July 15, 2006
We dropped the boat in just before 7 a.m. and ran out of the inlet and found lots of bait, but they were consistently very small. After searching through several schools of small Pogies, we finally found some decent sized bait and headed out to fish.
Our goal today was to anchor, do some heavy chumming and fish the kite. After getting the kite airborne and the some chum overboard, we had our first strike on the bait closest to the boat. From its broad shoulders we estimated the fish in the mid to high twenties. Unfortunately, as the fish ran the release clip malfunctioned and would not release. The fish ran until the pressure from the line to the clip to rod was too much, and the line was the first to break.
Our next fish hit the short bait as well, after circling the boat several times Greg angled the 20# plus fish to the boat. During his fight, the balloon rod had a strike. I dropped the bait back and was hooked up. I only saw the splash as the fish hit the balloon rig, so I could not estimate the weight. As the fish blistered away from the boat, the balloon did not pop, and the added pressure resulted in the hooks being pulled.
We had a couple of sharks and the bit slowed. We moved to another spot nearby where we found a good amount of bait and immediately had a couple of kings sky our or long line.
We ended the day trolling around with only one strike. It was definitely rough today, and in reviewing the FLW Kingfish Series Tournament results in Southport, our fish would have faired very well as the leader board there was very sparse.
July 3, 2006
We left the dock at Edisto on the Contractor 4 around 5 a.m. and began the run toward the 226 Hole.
We started fishing in 180’ of water and worked our way offshore. We quickly had three nice Gaffer Dolphin strikes, but only managed one to the boat, which was able to hop off the gaff. The bite was slow after this until we had a small blue (estimated around 150#) knocking on the transom door. After sampling four of our baits, Mr. Blue was gone.
We heading back towards the Ledge, hoping to find some meat, but only found a couple of Cudas, one King, and some Slingers.
FLW Kingfish Series
Beaufort, South Carolina
June 24, 2006
The first tournament in the FLW South Carolina/Georgia division drew a field of 90 boats from North Carolina to Florida. We were excited to participate in the inaugural tournament in this division and after receiving one of the last numbers for check-out in the random draw at the captain’s meeting, we were ready to go fishing.
After idling to checkout at 6:15 in then the morning we showed our proud number 72 and turned around and headed north. Our plans were to head 20 miles offshore of Edisto in 65 feet of water, but when we got to the ocean we were greeted with slightly larger than expected seas. After baiting up with medium sized pogies we began the slow and persistent trip offshore.
Due to the conditions, we were forced to begin fishing around 50 feet of water at the Dirty Spaniard hole, where we found a lot of good bottom. We set our spread and immediately had our first fish, a 5-pound Spanish, on the long rod. We reset the lines and soon found ourselves hooked up with more Spanish.
The Spanish that we were catching were quite large, but Reed hoping to find a smaller Spanish suitable for bait, employed a jig rod and started casting. On the third cast the spool started to smoke. After a hard fight, what we thought was going to be a large Spanish came to the boat as a 20-pound king. In a rush, I jumped to get the gaff down, but as I did, the fish shook his head and threw the spoon. We were disappointed, but comforted by the fact that kingfish were in the area.
Our next fish was a small king in the prop wash bait, followed by a large barracuda on the downrigger. Finally, after sorting through several more large Spanish, we put a small but weighable king in the boat.
The bite shut down around 12:30 and we finished our day by fishing the sea buoy off of Edisto.
Our small fish weighed 16.1 pounds, putting us 25th in the tournament and overall standings.
June 10, 2006
Newton, Mary Coleman and I ran out offshore of the 4KI from Edisto to do a little pre-fishing for the upcoming FLW Kingfish Series Tournament in Beaufort. We were able to quickly find bait off of Edisto, however the Pogies were small in size.
We ran approximately 20 miles to find the area devoid of any life. After an hour with no action and increasing winds, we decided to head back to the hill.
We ran in through the Stono Inlet and back around to Edisto.
South Carolina Governor’s Cup
Edisto Beach, SC
May 3, 2006
The Contractor 4 was crewed by an impressive team comprised of Newton Hornsby, Lovick Hornsby, Tucker Altman, Crawford McKeithan, John Payne, and myself. We joined over forty boats for the pursuit of the big Blue.
We left the dock shortly after 3 a.m. and slowly made our way offshore. We started trolling around the 226 Hole and quickly had our first knockdown, a medium Blue on a lure. The reel screamed, then fell silent. We didn’t know what was until he broke the surface, and spit the hook.
We then worked inshore and offshore picking up some Dolphin, but overall it was a slow day. With thirty fishing minutes left in our day, we had a good fish. It knocked down a blue and white on an 80 and began to run. We knew we had a good fish on, but until we saw the dorsal fin break the water, with didn’t know that Mrs. Blue came to see us. Then she decided she wanted to leave us and quickly started dumping the reel as she made numerous jumps in her run.
After stopping the run, and starting to regain some line, it went slack. Terminal tackle failure! Old line and a broken knot lost us the tournament. This was a kill fish that we only have a story to tell about.
May 5, 2006
Having re-spooled the reels yesterday, we hoped our luck would continue in finding some fish, and this time to be able to capitalize. We were not as fortunate today however, as we only saw one Billfish in the baits.
Overall, the tournament had a slow bite, the winner being the first to release a Blue. We had a good time fishing, but were disappointed knowing we had two fish that could have won the tournament. The first Blue we had on would have been an earlier release and the second Blue would have been the only weighable fish of the tournament.
