Having Our First Tournament Blues
It’s been over a week since we hosted our first annual Soundside Savage ‘Trash’ Fly Tournament. This whole week I have been reflecting on the tournament, the contestants I met, the catches, our sponsors, and the amazing place we live. We couldn’t be more grateful to God, our contestants, sponsors, and supporters of Fin&Seek! Without you this tournament would just be a day dream. Let’s review the tournament.
Our captains meeting took place at 3 Tequilas Mexican restaurant in Kill Devil Hills. We had all the prizes spread out, everyone got their fly, and we had delicious appetizers and entrees (as long as they let us, we are going to have awards or captains meeting there again next year!).
For the fly we have a trash clouser! Watch the video below to see what it is made out of and how it looks:
The fishing started at 6 AM on Saturday and the stories we heard at the awards were incredible. I know some of the contestants slept past their alarms while others got out there right at 6 AM. We had our first fish caught at 8:46 AM by Brendan down in Rodanthe. Another fisherman lost his fly, eventually found the fly, went to a new spot, caught two fish, casted into blues, and lost the fly again. Another fisherman had is fly stuck twice and had to go swimming to get it before spotting a triggerfish in the sound and having the triggerfish taking a bite out of his foot! Yes, that is correct, a triggerfish in the sound. We have another person who confirmed this...absolutely wild! We had gag grouper, lizard fish, and sand perch caught on the trash fly. We had our awards meet up and hand out at The Landing Grill at Wanchese Marina. Coming in first place is Lee Owens with five catches on the day and he took home the grand prize of the Original Turtlebox along with other goodies from Cordina Eyewear and Scientific Angler. Second place was the individual who lost their fly, to gain it back, to lose it again, Steve Johnson with two catches. Steve took home the 10wt glass lenses Cordina Eyewear sunglasses, along with goodies from Scientific Angler. We had a third place tie but because Brendan had the first fish caught first, he officially took home third. Brendan secured some fly line from Scientific Angler along with other goodies from Cordina Eyewear.
Make sure to subscribe on our site so you can receive updates for future fly tournaments and the 2nd annual Soundside Savage Fly Tournament!
View our gallery from the tournament here: https://www.finandseek.com/soundside-savage-2026-photos
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