Wild Ride still rolling

Team M&M’s catches 39 ½-pounder, leads at Beaufort

BEAUFORT, S.C. – It’s a good sign on the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour when you don’t actually do a whole lot of fishing, particularly later in the day. It means you’ve got a good one in the bag early, and you can relax and prepare for the next day’s competition.

In that sense, things are really looking up for Team Wild Ride / M&M’s lately because they’re always hanging around the dock in the afternoon. Two months ago, at the last Kingfish Tour event in Fort Pierce, Fla., Team M&M’s seemed to be prowling around the marina a lot in the afternoon. Not coincidentally, they won that event. The big-fish boats usually come in early, so it was a familiar sight to see the M&M’s-festooned Wellcraft hovering near the marina long before the 4 p.m. weigh-in began at Beaufort Marina Friday.

M&M’s, captained by Randy Griffin Jr. of Hampstead, N.C., pounced on the day-one lead at the third FLW Kingfish Tour event of the season by catching a 39-pound, 6-ounce keeper Friday.

Now, with more than a 5-pound lead over second-place Team McNeill, Griffin and his crew are truly asserting some dominance over the 2007 season by making a bid for their second win in a row. M&M’s was also ranked first in the standings coming into this week.

“Yeah, we’re having a good year,” Griffin said. “We’re feeling pretty good. I’d feel even better if we’re lucky enough to make the top five and fish on Sunday.”

With almost 39 1/2 pounds under their belt already, it’s probably not going to take much more luck than that to make the finals. Any fish over 30 pounds earned sixth place or better Friday, and the fifth-place potential cut weight settled on 31-15.

Still, fortune was Griffin and Co.’s side today.

“We ran about 25 miles straight out. We’ve never before fished where we fished today. The biggest one we caught before this, in practice, was 16 pounds,” he said. “But we did our homework last night, checked water temperatures and the charts. We knew there were some fish caught there a few weeks ago, and nothing has changed in the conditions over the last couple weeks.”

M&M’s caught some four kings Friday and hooked into their big fish around 12:30 p.m. Understandably, Griffin was pretty tight-lipped about his key bait, saying it’s a little early in the game this week to divulge such critical information.

“With 80 or 90 teams out there that are so good at this, you never know what it will take to make it,” he said. “But there have been a lot of tournaments in the area, and it’s been a mid-30s type of deal for about a month or two.

“It feels good to have people come up and congratulate you, but I’d say the same thing if somebody else we knew got a 39. I’d be just as happy.”

McNeill second with 34-1

Team McNeill also caught a big one early – a 34-pound, 1-ounce kingfish – for second place.

“At 9:30 we had our fish in the boat, so we came back in,” said Capt. Ellis Phillips of Richmond Hill, Ga. “It took four long runs, but we kept the boat on it. It took us about 15 minutes to reel it in, and we knew it was a big fish when it hit.”

McNeill fished about a 62-mile run north of Beaufort and caught their fish on a double pogy rig on the long line.

“It’s one of my little private holes,” Phillips said. “It’s the same place where I caught that 36-pounder last year in the championship (at Mount Pleasant, S.C., where Phillips’ Team Double Gobble led the first day).”

Phillips said they landed their fish at a depth of 100 feet and keyed on schools of bait.

“Anywhere you can find baitfish, you can catch them,” he said. “We stopped four times on the way in where there was baitfish, and we caught them every time.”

Marcia-D third

Team Marcia-D, captained by Perry Johnston of Oak Island, Ga., took third place with a king weighing 32 pounds, 9 ounces.

Evinrude fourth, Bitta Sweet fifth

Capt. Rick Smith of Brunswick, Ga., and Team Evinrude took fourth place with a kingfish weighing 32 pounds even.

“I think the heat caused them to move out a little bit,” crewmember Tony Thaw said. “We had to go get them a little bit. This was the last one we caught late in the day.”

Team Bitta Sweet, captained by Jerry Tumbleston of Mount Pleasant, S.C., rounded out the top five with a fish weighing 31 pounds, 15 ounces.

“It wasn’t a bad day. We had two runs all day,” Bitta Sweet crewmember Billy Powell said. “Around 8 o’clock the first one hit, and then 10 minutes later the big one hit.”

Powell said Bitta Sweet caught their keeper king on a ribbonfish in 80 feet of water.

Opening round continues Saturday

The second half of opening-round competition in the FLW Kingfish Tour at Beaufort begins Saturday as the full field of boats takes off from the Downtown Marina at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time. Teams are fishing for heaviest fish over the first two days to determine the top five to advance to Saturday’s finals.