Respect the Authority
Team Folgers hooks 57-pound monster king, leads Fort Pierce day one amid brewing storms
FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Everybody talks about Venice, La., as the nation’s big-king capital, but Fort Pierce put on a pretty good show of its own Thursday in the first half of opening-round competition of the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour. Team Folgers-Offshore Authority caught a 57-pound, 13-ounce king to take a commanding lead over the 86-boat field.
“It’s going to be hard to top this,” said Team Folgers Capt. David Kingery, who hails from Melbourne, Fla. “This is a big fish – a lifetime fish – right here.”
No kidding. At 57 pounds, 13 ounces, the fish set the mark as the heaviest king caught to date in the two-year-old FLW Kingfish Tour, besting two fish from last year, a 56-9 caught by Team Slip N’ Slide at Venice and a 56-5 caught by Team Cat Daddy here at Fort Pierce.
Battling early thunderstorms in the morning, Team Folgers caught the fish around 9 a.m. in offshore waters north of Sebastian, Fla. While they had already caught four prior fish, the big king bit a blue runner on the long, shotgun line in about 50 feet of water.
“I just heard the reel screaming. It almost pulled off all the line,” said crew member Randy Truitt, who was driving the boat. “It made the one run, and then it just played on the bottom like a lead grouper for about 20 minutes.”
When crew member Brett Taylor finally gaffed the fish and they beheld its size, the crew knew their fish was a good one, to say the least.
“That’s when your stomach drops to your feet, and you’re thinking, `God, don’t drop him,'” Taylor said.
“It was just complete adrenaline. I thought I was going to get sick, actually,” Truitt said. “I still feel nauseous, really, but I’m definitely not complaining.”
With a more than 12-pound lead over second place, Team Folgers understandably feels pretty confident about its odds for making the top-five cut.
“I love it. Chances are one in a million to top it, so we’ve got to concentrate on Saturday now,” Kingery said. “Tomorrow, we’re just going to go prefishing in order to find some more spots.”
Lured Away second
Team Lured Away, captained by Robert Schoenfeld of Conroe, Texas, grabbed second place with a kingfish weighing 45 pounds, 4 ounces.
“We actually caught two fish, one about 40 and that one,” said Schoenfeld, who added that they fished near the Boil area about 10 miles down from Fort Pierce Inlet. “There were schools of pilchards where we were fishing, so that’s why we started jigging up pilchards and using that as bait.”
Triple Gobble third
Capt. Greg Weathers of Pawleys Island, S.C., and Team Triple Gobble placed third with a king weighing 44 pounds, 11 ounces.
“It wasn’t a really big bite to start with, but we stuck with it and got a good one,” Weathers said. “We were just trolling one area where we found some fish prefishing.”
Weathers said they caught their keeper around noon on a naked blue runner in about 20 feet of water.
“It was pretty basic,” he said. “We were right up on the beach. There were at least 10 boats out there today.”
East Coast Sports fourth
Team East Coast Sports, captained by Randall Edens of Hampstead, N.C., took fourth place with a fish weighing 38 pounds, 9 ounces.
They caught two fish Thursday. Their keeper bit on a blue runner on the shotgun line in 30 feet of water.
The Reel Won fifth
Team The Reel Won, captained by Robert Woithe of Placida, Fla., caught a kingfish weighing 34 pounds, 5 ounces and placed fifth Thursday.
Opening round continues Friday
The second half of opening-round competition in the FLW Kingfish Tour at Fort Pierce begins Friday as the full field of 86 boats takes off from Fort Pierce Marina at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time. Teams are fishing for heaviest fish over the first two days to determine the top five to advance to Saturday’s finals.