the idea of walking away from the event with a big check (or checks), and our Ocean Isle event offers optional Single Big Red Drum, Two Red Drum, and High Roller Single Big Red Drum TWTs as a way to further fatten your potential winnings.
And we’ll also be featuring a “Trash Fish” TWT. The “Trash Fish” TWT payouts will go to the boats that weigh in the heaviest oyster toad or lizardfish.
We’re continuing to encourage teams to bring the whole family out by offering $50 for the heaviest single red drum weighed in by crews with junior, lady, and/or senior anglers on board. Also returning from past tournaments is the SeaTow prize (a $100 OIFC gift certificate).
To help encourage more boats to enter, and encourage more boats to weigh in their red drum no matter the size/weight, this year will offer a weigh-in drawing with two big prizes. Every boat that weighs in a fish will be automatically entered into a drawing for a Mudpuppy Salt Stix custom rod (valued at $300+) or a $250 cash prize courtesy of Pigford Custom Homes.
In addition, Fisherman’s Post will be awarding bonus cash payouts to all red drum making the leaderboard that are alive and in releasable condition. We feel this encourages live weigh-in without penalizing those anglers who don’t have the ability to keep an upper-slot red drum alive over the course of a full day of fishing.
Helping us release the fish after weigh-in will be the Wilmington Elks. As a reminder, the Wilmington Elks invest in their communities through programs that help children grow up healthy and drug-free, by undertaking projects that address unmet need, and by honoring the service and sacrifice of our veterans.
We hope you decide to fish with us, as the Fisherman’s Post staff and Wilmington Elks volunteers are looking forward to spending time with old and new friends alike at both Friday evening’s Registration and Captains’ Party and Saturday’s Weigh-In and Awards.
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