Marco Island, Florida - Team Carolina Skiff/Evinrude/Big Bobberz recently competed in their first tournament of the 2008. The Marco King Fling took place March 14 and 15th, marking the first of three tournaments in the Southern Kingfish Association's (SKA’s) Division 11 series.
Arriving late Wednesday night, the team spent Thursday and Friday pre-fishing the area, locating bait and getting prepared for the one-day tournament on Saturday.
Heading out after a 7:30 a.m. shotgun start, we began our 35-mile run to our first fishing spot in 2- to 4-foot seas. Arriving a little after 8:30 a.m., we found a couple of other teams had already started trolling the area, but it wasn't too crowded so we began deploying rigs. Running a total of six rigs—one down deep and the rest staggered anywhere from way, way back to right in the prop wash—we began the slow troll with five lively blue runners and one plug. Within 15 minutes, the first line went off! It hit a naked blue runner on the top WAY behind the boat so Jesse had her work cut out for her! As we cleared the other lines, Jesse put on her fighting belt and got ready to bring the fish in. She took the rod as Trina got the boat turned around, and began chasing the fish and getting some line back on the reel. We were all excited as we saw the fluorocarbon leader start winding back on the reel, but as soon as the fish saw the boat, it had other ideas and made another long run. After bringing it within site a couple more times, Jesse finally wore it down and I gaffed it about eight feet under the boat! We got it in the boat and knew it was a pretty good fish, but also that we’d need a little more to be in the money. So the lines went out again and we started trolling a grid pattern over the reef.
Meanwhile, the other boats that had been there picked up and left. After about 45 minutes without a bite, we decided to pull all the lines in and check the baits. At that time we made the call to move to another spot. We readied the boat for a short 10 mile run to the T Tower and off we went. When we got there it appeared that the rest of the teams had decided to fish the tower as well! Oh well, we were used to fishing around a lot of boats in Division 5, so we weaved our way into the tower to get some new baits. It took one sabiki rig per two or three baits to get them past the hungry Cudas that were guarding the tower, but we kept at it and picked up about a dozen fresh, lively, BIG blue runners.
After weaving our way back out of the pack of boats, we began once again to deploy our spread. With so many boats in such close quarters, we opted for four lines this time, and out they went. Listening to the radio chatter and looking around, it appeared that there was a strong morning bite but had been pretty uneventful for awhile. No worries, we knew that there was a secondary feed time coming up and, watching the birds and the bait, we figured it was about to start. To tip the scales in our favor a little, we put a little chum slick out to entice the fish.
Not even 20 minutes into the troll, we all watched as an enormous mouth came out of the deep blue and kept rising up until the entire fish was completely out of the water as it annihilated the poor helpless blue runner 20 feet behind the boat! What a rush! When it crashed back down it was game on! The fish crossed all of the other lines, completely entangling the last one as it headed to Texas. We managed to get all of the lines untangled and only had to cut one off, then it was just us against the fish. It ran and ran, so we turned the boat to chase it down. We gained a little line on it a couple of times, but it was clear this one wasn't giving up that easy. In a split second, the fish turned, ran under the boat, and POP! Cut off in the prop.
It was a VERY quiet and somber moment on the boat. We were all pretty sure that we had just lost a money fish. But we still had time left, so we put the lines back out. We had another one hit within half an hour and got it all the way to the boat before it came unbuttoned. It looked just about like the one we already had in the box so we weren't too stressed about that one, only that we didn’t like to witness any "sportsman-like releases" during a tournament. It was almost time for us to head back in, so we decided to make one more pass close to the tower, down current of the two boats that were anchored up kite fishing and chumming. The Cudas were there to greet us within minutes! We hooked one up that took the line right smack into the tower and was gone. On that note, we stowed all the gear, took a picture of the one we had in the box, and made a bee line for Marco Pass.
What a great feeling it was to come in to weigh in with a decent size fish, especially when someone on the dock yelled out, "There's the girls!," and the crowd erupts! People we didn't even know had been watching us all week and had come down to the weigh in just to watch us come in! We took the fish out of the bag and after a couple of pictures, Jesse carried it up to the scale ... 28.09 pounds! Not a winning fish, but out of 58 boats it put us in 28th overall and, in the SKA, put us in 23rd. More importantly, though, it put Jesse in 2nd place in Junior Anglers! There were still a few boats to weigh in, and one did come in right at the end that bumped her to 3rd. But, she was still thrilled!
It was a great week, a great tournament and good start to 2008!
Captain Trina Polkey
Team Carolina Skiff/Evinrude/Big Bobberz
