We
checked out with the tourney official at 6:10 am on the Slippery
Sue II after getting some pitiful looking bait from the bait
barge at Weak Fish Point. It was the best they had. We headed
SW to some fertile grounds I had marked a couple weeks earlier.
We were fishing the Howell Tackle and Marine Kingfish Tournament
for our second year. This year however, we had a bigger boat
(The Slippery Sue II) and more experience. Our crew consisted
of my nephew, Tony Luiz, who has a reputation of "being
able to spit on the ground and catch fish from it", my
wife Susan who has a reputation of bringing good luck and catching
fish on her deceased father's "red rod", and Jerry
Bullard who is in charge of slipping me tobacco when Susan wasn't
looking. The rods were rigged and made ready the day and night
before.
We
had several hits but no hookups in 75 foot water so we decided
to move further out into 100 foot water. We had our first hit
and fish on about 11 am. We were relieved to know at least we
could be at the weigh in now. Not a huge one but at least a
King. However, some shotty gaffing on my part let the rascal
get away right at boat side. Our emotions went from high to
low in one swing and a miss with the gaff.
The
fishing was very slow with an occasional hit but no hookups.
We were spotting lots of bottom fish and I had to overcome a
mutiny of my crew who wanted to bottom fish some. They threatened
to ties me up with anchor rope. I told them if Virginia hadn't
bought us in the Calcutta we would but we owed it to her to
catch a winning King.
We
found a large area of floating grass and I knew there was probably
dolphin (mahi mahi) under it. We put down the heavy stuff and
picked up the lighter spinning rods. For about 45 minutes we
quenched our thirst for catching some fish as we caught lots
of blue runners and schoolie dolphin before a big cow came cruising
by. I had my lead head and chartreuse Gulp in the right place
at the right time and she took it right in front of all of us.
I had her or she had me on a 7.5 G. Loomis with a Stradic 4000
reel. The fight was on and Tony made a successful gaff several
minutes later.
We
eventually caught a decent King on the down rigger about 40
feet down. Tony made another successful gaff and the big guy
was in the boat. We all were screaming and high fiving in celebration
of finally catching a King. We are truly at the weigh in now-
maybe not a winner but at least we got something to weigh in.
Tony caught another small king about 4:00.
We
checked in with the tourney official at 5:45. We had our two
kings, a big cow dolphin and lots of memories of a long day
on the water together. The winning king was the biggest one
I had ever seen. The only one the boat caught all day but 47.9
lbs and about 5 feet long.
We fished hard to win Virginia some money and us some too, but
it wasn't in the cards, however as the commercial says - the
memories- priceless!
We're
looking forward to next year's tourney when the Slippery Sue
II has the winning fish.
--Billy Perkins
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