It didn’t have to be huge, it just had to be on the list to win.
More than 40 anglers, young and old, came out for the inaugural “Tommy Norred’s Choctawhatchee Challenge” on April 25 at Harbor Docks and managed to pull in 35 species of fish.
The tournament, which was more of a scavenger hunt, was “incredibly received,” said tournament director Eddie Morgan of Harbor Docks.
“I can’t even go to the ballpark now without people talking about it. We will definitely do it again,” Morgan said.
The morning of the tournament, the 43 anglers who entered were provided a list of “randomly drawn” fish, 12 species that could be found in and around Choctawhatchee Bay.
At noon they added three more “bonus fish” to the list for an additional challenge.
“All fish were assigned point values loosely based on the difficulty we thought it would be to catch them,” Morgan said.
Winning the tournament were the father and son duo of Nick and Parker Martin with 25 points, catching eight fish off the morning list.
Team “100 Proof” with Capt. Allen Staples and his family took second with 24.5 points. Staples’ wife, Rachel, won top lady angler, son Gus won top junior angler with most species caught ―13 to his credit ― and son Jeb won the redfish with the most spots category.
Third went to “Team Bushwhacker” with Capt. Jeff Shoults at the helm.
The first list of fish included grunt (ruby lips), blue runner (hardtail), lizardfish, ladyfish, flounder, red drum, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, black sea bass, Atlantic spadefish, red snapper, and cobia. Largemouth bass, permit, and leatherjacket were drawn at noon.
Morgan said the fish that surprised them the most was a red grouper caught at the Destin bridge.
“One of the biggest surprises to me honestly was how hard it was for the people to catch the baitfish … the ruby lips and hardtails were the two of the least represented fish,” Morgan said.
“I certainly didn’t anticipate that people would struggle to catch a hardtail,” he said with a chuckle.
“We had a lot of sea bass entered … about 12 or 15,” Morgan said.
They also had several flounders and catfish caught.
“We had a lot of baby grouper, which is a good sign for the future around here,” Morgan said.
The big thing about the Choctawhatchee Challenge is it was for everyone. Morgan said it was great to see families fishing together.
“BJ Teems went out with his kids,” Morgan said.
“It was really fun seeing Nick Martin win it with his kid. They are a local family that likes fishing on the weekend,” Morgan said.
“Then you have people like Jeff Shoults and Allen Staples and BJ Teems who fish marlin tournaments every weekend for a living, and they are all out there together fishing for catfish and pinfish … and whatever,” Morgan said.
“Everybody said it was just fun to ‘go fishing’ – that’s what people did,” Morgan said. “People were just finding rubble piles in the middle of the bay and just fishing cut bait and seeing what came up.”
The tournament raised $15,000 for Harbor Docks Charities’ Take a Kid Fishing Day, held in November. More than $5,000 in cash and prizes were awarded to the winning teams.
This article originally appeared on The Destin Log: Choctawhatchee Challenge ‘scavenger hunt’ fishing tournament a success
Reporting by Tina Harbuck, The Destin Log / The Destin Log
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