NCCHARTERFISHING-Capt.'s Jeff Cronk and MIke Taylor-Crystal Coast, Swansboro, Emerald Isle

What a day! After pre-fishing on Thursday and locating some 3 to 5lb fish holding in a couple of holes, I had a pretty good idea on where Mike and I needed to fish to do well in this years Swansboro Speckled Trout Tourny. When we got to our hole the tide was still wrong for the bite but we managed to pick up a 5lb trout on 2nd cast. We caught a couple more 3 to 5lbers before the tide slowed and turned around 11am. By this time we already had a good jump on the competition for the top positions as we now had over 15lbs for a 3 fish aggregate and had over 4hrs left to fish. We watched several other boats in the location put a couple of 5 to 6lb fish in the boat and received a couple of calls from other who had similar fish so, we were'nt confident in the weight of our fish. As soon as the tide began moving well the bite picked up for us. We put up some 4 to 5lb fish with a 6.75lber which brought our aggregate up to just over 16lbs for 3fish. Soon after, Mike fought two fish to the boat in two casts. Their weights were 6.96lbs and 7.4lbs. We were totally stoked as we now had a 3fish aggregate of just over 18lbs! The bite slowed down and for some reason we felt that others might have been catching fish just as large or larger. It's rare here in NC to bring a 3fish aggregate weight of 18lbs to the scales in a trout tournament. But, with the doubt still in our minds, we kept on looking for bigger fish. About 1:45pm I hooked up with a monster and for a moment I thought it was a big sheepshead. But, the fish surfaced quickly which left no doubt it was a big trout! In fact, it turned out the be the largest trout I've caught to date. This fish was 8.76lbs, bringing our 3fish aggregate to 23.12lbs! We only caught three more fish before heading toward the weigh-in around 3:30. We got to weigh-in and culled through our fish to find that we had landed fish with the following weights: 8.76lbs, 7.4lbs, 6.96lbs, 6.75lbs, 6.6lbs, 4 more just over 5lbs, 4 more just over 4lbs, and the last 7 fish weighed between 2.5 and 3.75lbs.
WHAT A DAY! I've never experienced such a great trout bite (for size) in my life. Our catch earned us 1st Place Aggregate of 23.12lbs (3fish), 1st Place Big Fish 8.76lbs, and we set a new aggregate record for the Swansboro Trout Tournament which is in its 16th year. Great Job to my other team members(Mike Taylor and Ryan Taylor).
Congratulations to all the other participants that placed. The rest of the top 5 positions went to 2nd Place- Buddy and Jake Gainey, 3rd Place- John Gainey/RD Benedict, 4th Place- David Moore/Mike Phillips, 5th Place- Ricky Kellum. Thanks to all who helped put on the tournament again this year. The last 3 warm Winters have definately helped produce some large trout and hopefully it continues.
CAPT. JEFF CRONK
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