| Feburary 16th, 2002 - West Marine Seminar - Smyrna, GA Team Live Wire was asked by West Marine to hold serveral fishing seminars during 2002. The first seminar was a great success. West Marine cooked lunch for everyone, and spooled reels for $3 each, which was donated to the GA Chapter of CCA. Team Live Wire taught a series of classes: "Rigging for Success", "Reading the Water", "Fishing Techniques" and "Fish Patterns". We were very pleased that most stayed for the whole day. We had a great time visiting between classes, and meeting new friends. Team Live Wire thanks all that had a part in the event, including the Atlanta Saltwater Fishing Club. A special thanks to our team sponsors and others for raffle prizes- Spro, Gamakatsu, C&H Lures, Yo-zuro/Seaguar and Iland Lures. |
| Feburary 1st, 2002 - Boat Maintenence Time Team Live Wire is making a few new changes for the 2002 season. We have upgraded our power to a 250 Yamaha, integraded a new bait survival system, reapplied bottom coat, moved some electronics around, installed a footcush, reworked our t-top, added a set of Lenco trim tabs and upgraded the tunes. Anyway, we're getting the itch pretty bad to hit the water. We have a great group of sponsors for this year that we're excited about. Thank you to West Marine, Calusa Cast Nets, Spro, Gamakatsu, Accurate Fishing Products, Keep Alive, Homeport Charts, Footcush and C&H Lures. |
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| May 9th thru 11th, 2002 - Rumph Bros. King Mackeral Tournament - Charleston, SC Rumph Brothers was a 2-day tournament held at the Hilton on Mount Pleasant. TLW prefished the tournament on Thursday in hopes a cornering a few fish before the first tournament day. After catching several dozen small (3-4 inches) pogies off the north end of Morris Island on the beach, we headed out to our first location. We had heard that there were small fish being caught at the Greenville Reef so we thought we would make the 40-mile run north and try it as hit a couple of other haunts on the way back in. We didn't find any fish, only where they were not. The only fish we had heard of were caught in close to 100 ft. or more. With a 23-foot boat, we were limited in rough seas a with hardy south wind. We got beat up pretty good on the way back and broke one of the welds on our t-top. Day One- With our lack of confidence north of Charleston, we decided to head south to Betsy Ross Reef off Hilton Head. We had some information that there had been some decent fish caught there the previous weekend. With high tide at daybreak, we were not successful finding pogies in the Calibogue Sound inlet. We headed out to BR with the hopes of finding bait to jig. There was bait everywhere, but the cigar minnows were very small (3-4inches). Feeling that the kingfish were very scattered, we felt like if we spent our time there, we would manage a kingfish or two. After 8 small spanish, a shark, and a few knock-downs by cudas, our time ran out without a kingfish. We felt that we had a good plan, but needed to make a change for day 2. Day Two- Because we weren't very familiar with the offshore areas out of Charleston, we really didn't know what to do. With the weighin board looking very light, we just wanted to put a fish in the boat. We studied a few live bottom areas off Charleston and decided to give it a try. Again, the pogies were not cooperating with the slack current of high tide, and we knew they would be small, so we didn't spend much time. We found a huge group of greenies working in about 35' on the run out and jigged some real nice baits. After working Comanchee Reef with no results, we headed out further. The dolphin were interested, and we saw one sailfish sunning, but no kingfish. It was just one of those weekends when we were left shrugging our shoulders. At weighin, we found that weren't the only ones. "Daddy's Money" had found a 49 pounder, but the numbers dropped quickly. 15th Place had only a 21 lb. total. Looks like we have alot of work to do before the Division 4 opener next week at Halfmoon. Congrats to Daddy's Money on a great fish. |
| May 16th thru 18th, 2002 - Halfmoon Kingfish Klash - Sunbury, GA Team Live Wire was trying to get the monkey off their back after being skunked in Charleston the weekend prior, it was not to be. The lack of fish in the area and mother nature's extended nastiness made fishing very difficult. After a 2 days of prefishing and talking with other angler friends, it was evident that there were not schools of large kingfish in the area. We had to make a choice: make a long run off in bad and changing seas, trailer the boat south, to Florida and fish for a limited amount of time and run 150+ miles back on the water, or fish in Georgia near shore for a decent fish. After securing bait in Doboy sound, we made the decision that the seas were too rough, 4' to 6', for us to make good enough time to fish and return safely. We ran hard down the ditch to the St. Simons shipping channel. We were met by unhappy seas and a strong 20-25 knot SW wind. We fished along with 4 other boats with simular hopes. After an hour of fishing, thunder storms started building and pounding St. Simons. An hour later, the wind changed to the West and these storms turned back our way. These storms worked us for the next 2 hours and on most of our return up the intercoastal. 175 miles traveled, water-logged, beat and no fish. There a few good fish caught. Out of the about 150 boat field there were 27 fish weighted in the open division. The largest was caught on the Rebecca Ann, a 37.55 lb. smoker, and the smallest a 8.35 pounder. Our friend Jeff Dunbar and the Fishdancer landed a 21.35 king for 10th place. There were 10 fish weighted in the 23' and under division. The largest a 26.35, and the smallest a 5.85. Most of the weightes fish came from North Florida or live bottom around the naval towers. With many events left, Team Live Wire isn't out by far, but we need few brakes and a little good weather wouldn't hurt. |
| May 24-26, 2002 - 22nd Annual Sapelo Open King Mackeral Tournament - Shellmans Bluff, GA Excited about fishing a tournament out of our home marina, we felt very positive about the weekend, but man this year has been tough for king fishermen. Out of 149 boats, there were 27 fish weighed in. With conflicting weather reports, Team Live Wire left the dock early, 330am, for a long run to the 40 mile live bottom off the R2 naval tower. On board were Greg, Britton, and female angler, Dedie. After a stop at the Gray's reef buoy to jig some bait at daylight, we finished the 42 mile run from Shellman's Bluff. As other boats showed up, we felt that we were in some good company. At 11AM and 2 sharks to show for our efforts, we needed to make a decision. We hadn't seen a fish caught all morning. The information on the radio was frustrating. Our plan B,C and D had only negative reports. With a full moon current, we hoped the bait would be holding on ledges. We ran east to a ledge and fished through the high tide at 2PM and picked up a very small fish. On any other day, we would have released the fish, but we had a feeling any fish may become important at weigh in. At 3PM, we ran north to another ledge to the north and fished another hour with no results. Bait was fairly thick in some areas, but the fish either weren't there or had lock jaw. The weather had changed from a long-standing southern wind to a northeast wind the whole week prior, and dropped the water temperature about 6-8 degrees. The wind changed back to southerly on the day before the tournament and gave us decent seas. The sun and wind changed the surface temperatures back to about 74 by Saturday afternoon. Team Live Wire weighed a small 6lb. fish for 7th place in the 23' and under division which paid 15 places. Our first pay day of the year with a 6-pounder. WOW. Hope things pick up soon. |
| May 31st-June 1 - Two-Way Sportfishing Club King Mackeral Tournament - Brunswick, GA Taking information we had learned at Sapelo the week before, TLW decided to head way off. Division 4 has been tough for our 23' and under class. Most of the larger fish the last few weeks have been caught off shore or around St Augustine and Port Canaveral, Florida. Because of our fuel limitations, we decided the best plan for us was to catch bait at Grays Reef, and make our way east about 30 more miles. The plan went well. We passed the Altamaha Sound inlet at 6AM, and arrived at Grays Reef buoy at 645AM. After jigging a few dozen nice cigar minnows, we pointed the bow into the rising sun and ran to a live bottom just south of M2R6 Naval Tower. We found a nice rip and temperature break as we arrived. We hoped that was a sign of good things to come. While deploying lines, our portside downrigger reel went off. We released a decent spanish. Shortly after, another deep line took off. We thought it might be another spanish, but was a small, 32 inch king. After finally getting all the lines out, we turned around and headed back to the number. This time a top line reel sang with a 8lb. dolphin. Ten minutes later, a barracuda rocketed out of the water with our port side bait in his mouth. After releasing the nice 25lb cuda, we turned and hit the numbers a third time, but it was over. We had a great morning, but no king in the bag. We tried a ledge 4 miles to the south and caught two sharks. We headed back west to the 40 mile live bottom, but didn't spend much time. The radio said there was a pretty good bite going west of the Grays Reef buoy, but all the fish were being caught deep on ribbonfish. We had one ribbon left, so we ran west again. After stopping at two other holes on the way with no success, we found ourselves in the masses at Grays for our despiration location. As we finished our spread, we surrendered our last ribbonfish to a huge shark on the starboard downrigger. We fought him for a while. It felt good pulling on something that large. He was at least 8-foot with at least 4 lines and a chartuese planer in his mouth. Anybody missing one? We certainly were not his first victims. Time lapsed, and we worked our way back to Two Way Marina in a head-on SW chop. Congrats to our friends Jeff and Nancy Dunbar of the Fishdancer for a second place finish with a 25-pounder. The winning fish was caught by Sea Ducer - a 37 pounder. Most of the large fish again came from Florida at the Elton Bottoms, south of St. Augustine, off the Flagler Pier and Port Canaveral. Team Live Wire will be taking the next two weekends off and preparing for the 2-day pro event, the Golden Isles Kingfish Klash, at St. Simons Island, Georgia later this month. |
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| June 20-23 - Golden Isles Kingfish Classic (Postponed) - St. Simons Island, GA Wow, what a crazy weekend. The wind was not really blowing on Thursday when Kevin Smith and I went out of Doboy Sound to find bait for the tournament, but was blowing from the NE, rather than the predicted E/SE. We found plenty of bait including large schools of large greenies and pogies and was successful jigging blue runners at Cabretta Live Bottom. Feeling good about the bait we had in the live well, we met up with Britton and headed to the captain's meeting at Golden Isles Marina. At the meeting, the wind had already started picking up and storms were building offshore. As usual, we read all the weather and wind predictions we know of before the event, but we nor any reports we read expected what was happening when we reached the Jekyll Pier for the check-out. There was a pounding rain, a stiff NE wind, and a nasty black cloud wrapped around the east side of the inlet, daring anyone to head offshore. As we discussed our plans and alternatives, a broadcast on the VHS by the tournament committee informed us that tournament fishing for the day was postponed and if possible, the tournament would be fished on Saturday and Sunday. Kevin, Britton, Dedie and I headed back in to the dock and decided to go down to Jacksonville to visit the folks at C&H Lures. The intensity of the rain on our trip down was incredible. We saw 4 wrecks and at least 4 other vehicles that had obviously hydroplaned from the road in to the median or into the trees. All I could think about was how glad I was watching this through the windshield on the Expedition instead of the boat. After talking with Brian and Dave at C&H and spending some money, we hit the road back to the house at Shellman's Bluff. We messed around most of the day grinding pogies for chum and waiting for Day 1 of the tournament, again. At 430 am the next morning we made the trip back down to St. Simons to see our fate, hoping the boat was still floating. We loaded the boat again at St. Simons Marina in the rain and started the trip to the check-out. Before arriving, we heard the report of another cancelled day of fishing and followed the fleet back into port. The report also informed us that the determination of whether to fish on Sunday would be made and announced at 11am via VHF radio. TLW headed to a friend's condo on the island for a nap and Saturday morning fishing shows. We were back at the marina for the announcement at 11am. The event was cancelled and moved to August 22-24. We felt we had a great plan and knew we had great bait, but with the reports of 7-9 foot waves at 6 second intervals, we were grateful for the decision to fish another day. I understand that there were negative remarks concerning the postponement of the event, but TLW commends the tournament committee and the SKA, Jack, on the decision to value the lives of their fishing crews and membership over the all mighty dollar. Tournament should be won by fishing skill or maybe even luck, but never the willness of a captain to risk the lives of themselves or their crew. I might add that I didn't see any of the fishermen that were complaining heading out to fish - just sitting on the dock complaining. |
| June 28th-30th, 2002 - Hanckel Marine Kingfish Classic - Charleston, SC Charleston is always a fun site for kingfish tournaments. This is the first year TLW has fished Division 14, where all but one event is held in Charleston. The Kingfish Classic was a 2-day event held at the Charleston Harbor Marina. We have not been as familiar with this area as our home waters of Georgia and north Florida. While the tournaments have been great events, we have struggled. We have caught fish, actually a good many, but we have not managed to find large fish. We're learning though, and have gotten pretty good at locating bait and good live bottom in the area. Day One- When compiling information from some local friends and message boards, we heard of a school of good fish the day before in the Savannah shipping channel. This sounded great to us. The week prior, the coastal southeast was pounded with heavy rains, and we felt that all the fresh water exiting the inlets would muddy the near shore waters and push the bait and kingfish further out. Though it would be a long 75-mile run to the weighin at Patriot Point in Charleston, we needed a good fish and we were very familiar with the shipping channel. So we changed our plans and headed down to Savannah after the captain's meeting held at Hanckel Marine in Charleston. We launched at the Lazareta Creek ramp and ran out to the Tybee Island beach in search of pogies. We tried a couple of the usual pogy hideouts, but were unsuccessful. We ran across to Calibogue Sound, south of Hilton Head Island, and found Pelicans diving just off the end of the shoal. Because of a dead, low tide, they were scattered, but Britton soon collected enough for a days fishing with our big 12- foot net. We motored out through the shipping channel to an area of live bottom near the end. The seas were a liitle choppy - actually, the weather service had issued a small-craft caution for the day, but not a warning. A warning would have cancelled fishing. As we set lines, some pretty good boats showed up. We felt good about the day. Soon the first line took off. We landed and released a 4-foot shark. A unique aspect of the shipping channel is that a great bite will materialize and then turn off quickly. We were looking for any sign that a bite was coming. At 11am, it had not occurred yet and we had a decision to make. We decided to fish there until the slack high tide at noon, if nothing happened we would run north. At noon, we ran to an area called the middle grounds off of Hilton Head. Most of the boats there were other boats that had left thr shipping channel and a few local boats. Almost immediately, we started fighting more sharks. It seemed to be the theme of the day. We changed plans again quickly and ran to Port Royal shipping channel, then to the Edisto 30'. Nothing seemed to be working for us, but we knew things could change over night as it obviously had the night earlier. We called it a day and ran the intercoastal water way from Edisto back to Savannah due to the increasing SW winds. We heard of some fish being caught on the radio while at Edisto, so we knew we needed to be further north on Saturday. Day 2- We added Brian Aycock to the crew on Saturday. Brian is a fun and experienced that captains his own boat at division 4 events and fishes as crew with the Captain Brant's "Carolina Contender" during pro events. We launched at Shim Creek and ran out the Charleston jetties along with many of the other SKA boats and large boats from the Carolina Cup billfish event also being held. It made for a bumpy ride until we rounded the north jetty and ran to the beach in search of pogies. There were large groups of pogies ranging from 4 to 6 inches. With a few throws of the Calusa 12-footer, we had enough for the live well and chum grinder. We took off into the SW wind and chop. After arriving at the Charleston 60' reef, we set lines and starting working some of the structure around the buoy. Immediately, our baits started getting hit by small kings. By 10am, we had gotten nearly a dozen hits. The best one was only 13 pounds. Its always hard to leave a good bite, but we needed to find a school of larger fish. With a large school of small kings being in 60' water , we thought the larger females may had moved in closer. We moved about 7 miles NW to a ledge with live bottom just south of the Charleston shipping channel. After locating the ledge on the bottom machine and graphing a significant amount of holding bait, we anchored, set lines and chummed heavily for 3 hours. The only rewards for our efforts was a large spanish mackeral. After rigging the live spanish on our long line, we trolled toward the shipping channel, and then turned to troll the channel back to the jetties. There was a good color change and a 8/10 of a degree temperature break at the tide line, but no action. We made the run back into Charleston Harbor and past the check-in boat to weigh the small fish we caught early for points. The winning fish was 38 pounds and the winning combined 2-day total was near 65 pounds. "Daddy's Money" won the combined total with 2 fish caught at the same location as the fish that broke the SKA tournament record at the Rumph Brothers event last month. I now understand that the winning 40-pound fish at the Fernandina, Florida SKA event was caught at D Bouy in Georgia on Saturday. Oh well, that was too far for us anyway. |
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| This Unfortunate Kingfish got Tag-Teamed by Two Hungry Barracudas. They got Him Front & Aft, Leaving Us Only the Mid Section. |
| Britton & Dana During a Grays Reef Sunrise As We Arrived at the Buoy to Jig Bait. |
| August 1st-3rd, 2002 - Tailwalker King Sting - Georgetown, SC The Tailwalker is always one of the best events of the year. It is one of the great examples of how a tournament should be run. We were planning to leave Wednesday afternoon for the long run up to Georgetown after attending a skeet shooting event with Congressman Bob Barr and Wayne La Piere of the NRA. The event was scheduled to end at 5pm, but ran until dark. I guess we were having too good a time to leave. Anyway, I got on the road early Thursday morning and arrived about 2 pm to meet Britton and a good friend Sam Shackleford from Spartanburg, SC. With the capain's meeting scheduled for 6pm and fishing skill competitions to be held priorr, we decided to leave the boat on the trailer and take part in the festivities. I'm proud to announce a 3rd place win by TLW co-captain Britton in the dueling rods competition. I got to visit with Bailey of Cape Lookout Lures - one of our new sponsors. He makes the highest quality skirts I have ever seen on the market. We are lucky to be involved with his company. After talking with a few friends it was obvious that fishing had changed with the new winds from the east. No one had really found a group of good fish. Not feeling really confident, we decided to go separate ways and compare notes with a few teams on Friday. Our job was to fish south around Romain Shoal and fish our way east. We readied the boat then set the clock for an early 3am wake-up. Day One- We had breakfast at Sam's on Polly's Island and left the boat ramp for the checkout line at 5am. After a scramble to make a checkout number sign, because we had left ours in the truck, we checked out and ran south out of the jetties to find pogies on the beach. Within 5 miles, we spotted diving pelicans and filled the livewell with the largest pogies of the year. Turning the bow southward, we made the 12-mile run to the tip of Romain Shoal in rougher than predicted seas. As we arrived, we found a large group of birds working about a mile east of our destination. We had to check it out, so we ran over to investigate. We found a big group of spanish working on scattered bait fish. Knowing that kings like to work the edges of such an event, we started deploying lines. As Britton ran the second bait back into the spread a spanish hit our pogy. We rebaited and continued with deployment. Soon another knock-down by a spanish, but not a king to be found. We picked up and ran back in to the shoal buoy, where a few kings were caught, but we didn't see anything over 10 pounds. By 10am, we picked up again and ran further south to the Not-So-Secret Hole. There were plenty of boats there working the ridge on both sides, but only sharks. Not hearing any encouraging information from the others, we started back toward a few spots near the Georgetown Inlet to finish the day. It took a while to return into the tall and quick seas. As the tideline in the channel became visable, we saw 50+ boats stacked up in the channel. We arrived on the tail-end of the bite where several large kings were caught. We hung around the rest of the day trying to cleanup some scraps with the rest of the fleet. A good fish was not to be had. We made the bumpy ride in, licked our wounds and prepared for Saturday. Team Palmetto got on a good bite on the ledge north of Greenville Reef, but wasn't able to reach us on the phone or radio. They weighed a #24. Day Two- The great thing about 2-day events is a second chance at a good points fish after a day of learning. What you don't expect is a complete change overnight. After checking out and being the fourth boat out of the jetties, we ran south to repeat the bait ritual from the day before. Only problem - No bait to be found........ GONE. After watching pelicans cruise the area and leave 3 or 4 times, we decided it was time for us to leave and try the beach north of the inlet. Shortly after departing, we hit a storm head-first. While passing the jetties we got a tip from the "Carolina Cocky" as to where we could find bait on the inside. As we entered the jetties a second storm pounded us. We noticed the waves had picked up since our exit a few hours earlier. After the run in and one cast of our Calusa 12-footer, we had 50 nice pogies and 6 bonus ribbonfish. We noticed several large boats anchored inland from the jetties. At first, I thought they were fishing, but found out that they were waiting for the inlet to calm. The winds and waves built as we netted our bait, and winds were blowing from the east at 20+ knots. Being a little hard-headed, I had to try it for myself. It was pretty rough, but manageable until we got stood straight up by a set of 16-footers. I saw a chance and quickly spun the boat around and returned to the smarter crowd. With the channel on the inside being 50', we trolled around until lunch watching boats head past us and return shaking their heads, including 2 charter sportfishing boats.. I don't expect you to believe me, but we caught a ribbonfish on a ribbonfish, then a ribbonfish on a pogy. Crazy! We decided to give the inlet a try again. It was full of 7'-8' waves, but not as steep. We made it to the tide line and deployed our spread at 1pm. It would be difficult to find, land and weigh a good kingfish by the 5pm weigh-in. By 2pm another storm loomed and the winds picked up again. It was difficult controlling the boat at live-bait trolling speeds in quick 5'-6' seas white-capping all around us. It quickly became apparent how important it was to post a fish the day earlier in the 23' and under division. By 3pm, we had tangled twice due to the winds and got frustrated. The tough thing about tournament fishing is, you have to fish what mother nature gives you. Many of the larger boats managed to weigh good fish. "La Perla", last year's national champion, won the pro division with an aggregate of over 60 lbs. The best fish was a 38-pounder caught in the Charleston Shipping Channel. We'll be back in action at the rescheduled Golden Isles event in our home waters in two weeks. I hope the seas will be more friendly than the first attempt at holding this event. We're looking forward to fishing at home and not sleeping in a motel room. |
| August 22nd-25th, 2002 - Golden Isles Kingfish Classic - St. Simons, GA Golden Isles was a crazy event for us. I don't know exactly where to start, so I'll start by saying we prefished for 2 entire days off of Fernandina and Jacksonville without any results other than 3 cudas and a dozen dolphin caught off Elton Bottoms. We chose to fish south due to cold water that moved into Georgia the week prior with a strong northeast wind. These winds had made fishing reports obsolete. Though the winds had calmed by the time we began prefishing, it was anyone's guess as to where the kingfish ended up. Even down in Florida the water temperatures were eratic. We crossed over a half dozen 3-degree breaks running offshore both days. After covering a huge area of Florida live bottoms, ledges and wrecks, we didn't know where the fish were, but felt that we knew where they weren't. After talking with a few other disgruntled captains at the meeting Thursday night, we decided to go north. We would start in close and work our way out checking areas for bait. The water off Georgia looked very similar to the conditions we had experienced down south when checking satellite data, but at least there were some warm patches of water that weren't seen earlier in the week. Day One- Our first day started off with alot of questions. Mainly, where can we find a kingfish? After checking out before dawn, we ran out of the Brunswick Shipping Channel and north looking for evidence of pogies. Thepogies had disappeared for the tarpon fishermen the week prior, but had returned a few days earlier. We found them in large schools just north of Doboy Inlet, loaded up the livewell and headed out to our first spot to check for areas holding bait offshore. We ran to both D Buoy numbers and then Cabretta Ridge without results. Though we had heard no good reports from Grays, we ran to check it before heading further offshore. Just a few miles before arriving, we saw a huge group of spanish mackeral frantically feeding on an even larger school of glass minnows. It looked as promising as anything we had seen the last few days, so we stopped to see if any kingfish may be hanging around feeding on the spanish. With the big tempurature breaks in the area, maybe the glass minnows, spanish and kings had been separtated long enough from all of them to be hungry. Our first line was hit as it was deployed. After a short fight, we had landed a 8 lb. bonito. Not to be discouraged, we sent another bait back which was quickly hit by a 18 lb. king. With one in the boat, things were looking up. Twenty minutes later, a 23-pound king hit our long line and ended up in the fish bag. From this point further we were "snake bit." As we got strike after strike, we had one pulled hook on a 20+ fish, two bitten wires, one tail-whipped line, a large kingfish that ran into the boat and popped her hooks and another was lost in a downrigger of a boat that had seen us hooked up and decided to fish with us. We spent the whole day with this same group of spanish. Time caught up with us, and we had to run. With a slim showing at the scales, we felt good about our position. Day Two- With the success of day one, we had a definite plan. Find a group of spanish. They were hungry and their kingfish bretheren were too. We ran back to Doboy for pogies and ran to the same numbers. As we could have expected, they weren't there, but we found many small groups of spanish feeding on glass minnows at the Grays Reef buoy. The only problem was, the cudas were at the buoy by the dozen. While attempting to retreive a hooked spanish, we had a very large kingfish attack, and had another bait slashed leaving the tail-tail signs of a big kingfish teeth, but single and double hookups of large cudas were the only excitement of the day. Things had changed as quickly from prefishing to day one as they did from day one to day two. I guess fall fishing is close at hand. Britton and I had a great time fishing with our friend Bruce Schmitt of the Moonlight'in Fishing Team in North Carolina. We'll be heading his way next for the Town Creek Shootout in Beaufort, NC. We qualified up there last year, and are excited about returning to North Carolina.. |
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| October 12th-13th, 2002 - Fall Frantic Atlantic KMT - North Myrtle Beach, SC With alot of questions concerning the effect of Tropical Storm Kyle, which was heading up the coast, we towed the boat to Myrtle Beach on Friday for the captain's meeting. Though Kyle was really stirring up a mess along southern coastal waters and had spawned a tornado that damage Georgetown on our way over, the eye was to pass Cape Fear on Friday night and conditions would quickly improve as the wind changed from a strong SE wind to a mild NW flow. When we arrived at the meeting, we were informed that the tournament had been moved from Saturday to Sunday due to the rough seas. We noticed the wind had already changed directions to the north while unloading the boat at the motel, so we decided to do a little prefishing on Saturday. Exiting the jetties on Saturday morning at Little River Inlet we ran into friendly 2 to3 foot rolling seas. The Cape Fear area had been hot for a week prior to the storm so we started at Yaupon Reef and worked out to the Light House Rocks. The water was dirty and scattered weeds made fishing difficult. A few fish were caught early in the shipping channel, but the bite had obviously turned off. We ran back in to watch our Georgia Bulldogs whoop up on Tennessee at the captain's meeting. With reports that the water was in better shape and bait was thick down south, we ran down Myrtle Beach until finding a huge pod of pogies at the pier just north of Murrell's Inlet. After securing bait, we turned to head out 6 miles to some local rocks. As we arrived, it was evident the bite was hot. From 8am until 1130am it was all we could do to get out 3 lines before the next strike. Unfortunately, the majority of the school consisted of fish from 8 to 14 lbs. At 1030, we finally found a fish near 18 lbs. We didn't see any larger fish being caught. We ran 17 miles further offshore to some popular ledges. When our destination came into sight, we only saw a few boats and questioned our decision, but chose to give it a try. Before the forth bait was deployed, we had a double hookup. We continued to catch many kingfish in the same size range as earlier that morning. Finally, we caught a fish a little larger than our first fish in the bag. We saw a larger fish shadow one of our baits, but wouldn't take our offering. We decided to use the rest of the day weeding through the small fish and hopefully find a hungry smoker. As time ticked away, we continued to land smaller fish, but a large fish was not to be. We ran back to the scales in great seas and posted 19.3 for points, a 5th place finish in our division and moves us into 9th place for qualification for Nationals. We were looking for a better fish, but this will keep us in the mix. |
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| October 18th-19th, 2002 - Fall Brawl Kingfish Classic - Holden Beach, NC Knowing the water temperatures had dropped significantly during a windy, cold week in southern NC, we thought fishing would change from the weekend prior, but didn't know exactly what the effect would be. With Britton healing from an Evil Kinevil golf cart accident that cut and sprained his ankle, Bruce Schmitt, "Moonlight'in" from Clinton, NC agreed to Co Captain. While driving, I talked with a few friends that were able to be prefishing, and decided the fish and bait had moved offshore. After attending the captain's meeting and arranging for a hub to be replaced on the trailer that was damaged on the way over, we readied the boat and made a plan for the next morning. We launched the boat under the Holden Beach bridge at 6am and ran out Lockwood Folly Inlet in search for flipping schools of pogies. The better part of the 270 boat field had already located them off Holden Pier, so Bruce eased me in for my chance with the cast net. After a few throws in 23' water, the livewell was full, and we were heading south to the Shark Hole some 20 miles offshore. As we came off plane, Bruce and I quickly began deploying the spread. Before the forth bait made it into the spread, we had our first hookup - a double. We continued catching fish, but they were very small. And all the other fish we saw caught were about the same size. About 10am, we heard from a friend, "Reel Therapy", that a bite of good fish was on at Myrtle Beach Rocks. Not convenced that a good fish could be caught where we were, we took off on the 34-mile run West. We recognized some more friends, "Go'in Deep" as we arrived and informed us to the status of the bite we had heard about. There had been a good bite early, but had slowed significantly. Myrtle Beach Rocks is known as a big fish hole, so we decided to run in to the beach and rebait, then return in hopes that the bite would pick back up. After all, we were in good company with our way of thinking. When we hit the beach, we saw some flipping just north of Murrells Inlet to investigate. To our suprise, after throwing the net, we netted at least 3 dozen 1 to 2 pound mullet. They were perfect for the job at hand. Big bait = Big fish. After running back out and resetting the lines, we trolled with high anticipation. Just as I began to think we had made a mistake, one of the downrigger baits got chomped, just above the stinger hook. Then, the port side line screamed as a hooked king ran east. The length and speed of his first run made me feel that we had a good fish. I fought the fish quickly and Bruce drove the gaff. He wasn't huge, but respectful, and was needed to help qualify TLW for the 2002 National Championships. At 330, we picked up and headed for the scales 40 miles away that would close at 5pm. Shortly after, the fun would start. Twelve miles from Shallotte Inlet, the oil sensor alarm went off on the motor. This automatically chokes the motor down to low RPM's to prevent over heating the motor. With time to spare, we inspected the motor and found that the small oil reservior on the motor was not filling itself quickly enough. As we sat and idled for a few minutes, it would fill very slowly. We could make it about a mile before stopping and giving it more time. Quickly, time became a real issue. We ran through the inlet as the alarm sounded again. This time, the oil pumps would not refill the reservior at all. We were stuck with a good fish, 2 minutes to go and in site of the check in boat. With my best McGiver move, I quickly handed Bruce a half dozen 2-ounce sinkers and instructed him to put them in the reservior which raised the level of the oil and fooled the sensor. I hit the hammer and made the check-in boat with only seconds left. I knew we would need this fish to have a chance at an invitation to Nationals. We should find out Wednesday if our efforts will be rewarded. Capt. Brant put on another excellent event. The great food, events for the kids and structure makes this event a standout on the SKA schedule. Special thanks to Magic Tilt Trailers for fixing my trailer without pregidous during the fishing day even though we're sponsored by Loadmaster Trailers. Now that's public relations! Now, I have to figure out how to get those weights out of the oil reservior on the motor before I take the boat in for a checkup. I do NOT want to have to explain that to the Yamaha man. |
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