Duane Carrick caught a 15 1/2 -pound, 30-inch hog snapper during a May fishing excursion into the Gulfstream out of Calabash.
“I’d never heard of one,” he said of the fish that’s got sort of a half-moon tail.
The Windstream’s captain, Jim Vereen, told him it was a male because they get the red coloring across the top more than females. Spear fishing is apparently how most of them are caught and they are considered a gourmet fish by some.
Carrick plans on frying his hog snapper, but he’s also getting it mounted. The captain had to fax the measurements and weights to a taxidermist in Florida who creates a mount that matches its size and uses coloring of similar fish.
“I bent it up a little bit putting it in the cooler,” Carrick said of the fish’s crimped tail in photos.
Carrick said the trip was a successful one that took three hours to get to their fishing spot, then five hours of fishing before the three-hour return trip.
“We caught tons of fish,” he said, noting they used frozen sardines about the size of a cigar for bait and caught grouper, trigger fish and amberjack.
Carrick said most of his angling is for crappie closer to home, which is not far from Hill’s Minnow Farm.
He’s not the only fisherman of the family: his wife, Naomi, pulled in a 105-pound halibut on an Alaska fishing trip years ago. They said their next fishing trip won’t be until the fall.
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Robert Gray caught a 16-inch bass that weighed 2 1/2 pounds recently at a pond off Balfour Quarry Road.
He had recently caught a 2-pound black crappie that was 14 inches long at the same pond while fishing with his father, John Gray.
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J.D. Palmer reported catching a 31-pound Arkansas blue catfish on the upper part of High Rock Lake on June 16. He said he’d caught smaller blues over the past year. But this one, which was 30 inches long or so, was the biggest one he’d ever pulled in. He put it in his five-acre pond in Tyro to help clean out some of the baitfish there.
“It’s a more aggressive fish than the flathead, which gives you a steady pull like a boat anchor,” he said. “This thing was everywhere.”
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Boater Eric Moser of Salisbury won the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League North Carolina Division tournament on High Rock Lake on June 16 with a five-bass catch weighing 15 pounds, 12 ounces. The victory earned Moser $4,177.
Moser fished a green crankbait in a channel break to get his large catches.
Daniel Funderburk of Rockwell (five bass, 14-10, $2,458) was second, followed by Mike Miller of Trinity (five bass, 13-08, $1,640); Chuck Douthit of Mooresville (five bass, 13-07, $1,147) and R.W. Hutson of Mount Airy (five bass, 12-12, $983).
Marcus Taylor of Winston Salem won $750 for the biggest bass, a 6-pound, 11-ouncer.
The North Carolina Division’s next event will be a two-day Super Tournament held Sept. 8-9 on Kerr Lake in Henderson.
The Piedmont Division of the $8.8 million Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League will visit Kerr Lake in Henderson on June 30 for the fourth of five regular-season events with up to $45,000 on the line
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The final tournament for the 2007 season of Fishers Of Men concluded on June 16 at Badin Lake. Angler of the Year honor went to Ron Moore of Advance. Largest bass of the season was a 6.01-pound fish caught by the team of Jon Morgan and Rodney Eller of Rockwell.
The Bruce Briggs Memorial Award was won by Jeff Bost of Salisbury. Top adult junior team was Sam and Dave Wiesensel of Salisbury, qualifying them for the state championships in March.
The day’s winning team was Jack Elkes and Eric Rothrock from Archdale with a total of 18.12 pounds that was worth $1,422 at the weigh-in at Uwharrie Point Marina.
C.J. Johnston and Mark Bean of Salisbury finished fifth on the day with 14.88 pounds and $342. Big fish of the day was a 5.96-poundercaught by Jack Elks and Eric Rothrock using a small jig under a pier.