BILOXI, Miss. – The Walmart FLW Kingfish Tour – the most lucrative kingfish tournament trail in the world – is closing its 2008 season with a championship shootout in Biloxi, Miss. The top 50 teams from the FLW Kingfish Tour are competing for a top award of $75,000 cash in the lucrative no-entry-fee championship. Following opening day action Friday, team “Loose Lucy” captained by Mike Kaminsky of Charleston, S.C., looks to be the team to beat with a kingfish weighing 57 pounds, 10 ounces.
“We just bumped around rigs for about three hours,” said Loose Lucy team member Susan Kaminsky. “We got into some small fish, so we just kept bumping around and improving our weight. We finally got into a nice school of fish and stayed there about two hours.”
Kaminsky said team Loose Lucy used an assortment of bait, including ribbonfish, live blue runner of various sizes, bluefish and Spanish mackerel.
“We had two or three fish on from about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” Kaminsky said. “We have five team members, and three people were on rods most of the time. It was extremely steady.
“Tomorrow we’ll go out and catch enough bait for Sunday and then bump around some rigs again and see how things look and see if the water or temperature has changed,” Kaminsky added. “We just want to see how this cold front affects conditions so we can make a plan for Sunday pursuant to what we find out.”
Rounding out the top five teams are “Team BP” captained by Mike Edwards of Wilmington, N.C. (49-07); team “K Sea Lake” captained by Danny Carter of Morehead City, N.C. (45-10); “Team Coppertone” captained by Jay Robertson of Pawleys Island, S.C. (44-01); and team “Sake 1” captained by Danny Marsocci of Okeechobee, Fla. (43-15).
The FLW Kingfish Tour Championship is a three-day event. The entire field competes Friday and Saturday, and the top five teams, based on the heaviest fish from Friday or Saturday, compete Sunday. The winning team is determined by the heaviest kingfish from Friday or Saturday plus the heaviest kingfish from Sunday.
Tournament anglers aren’t the only ones winning big this season. With the introduction of FLW Fantasy Fishing™, FLW Outdoors® offered anyone the opportunity to enter for their chance to land the catch of a lifetime with the opportunity to win $7.3 million in cash and prizes. Players could become a virtual pro angler by signing up for Player’s Advantage, which provided them with exclusive insider information that could have guided them to a $100,000 victory at every Walmart FLW Tour® stop and the Forrest Wood Cup. Player’s Advantage gave them an edge over the competition and increased their shot for the $1 million cash grand prize awarded to the FLW Fantasy Fishing cumulative points winner. Visit FantasyFishing.com today to find out more information and to register for next season.
Coverage of the FLW Kingfish Tour Championship will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States as part of the “FLW Outdoors” television program airing Jan. 18, 2009. “FLW Outdoors” is also broadcast in Canada on WFN (World Fishing Network) and to more than 429 million households in the United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East through a distribution agreement with Matchroom Sport, making it the most widely distributed fishing program in the world. The program airs Sunday mornings at 11 Eastern time in most markets. Check local listings for times in your area.
FLW Outdoors, named after Forrest L. Wood, the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, is the largest fishing tournament organization in the world. In 2008 alone the organization is offering more than 90,000 anglers the chance to win over $40 million through 230 tournaments in 10 circuits. FLW Outdoors also took fishing mainstream with the largest cash awards in the history of fantasy sports, $7.3 million.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, call (270) 252-1000. For more information about FLW Fantasy Fishing and Player’s Advantage, visit FantasyFishing.com.