Team Chevy/Miss Micki 2 still on top

Early day-one leaders maintain position in Kingfish Tour event in Venice

VENICE, La. – They paced nervously, they tried to sit every now and then, but Team Chevy/Miss Micki 2 kept close tabs on every team’s attempt to overtake their lead on day two of the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event at Venice Marina.

The Raleigh, N.C., team comprising Captain Ricky Rowland, his wife, Shannon, and Bill McLamb grabbed the early lead as the second team to weigh a fish on day one. Their 51-pound, 15-ounce smoker has been the only fish to break the half-century mark.

After weighing the top fish, Ricky Rowland stated that if his team placed at least third on day one, that they would not fish on day two and instead use the time for preparation and scouting for Sunday’s final round. The leaders did indeed sit out day two; in fact they never even left the marina. Having spent the downtime prepping tackle and attending to equipment needs on the boat, Ricky said he’s optimistic about returning to action on Sunday.

“I feel really good about tomorrow,” he said. “We had some trailer problems and a few little issues on the boat, but we got all that wrapped up and now we’re 100-percent ready for tomorrow. I think we’ve located the fish, and we just have to go back there tomorrow and get a good one.”

Ricky Rowland said he plans on running about 35 miles into the West Delta area and targeting drilling rigs in about 100 feet. Blue runners are plentiful throughout the area, so live bait should not present a problem; however, He said his team will depend more on dead baits.

“We caught our big fish on a ribbonfish on the downrigger, so we’ll probably take a little more care of our ribbonfish (tomorrow),” he said.

Notably, the top team is followed by a quartet of past FLW Kingfish Tour winners.

Folgers wakes up and smells second

David Kingery of Melbourne, Fla., and his Team Folgers crew made the closest run on the top spot with a 45-pound, 11-ounce king that bumped them up 20 notches from 22nd to second going into Sunday’s final round.

Kingery, along with Kyle Walsh and Randy Truitt, both of West Melbourne, Fla., ran about 35 miles west and caught their fish at 9:30 a.m. on a live blue runner. They boated their fish shortly before a nasty storm blew through the West Delta.

“After the storm went through, the bite shut off,” Kingery. We didn’t catch another fish all day. We had caught a lot of smaller fish, we caught some 25- to 30-pounders all morning. It was a good bite, but as soon as the weather changed, the bite shut off.”

Kingery said that he and his teammates were pleasantly surprised at their fish’s weight: “We’re happy with that fish – it’s bigger than what we thought it was. We guessed our fish wrong yesterday. We thought we had a 37- or 38-pound fish, and it turned out to be a 33.

“We were a little afraid of our guessing today. We thought we had a 40-pound fish, so we stuck him in the bag and didn’t look at him all day until we broke him out to come up here and weigh.”

M&M’s makes it to third

Capt. Randy Griffin and his North Carolina-based Team M&M’s found a 44-pound, 8-ounce kingfish and fed him a sweet blue runner that melted in his mouth, not in his hands – make that “fins.” Running past the 50-mile mark in the West Delta, Griffin’s team fished in about 150 feet. Griffin caught the fish, and Jack Wood handled the gaff.

Wood said that success for Team M&M’s depended on a thorough search: “The key was being persistent and looking until we found something good. We fished (approximately) 10 rigs today.”

Foremost in the team’s evaluation of a rig’s potential is the presence of forage. “We always like to find bait on the surface,” Wood said. “We usually catch enough to start fishing. While we’re fishing around the rig, we usually catch more bait while we’re fishing.”

After placing second on day one with 43-9, My Three Sons, captained by Terry Grantham of Florence, S.C., slipped to fourth. Mechanical issues limited their fishing time, and they did not weigh a king on day two. Father-son team Ed and Shawn Mecchella improved from 30th to fifth with a 43-7 on Fish Fiver/Strike Zone Melbourne.

Best of the rest

Rounding out the top 10 leaders at the FLW Kingfish Tour Venice event:

6th: Team Buck Wild, captained by Quint Higdon of Pensacola, Fla., 42-12

7th: Team Century-Yamaha, captained by Ozzie Fischer of Fort Myers, Fla., 42-12

8th: Team Land O’ Lakes, captained by Daniel Gourley of Hilton Head Island, S.C., 42-3

9th: Team Loose Lucy, captained by Mike Kaminsky of Charleston, S.C., 41-10

10th: Team Logan’s Run, captained by David Logan of Belville, N.C., 41-5

FLW Kingfish Tour action in Venice continues at Sunday’s takeoff, scheduled to take place at 7 a.m. at Venice Marina, located at 237 Sports Marina Road in Venice. Weigh-ins start at 5 p.m. at Venice Marina.