BEAUFORT, S.C. – Team “M&M’s” captained by Randy Griffin Jr. of Hampstead, N.C., caught a kingfish weighing 39 pounds, 6 ounces Friday to lead day one of the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event presented by Yamaha in Beaufort, S.C., where the nation’s top king mackerel teams are competing for a top award of as much as $100,000 cash.
Teams had to battle uncooperative seas and a fairly tough bite to reel in their tournament-winning smoker kings. Captain Griffin and his crew – Shayna Griffin, Richard Williams, and Ronald Miller Jr. all of Hampstead, N.C. – reported catching two fish before landing the team’s biggest at approximately 2 p.m. All of the fish came on live menhaden and dead ribbonfish trolled in a five line spread over live-bottom structure about 25 miles offshore.
“We are pretty happy about our catch today,” said Griffin, whose team won the last stop on the Kingfish Tour in Fort Pierce, Fla., and netted the team a cool $100,000. “Right now we have a good situation going and hope to keep it up. The area we are fishing is full of bait and has the right water temperature to hold big fish. We just kept changing baits up today to see what the fish were wanting. When we got a strike on a certain bait, we would change everything to that kind and luckily we caught a good one.
“It took us a little while to get to our first spot this morning because of the rough conditions. So when we stuck the one we weighed, we opted to run back in a little early before the conditions got worse. Our plan for tomorrow is to just go back out and do the same thing over again. Just fish hard and hopefully we will be in the top-five after tomorrow.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Team “McNeill” captained by Ellis Phillips of Richmond Hill, Ga. (34 pounds, 1 ounce); Team “Marcia-D” captained by Perry Johnston of Oak Island, N.C. (32 pounds, 9 ounces); Team “Evinrude” captained by Rick Smith of Brunswick, Ga. (32 pounds); and Team “Bitta Sweet” captained by Jerry Tumbleston of Mount Pleasant, S.C. (31 pounds, 15 ounces).
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 the Downtown Marina of Beaufort located at 1006 Bay Street in Beaufort at 6:30 each morning. Scales open at the marina at 4 p.m. Saturday and all teams must check-in by 5 p.m. Sunday’s final weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 350 Robert Smalls Parkway in Beaufort beginning at 5 p.m. The takeoff and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
Coverage of the Beaufort tournament hosted by the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States Oct. 14 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 servicemembers 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 Atlantic Beach, N.C., Sept. 28-30 for its final regular-season event, presented by Raymarine, followed by the Kingfish Tour Championship held in Biloxi, Miss., Nov. 2-4 where teams have a shot at taking home the $150,000 first place offering.
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.