FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Team Captain Dan headed by 17-year-old Dan Gourley of Hilton Head, S.C., caught a kingfish weighing 51 pounds, 14 ounces to lead day one of the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour event presented by Yamaha in Fort Pierce, where a field of 107 teams is competing for a top award of as much as $100,000 cash in the $1.7 million tour’s inaugural event.
While Gourley has participated in kingfish tournaments since he was 4, this is his first tournament as captain. It was a great day to be at the helm, too, as the 51-pound king mackerel he brought to the scale is the biggest kingfish of his life. The massive fish hit a goggle eye floating about 35 yards behind the boat while Captain Gourley and his team were anchored about a half mile off the beach and 3 miles from the inlet to Fort Pierce Marina. It then proceeded to peel 350 yards of line off Gourley’s reel on its first run, and a 45-minute battle ensued.
“To lead the first ever FLW Kingfish Tour event my first time as captain is a wonderful feeling,” said Gourley, who was the Southern Kingfish Association’s top junior angler in Georgia for four years and the organization’s top junior angler in South Carolina for three years. “I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot, but I feel real confident about this fish. It’s the biggest fish of my life, and when I first got a look at it alongside the boat, my hands started shaking. My whole body started shaking. It was just incredible.”
With potentially rough weather in the forecast, Captain Gourley plans to stay close to the inlet and fish the same area Saturday. “There is no need to run offshore,” he said. “The bigger fish are in close.”
Team Captain Dan, comprised of Gourley, his parents Charles Getsinger and Sheri Getsinger, and Tommy Strozzo, who was not on the boat Friday, keyed on two areas that were holding baitfish. The team also used 75 pounds of chum to call up their tournament-leading kingfish. There were no other boats fishing the area.
Rounding out the top five teams are the Delph Fishing Team captained by Bill Delph of Key West, Fla. (40 pounds, 10 ounces); team Hammersdown captained by Don Wright of Myrtle Beach, S.C. (37 pounds, 2 ounces); team Cat Daddy captained by Danny Mathis of Gonzales, La. (35 pounds, 2 ounces); and team Young Guns captained by Harvey Way Jr. of Bunnell, Fla. (34 pounds, 12 ounces).
A total of 76 teams caught fish on opening day.
FLW Kingfish Tour qualifying tournaments are two-day events. The entire field competes Friday and Saturday, and the winning team is determined Saturday based on the heaviest kingfish of the tournament. Boats will launch from Fort Pierce Marina located at 1 Ave. A Saturday at 7 a.m., and the final weigh-in will be held at the marina beginning at 3 p.m.
When registration opened for the FLW Kingfish Tour in February, every qualifier filled in less than 48 hours. As a result of continued strong demand, FLW Outdoors expanded the field for the season opener from its previously established 100 boats to 107 boats and is considering an increase for other tour stops. Along with the field increase, the payback for the season opener was increased and an additional place was added to the payout schedule.
The next FLW Kingfish Tour event, presented by Raymarine, will be held June 10-11 in Venice, La. Anglers interested in entering may call FLW Outdoors at 270-252-1000. Entry fees are $1,500 per team.
The $1.7 million Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour consists of four regular-season events. After four events are complete, the top 50 teams compete in the three-day, no-entry-fee $500,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship to be held in D’Iberville, Miss., Oct. 13-15. The championship team will take home as much as $150,000.
Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and seven other national tournament circuits offering a combined $30 million in awards through 214 events in 2005. The 27-year-old organization is the purveyor of America’s largest and most prestigious fishing tournaments, including the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, EverStart Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series.
For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, visit FLWOutdoors.com.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as title sponsor of the FLW Tour in 1997 and today is the title sponsor of all FLW Outdoors events.