BRUNSWICK, Ga. – Team Native Premonition, headed by Leon Wilcox of Loxahatchee, Fla., caught a kingfish weighing 34 pounds Sunday to win the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series East Florida Division event in Brunswick, Ga., and $12,000 cash.
Wilcox – along with teammates Tracy Steele, Danny Tommie, Robert Miller, Donald Corbitt and Frank Miele – were fishing 60 miles south of the takeoff site, slow-trolling live blue runners on a downrigger set at 25 feet in 40 to 45 feet of water.
“It feels great to finally win one of these,” Wilcox said. “We have finished in the top 10 a few times, but it’s great to get the pressure of a win off our backs. We have been fishing really hard, and I’m glad it has paid off for us.
“In Saturday’s event we ran north and caught only small fish. So we decided to run south where I knew some big fish were at Sunday. We pulled into this one spot and watched boats come and go. We waited it out all day and finally got the right bite.”
Wilcox also added that the bait was abundant in the area they were fishing. He credited his big catch to locating the right school of bait with the right fish on it.
Rounding out the top five teams were Team Berkley, captained by Dieter Cardwell of Winston-Salem, N.C. (31 pounds, 9 ounces, $6,600); Team Hammer-Time, captained by Randy Howell of Waycross, Ga. (29 pounds, 15 ounces, $3,080); Team Square & Level/Reel Wild, captained by Pete Eldridge of Waycross, Ga. (26 pounds, 15 ounces, $2,035); and Team King of Kings, captained by Bart Wetherington of Richmond Hills, Ga. (26 pounds, 9 ounces, $2,200).
The award for highest-finishing woman went to Paulette Walker of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., who placed seventh with a 26-pound kingfish as a member of Team Streaker.
FLW Kingfish Series qualifying tournaments are one-day events. Each team is allowed to weigh in one kingfish, and the winning team is determined by the heaviest fish.
The FLW Kingfish Series consists of five divisions – East Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina-Georgia, Gulf and Upper Gulf. Each division is comprised of three events with a $100,000 purse for each event. The top three teams from each tournament and the top 16 teams (who are not already qualified) from each division after all qualifiers are complete will advance to the three-day, $275,000 no-entry-fee Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship in Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 4-6, which will be featured in a one-hour episode of “FLW Outdoors” broadcast to 80 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) households in the United States and more than 429 million households in Europe, Asia and Africa. The points champion from each division will also advance directly to the $500,000 no-entry-fee Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship in Biloxi, Miss., Nov. 2-4, where they will compete against top FLW Kingfish Tour teams for a top award of $150,000.
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, browse FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.