MAYPORT, Fla. – Team Talkin Trash headed by Captain Mike Edwards of Wilmington, N.C., caught a kingfish Friday weighing 40 pounds, 10 ounces to take the lead in the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event in Mayport presented by Castrol. A field of 104 teams is competing for a share of the $300,000 purse in the third event of the most lucrative kingfish tournament trail in the country.
Although Hurricane Dennis is not far off Florida’s west coast, Friday’s conditions in Mayport were relatively pleasant, with an east wind of 10 mph and a few widely scattered thunderstorms. At the conclusion of Friday’s weigh-in, tournament officials elected to complete the event on Saturday unless local weather conditions unexpectedly change before Saturday’s takeoff.
In the weeks proceeding the event, some local anglers felt the fishing in the Mayport area would be the best seen in two summers. Friday’s weights, however, proved that conditions are very tough, and although Talkin Trash has a lead of almost 10 pounds, the tournament is still up for grabs.
“I really didn’t expect that fish to be leading,” Edwards said. “We just hoped to make the top 10. I really thought some of the local big guns would catch some good fish. We pre-fished for two days and never saw a king. We had one strike today and caught one fish. It was a very slow day of fishing. We marked a lot of bait, and there should have been more fish there. But we couldn’t find them.
“We ran about 30 miles south and were fishing two miles off the beach in 40 feet of water. We caught that king on a goggle eye about 15 feet down. We’ll take it easy tomorrow and stay close to the beach in case it gets rough, but we’ll do basically the same thing.”
Rounding out the top-five teams are Team Bonnie B VI captained by James Banks of Summerville, S.C. (31 pounds); Team No Doubt captained by Trae Ross of Oxford, Ga. (30 pounds, 10 ounces); Team Sake captained by Neil Nix of Okeechobee (30 pounds, 1 ounce); and Team Barbra Ann captained by John Adcox of Jacksonville (29 pounds, 1 ounce).
The continually increasing popularity of the FLW Kingfish Tour led FLW Outdoors to create the $1.1 million Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, which was announced Thursday and will debut in 2006. The FLW Kingfish Series, which is a qualifying circuit for the FLW Kingfish Tour, features five divisions with three $100,000 events per division. Winning teams can earn as much as $30,000 in each qualifying event, and the top 20 teams from each division will advance to the no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship.
The next FLW Kingfish Tour event, presented by Tyson, will be held Sept. 16-17 in Southport, N.C.
The $1.7 million Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour consists of four regular-season events. After four events are complete, the top 50 teams compete in the three-day, no-entry-fee $500,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship to be held in D’Iberville, Miss., Oct. 13-15. The championship winner will take home as much as $150,000.