After half a season of stormy seas, the sun finally shone on Wal-Mart’s saltwater fishing team during a late-August kingfish tournament at St. Simon’s Island, Ga. Two of Wal-Mart’s five boat teams landed top-10 finishes at the two-day tourney.
Team Wal-Mart’s King Quest – a 32-foot Wellcraft boat captained by Fred Hoyt of Hilton Head, S.C. – and Koolau – another 32-foot Wellcraft vessel captained by Conrad Lau of Neptune Beach, Fla. – placed ninth and 10th, respectively, effectively ending a dry spell for the team as a whole. Prior to the St. Simon’s Island tournament, none of Wal-Mart’s boats – which also include Fish Fever, Attitude Adjuster and Wild Turkey, all operating with powerful Evinrude direct-injection engines – had placed in the top 10 on the 2003 Yamaha Professional Kingfish Tour.
“It feels good to break the ice,” said Lau of Team Wal-Mart’s strong finish at the tournament. The August event, held on the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Georgia, was the third regular-season tournament of the Yamaha Professional Kingfish circuit. Two more pro tourneys – another Atlantic event at Morehead City, N.C., and the next at the Gulf of Mexico – will finish out the Yamaha Tour’s regular season in October. The Southern Kingfish Association National Championship is slated for Nov. 20-22 with the location yet to be finalized.
“It was a great fishing weekend … it was phenomenal,” said Hoyt.
Though each Wal-Mart boat captain gave a distinctive account of his tournament experience, they both said the weather provided a perfect backdrop for the 100 pro and 140 local teams chasing king mackerel on the open sea.
“The weather was gorgeous,” Lau said.
“It was great weather for a change,” said Hoyt, seconding the notion. “Usually we have to fish in 3- to 5-foot seas … so it was great to fish in nice weather. It really eases the pain quite a bit.”
The “pain” Hoyt is referring to is not just figurative, as in a bothersome fishing experience. Though Team Wal-Mart’s boats typically stay within 40 miles of the coast, it’s not uncommon for a team to log well over a hundred miles of lateral navigation in search of a sizable catch. As a consequence, relatively calm seas can significantly reduce the jostle factor for Wal-Mart’s anglers as they are propelled over the waves at high speeds by powerful Evinrude engines.
But a sunny sky wasn’t the only thing to warm the dispositions of King Quest and Koolau’s crew members; the fishing was pretty hot, too.
Koolau found a big king on the first day, a 27.45-pound whopper caught on a live baitfish called a menhaden, or pogy, that was corralled earlier in the day (mackerel-tournament anglers typically catch their own bait, a process Lau describes as “part of the hunt.”) Team boat crews in saltwater tourneys are allowed to communicate with each other about where the fish are biting, but Lau said radio trouble forced him to rely at least as much on his knowledge of the area to target the fish.
“Pieces of their transmissions were garbled, and they couldn’t hear me,” Lau said of the rest of the Team Wal-Mart fleet. “So, by deductive reasoning, I had to figure out where to go.”
Koolau set out for a second day of fishing with radio communications intact. After scouring the seas that had yielded day one’s bounty, Koolau released a small 5-pounder and then moved to a new area about 45 miles away from the weigh-in site using coordinates provided by Attitude Adjuster.
Lau said the crew “basically went all day without a bite,” but they finally tied into a worthy kingfish at the last minute that would provide them with a two-day aggregate weight of 57 pounds, heavy enough for a 10th-place finish. However, the drama didn’t end there as the crew had to race back to weigh-in, ultimately arriving eight minutes before deadline.
“It was a bit rougher ride going back,” said Lau. “I said, `Hang on guys, we don’t have any time to spare.'”
King Quest was able to weigh in a fish on day one, but its royal catch came on day two: a 38.77-pound monster that tipped the scales in the crew’s favor. Not only did the kingfish help the team proffer a two-day aggregate of 59.95 pounds for a ninth-place finish, it was the second-largest fish weighed among pros. The healthy catch also garnered a Division Four Lady Angler award for King Quest’s Susan Kaminsky who was recently crowned the 2003 Lady Angler of the Year in Division 10.
“That fish made the whole year start to come around for us,” said Hoyt.
The pro tour’s highest award goes to the boat crew that weighs the heaviest seven kingfish during the regular season, and it is still attainable for both teams. One Wal-Mart team, Fish Fever, has been consistent enough this season to be in eighth place overall in the Southern Kingfish Association standings.
“If the fishing in Morehead is good, we’ll have a shot at Angler of the Year,” said Hoyt.
“It’s still wide open,” said Lau.
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Team Wal-Mart boat claims 2002 national championship in Southern Kingfish Association