Raleigh Saltwater king tourney

[BTH284]

Not as fired up about live baiting for kings as I use to be growing up.
Kingchaser asked me to fish this weekend's tournament with him and some friends. We entered my boat as he is having some engines troubles.

Made short work of catching bait even though the basin was crowded. This was in part to Kingchaser doing his homework and finding a good source for bait the previous day.

Nasty inlet Sat morning. Opted to drop lines in as soon as we cleared at 6 a.m. Started off outside the shipping channel on a temp changes of 1 degree. Sharks on the warm side and kings on the cool side.

Put one in the boat first thing. Stayed here for while and let the wind die out. Weeded through numerous sharks and some other knockdowns.

Made the run farther out to look for some cooler water I had seen on the SST shot near the shoals. Got to our mark and saw sardines schools everywhere. My first thought was I was kill for my dredge and some naked dinks on these schools. BUT we were after the kings not the sails.

Put two more kings in the boat and a monster spanish as the day went on and continued to weed out more sharks. Ended up weighing in a 10 lb'er and last I heard we were 84 out of 120. I am sure we got bumped after it was over.

Highlight of the day for me was going 1 for 2 on the sails. I dropped back to the 1st one when he came into the spread. However, he was just window shopping. Would have killed for 2 more knots of speed and nice pitch bait.
Cleared the downrigger and he followed the ribbon fish for quite some time before looking at the short and then he went on his way. The 2nd sail came up to the flat, took a swat, I freespooled and fed him the pogie, kept feeding him hoping the trebles would find their place not to deep. Put the lever up and cranked like a madman and it came tight along with a nice series of short jumps for the small billfish. Once I knew he was hooked, I immediately passed him off and let one of the crew get a chance at his first sail. The angler and Kingchaser released him unharmed and only hooked in the bill and the side of his lower jaw. He swam off full colored and completely healthy. Did I mention this was after the ride back in and this sail came from the Sea Buoy area

Sure ended being a nice day on the water though. Thanks for the invite Brad, I enjoyed it.

[O-SEA-D]

Great report Brian

Pretty work on the Sailfish my friend.

[Tuna Taxi]

Way to go Brian. Nice work on the Kings AND the Sails.

By the way...There are no sails at the Sea Buoy!!

[brandon558]

Way to go dude...i think you have the bills dialed in now

Pretty work man

Brandon.

[Reel Fanatic]

WTG on the report. You had a lot more activity than we did. We had three knock downs all day. The first ended up being a 19.5 lb. king. Based on previous years, I thought for sure we would win our gas money back but NOOOOO....

After that, we had a large sneaker head take a bait around mid morning and then we had another king hit & miss on a bait early in the afternoon. He shredded that pogie so bad it looked like an accordion. All in all, the fishing conditions were awesome compared to some of the tournaments I have fished in the past. I am grateful for anything less than 4' in a king tournament. We had a little trouble finding bait but it all worked out. We had a lot of fun and that's what it's supposed to be about anyway.

[Tuna Taxi]

RF,

Nice work, glad you had a good tournament (I know, woulda been better with a check).

Now what is a "sneaker head"? never heard that one before. Thanks.

After that, we had a large sneaker head take a bait around mid morning and then we had another king hit & miss on a bait early in the afternoon.

[hunt4fish]

Great report and Congrats on that sail.

[BTH284]

Alan, they were right between my cool water marks and where you and I talked about Friday night. I saw more than the 2 we raised working the sardine schools.

[cdail28590]

Way to go Brian. I know it was busy out there Sat. We were joy boating on the sound side and it was like a parade of king fishing boats all day.

[Swami]

Bill:
A sneaker head is a remora (the sucker part on their head looks like the bottom of a sneaker). Kind of a cool catch--we usually stick 'em to the side of the boat and had a couple days where they'll ride around with us for hours until we pick up to move...

Sam