FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Team Miss Micki, captained by Ricky Rowland, of Fuquay Varina, N.C., caught a kingfish weighing 47 pounds, 1 ounce Friday to lead day one of the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event presented by Evinrude in Fort Pierce, where the nation’s top king mackerel teams are competing for a top award of as much as $100,000 cash.
With tropical weather conditions moving sporadically across the state, teams fished in overcast and rainy conditions through most of Thursday. Seas were calm, but Rowland believes that the day’s lower visibility may have worked in his favor. “The overcast skies didn’t bother us, but with the water as clear as it was, that actually gave us a little advantage (with the wary kingfish).”
Joined by his wife Shanon, Bill McLam, of Raleigh, N.C., and Mitch Yates, of Winston-Salem, N.C., Rowland found no kingfish at his first spot about 15 miles north of the Fort Pierce Inlet. Around 9 a.m., a fellow angler contacted him to report a hot bite 25 miles further up the coast, near Sebastian Inlet.
The Miss Micki team ran to the active area and deployed baits over live bottom in 50 feet of water. At 11 a.m., the big kingfish ate a live blue runner fished on a flat line about 75 yards behind the boat. Shanon fought the fish and Yates applied the gaff after a brief 10-minute fight.
“He made three long runs and then just came up,” Rowland said. “We ran up on him and he just laid up on the surface and Mitch stuck him.”
Rowland said that ending up at a productive location was the key to his team’s success. June usually finds the biggest kingfish close to shore on Florida’s east coast, so locating the feeding zones proves essential. “The spot had a lot of bait on it,” Rowland said. “We didn’t see any (threadfin herring) on top, but we were marking a lot of bait schools below the surface.”
Rowland said his team will fish on Saturday to defend their lead, but they will remain close to port. “We’re just going to hang out right in front of the (Fort Pierce) inlet. A lot of the big fish were caught out there today, so we’re going to fish around there tomorrow.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Team House-Autry captained by Ronald Sutton, of Carolina Beach, N.C. (46 pounds, 10 ounces); Team Bounty captained by Tom Aberle, of Wilmington, N.C. (45 pounds, 9 ounces); Team East Coast Sports captained by Randall Edens, of Hampstead, N.C. (43 pounds, 8 ounces); and Kat’s Rival captained by Frank Langdon, of Boca Raton, Fla. (43 pounds, 4 ounces).
When the scales finally closed, 80 teams had landed kingfish weighing more than 1,700 pounds.
FLW Kingfish Tour qualifying tournaments are three-day events. The entire field competes Friday and Saturday, and the top five teams compete Sunday. The winning team is determined based on the heaviest kingfish from Friday or Saturday plus the heaviest kingfish from Sunday. Teams will take off from Fort Pierce City Marina located at 1 Avenue A in Fort Pierce at 6:30 each morning. Scales open at the marina at 4 p.m. Saturday and all teams must check-in by 6 p.m. Sunday’s final weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 5100 Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce beginning at 4:30 p.m. The takeoff and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
Coverage of the Fort Pierce tournament hosted by the Treasure Coast Sports Commission will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States September 9 as part of the “FLW Outdoors” television program. “FLW Outdoors” airs Sunday mornings at 11 Eastern time. “FLW Outdoors” is also broadcast internationally to 429 million households in such countries as Germany, China, South Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Hungary and the United Kingdom, making it the most widely distributed fishing program in the world. Additionally, FLW Outdoors is proud to provide tournament coverage to more than 800,000 service members stationed around the world in 177 countries and aboard Navy ships through broadcasts on the American Forces Network.
The $1.7 million Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour consists of four regular-season events. After four events are complete, the top 50 teams will compete in the three-day, no-entry-fee $500,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship presented by BP in Biloxi, Miss., Nov. 2-4. The winning team at the championship will take home as much as $150,000.
The FLW Kingfish Tour will stop in Beaufort, SC., August 17-19 for its third regular-season event, presented by Yamaha Motors. The tour’s last qualifying event, presented by Raymarine, will be held in Atlantic Beach, NC, September 28-30.
Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Abu Garcia, Ranger Owners Tournament Championship Series, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series. These circuits offer combined purses of nearly $43 million through 241 events in 2007.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 1997 and today is the world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information about Wal-Mart, visit Walmart.com.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.