Kelly Baisch defeats 100 anglers in flounder tournament while husband works bait shop
The girl from Baisch Boys Bait and Tackle headed less than a half-mile up Hwy. 17 Business to Crazy Sister Marina to compete in last Saturday’s Murrells Inlet Rotary Flounder Tournament.
Kelly Baisch and her husband, Capt. J Baisch, operate the small local bait shop just south of the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk with part-time help from J’s dad, A.J. Baisch, and a couple nephews.
As the tournament approached, the couple decided that J would man the bait shop, giving Kelly free reign to go solo and compete in the 18th annual tournament, which switched to a catch-and-release format for the first time this year.
So on the morning of the tournament, Kelly Baisch headed out on the inlet in the Baisch’s bait-catching boat, an antiquated, beat up 16-foot center console, armed with Hudson jig heads and mud minnows.
By late that afternoon, Kelly Baisch left the weigh-in and festivities at Crazy Sister Marina with a handful of checks totaling about $2,200 and a resounding victory over 100 other anglers, most of them guys.
“I’m still in shock,” Kelly Baisch said with a laugh earlier this week. “With J running the bait shop, I just did it on my own. I guess I’m one of the boys now. It’s exciting, a little street cred. I’ve been taught well. J’s a good teacher.”
Kelly Baisch’s winning female doormat flounder weighed 4.53 pounds before it was released back into the inlet. The fish measured 22 ½ inches.
Murrells Inlet flounder tournament regular Bill Blakely was second with a 4.46-pounder and Mike Schirra third with a 3.95-pounder. Mitchell Grubbs was the 1st Place Youth Angler and Gracie Coggins was second.
Baisch’s great solo adventure took her all over Murrells Inlet, but in the afternoon she settled in on an area on the north end of the little estuary.
“I ran all over the inlet until I finally found a spot they were biting consistently,” Baisch said. “Where I was fishing there was a lot of life there, a lot of bait, a lot of flounder being caught there.”
One change in tactics produced the bite she was looking for.
“I switched up my jig head color,” Baisch said. “I was using a red short shank jig head by Hudson Tackle and I switched to white. That’s when I was getting bigger bites.”
With fishing time in the tournament winding down, she got an intense bite, but at first didn’t think it was a flounder.
“(The fish) pulled really hard,” Baisch said. “I thought it was a blue, and it went around the boat several times. It was really hard but by the time I got it up to the boat I was able to scoop it (with the net). When I got it in the boat I think both me and the flounder fell in the boat.”
She zoomed to the marina and weighed the flounder after 4 p.m., with 15 minutes of time left in the tournament. She took over first place with the 4.53-pounder.
“No one came out with a bigger one and I came out on top,” Baisch said. “That was crazy.”
“She’s my hero,” said event coordinator Kari Collins.
Officials from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources were on hand to tag the flounder after they were weighed in during the tournament.
“(S.C.) DNR asked to come join us and tag the flounder for research,” said Collins. “They were extremely helpful and stated it was a huge success in flounder research for our area.”
S.C. Mahi Series
The second annual South Carolina Mahi Series is in the books, and some massive fish were weighed in at the three weigh-in stations along the Palmetto State coast: Georgetown Landing Marina, Toler’s Cove Marina in Mt. Pleasant and Hilton Head Harbor Marina.
She Agreed, out of Beaufort, landed a huge 61.7-pound mahi, or dolphin, the largest in the tournament and added a 22.4-pounder for the winning 84.1-pound two-fish aggregate, topping the field of 105 boats.
Bush Hook of Summerville was second with a 73.2-pound aggregate, including a 48.5-pounder. Yates Sea of Mt. Pleasant took third with a 72.2-pound aggregate including the second-largest fish in the tournament, a 53.2-pounder.
“That 61-pounder, I was pretty stoked to see that one,” said series director and founder, Capt. Marc Pincus. “That’s a world class mahi right there.”
The boat captain, Mike Szucs, and crew caught the fish on May 17, a day with superb conditions when the three largest fish weighed in were landed.
“Mike found a good rip in 140-150 feet of water, put (the lines) out and wound up catching that fish right there,” said Pincus. “They were trolling ballyhoo on a weed line. It was a day to get out there fishing. We had mahi everywhere and blue marlin busting through them.”
Michael Schiess of Pawleys Island and crew weighed in a 31.9-pound yellowfin tuna to win the tuna category.
“That’s the second year in a row the tuna has been won by a yellowfin,” said Pincus. “That’s good to see.”
For complete results, visit https://www.scmahiseries.com/.