BILOXI, Miss. – Team Loose Lucy, captained by Mike Kaminsky of Charleston, S.C., won the Walmart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship on Sunday, earning $56,250 with two king mackerel weighing a total of 85 pounds even.
“This is an amazing feeling,” said Loose Lucy team member Susan Kaminsky. “We’ve been trying to get in the top five all season, and we’ve been just short in every tournament. This one tournament made up for the entire year.”
Team Loose Lucy led after the first day of competition with a kingfish weighing 57 pounds, 10 ounces. Rough weather led to the cancellation of the second day of competition, and the top five boats headed out Sunday morning to see who would be crowned FLW Kingfish Tour champion. Temperatures in the high 30s and high winds greeted anglers on the final day of takeoff.
“It was like being on a motorcycle going down a cobblestone street at 50 miles per hour for two hours,” Kaminsky said. “We wanted to go back to some of the spots we had fished earlier in the week, but we couldn’t get to all of the spots with the weather conditions. We went to a closer rig and tried to get a 30-pound fish.
“We couldn’t get anything bigger than 12 pounds,” Kaminsky added. “We started bumping around to some different bottom and structure that was within 20 miles and none of them panned out. We went back to our original spot and managed to pull out the 27-pound fish and that was barely enough to win it for us.”
Kaminsky said team Loose Lucy’s big kingfish Sunday came on a medium-sized blue runner.
“We were pretty confident all day,” Kaminsky said. “We were fishing with three of the other four boats half of the day, so we were all watching each other.”
Rounding out the top five teams were team Sake 1, captained by Danny Marsocci of Okeechobee, Fla. (two kingfish, 82-10, $12,000 plus a $6,000 Wellcraft bonus); team K Sea Lake, captained by Danny Carter of Morehead City, N.C. (two kingfish, 69-10, $7,200 plus a $3,600 Yamaha bonus); Team BP, captained by Mike Edwards of Wilmington, N.C. (two kingfish, 68-6, $5,700 plus a $3,100 Hydra-Sports bonus and a $3,100 Yamaha bonus); and Team Coppertone, captained by Jay Robertson of Pawleys Island, S.C. (two kingfish, 61-1, $4,800 plus a $2,400 Wellcraft bonus and a $2,400 Yamaha bonus).
The FLW Kingfish Tour Championship was a three-day event. The entire field fished Friday, but rough weather lead to the cancellation of Saturday’s competition. The top five teams, based on Friday’s heaviest fish, competed Sunday. Friday and Sunday’s weights were combined, and the winning team earned $37,500 cash plus a $18,750 cash bonus from Yamaha for a total award of $56,250.
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, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000. For more information about FLW Fantasy Fishing and Player’s Advantage, visit FantasyFishing.com.