2004 Fishing Reports

Drum Inlet King Mackerel Tournament - CONTINUED
October 9, 2004

plan we came up with the night before of starting north, then following the NE swell south back to Drum Inlet and East Rock.

We settled in on a decent little warm water at 72.5 degrees in 51 foot of water. Mullets and shad were all over the beach… sure signs that fall was here. We started putting the lines out and immediately saw a twenty plus pound king sky on a bait. We put all the lines out and before I could get on the wheel to give Dad a break, the long line ripped off. Brent grabbed the rod and I started getting all the rods off the deck. Dad was on the wheel and the fight was on. Brent mounted on the bow and Dad throttled up the Merc’s for the chase. 15 minutes later Brent had the fish on the surface. He gave the rod to me and took control of the gaff. I pulled the fish forward for its last breath and Brent drove the gaff in her side. He pulled the girl overboard and there laid what we thought was close to a 40 lb. king. We iced her down and sat back and looked at each other trying to figure out what to do now. 7:20 am and we had the fish we wanted in the bag. We made a decision to start fishing our way back to the scales. We stopped near Drum Inlet to give the rest of our baits some pre-Halloween fright, catching some nice 20 lb fish, then made one more stop, resulting in another king around 20 lbs.

We packed up the rods and headed to scales at Beaufort for the 3:00 pm weigh in. Dad and Brent took the bag to the scales and were rewarded with a nice 37.52 lber. We were very excited to later learn that we were able to hang on and win the tourney, despite some formidable "contenders" in line behind us at the weigh in.

Walter Simpson and Emmit Pittman, who put on the tournament, have always been considered by all our team to be good friends and that made winning this tourney a little more special. The only downside was that all of our team could not be a part of this victory. Lauren could not fish due to taking her SAT test for College and Sis had prior commitments.

As always, our team owes many thanks to our sponsors Mercury Motors, Sea Striker / Star Rods, Coastal Carolina Marine, and most recently Wells Fargo Finance.

We hope to see everyone on the water at Hatteras for the last fall SKA tourney and wish everyone a safe trip to Biloxi for the SKA Nationals.

Tight Lines... Capt. AL