ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. (Sept. 28, 2007) – Team McNeill/Double Gobble captained by Ellis Phillips of Richmond Hill, Ga., caught a kingfish weighing 38 pounds, 10 ounces Friday to lead day one of the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event presented by Raymarine in Atlantic Beach, where the nation’s top king mackerel teams are competing for a top award of as much as $100,000 cash.
Fishing a 33-foot Hydra-Sports center console with twin 300-hp Yamaha engines, Phillips and Richmond Hill teammates Rodney Rogers, Steve Miller, Mark Gerrald, and Michael Hodges had plenty of speed and range to make a long run. Light winds and reasonable seas would have further facilitated a distant campaign, but Phillips opted to stay close and try his luck in the often lucky Beaufort Inlet Channel.
“It was real nice today and we could have run anywhere we wanted wide open,” Phillips said. “But we didn’t run far, and we had all our fish in the boat by 8 o’clock. We came back up the channel around 10 a.m. and took it easy the rest of the day. We just messed around looking for bait.”
A perennial favorite among Carolina kingfish veterans, the Beaufort channel’s strong tidal flushing congregates forage species for several miles seaward. The leading captain leveraged this predictable element to his team’s success. “The kingfish are moving a lot, so we just run and look for bait. We don’t run to (GPS) numbers. We saw a bunch of bluefish and Spanish mackerel on (the surface) and we put our baits out in this area.”
Ellis’ team caught four kingfish. Their biggest one ate an early breakfast by hitting a large live bluefish on a long flat line 150 yards behind the boat. The team had rigged the bait with three stinger segments and that helped Miller bring the kingfish to Gerrald’s gaff in about 20 minutes.
“That was the second line we put out,” Ellis recalled. “We had a good hook up on him, so we got him right to the boat.”
Rounding out the top five teams are Team Logan’s Run captained by D Logan of Bellville, N.C. (36 pounds, 6 ounces); Team Predator captained by Jack Wood of Wake Forest, N.C. (36 pounds, 6 ounces); Team Double J captained by James (Rusty) Rogers of Richmond Hill, Ga. (33 pounds, 9 ounces); and Team Bitta Sweet captained by Jerry Tumbleston of Mount Pleasant, S.C (32 pounds, 1 ounce).
When the scales finally closed, 77 teams had landed kingfish weighing more than 1,200 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 Seawater Marina located at 400 Atlantic Beach Causeway in Atlantic Beach 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 300 Highway 24 in Morehead City beginning at 4:30 p.m. The takeoff and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
Coverage of the Atlantic Beach tournament hosted by the Crystal Coast Tourism Authority will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States Nov. 25 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.
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