FORT PIERCE, Fla. – The anglers came in battered, bronzed and wind-burned, but when all was said and done after a blustery first day of Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour competition it was a lanky 17-year-old named Captain Dan and his family crew who captured the lead with a torpedo of a kingfish that weighed 51 pounds, 14 ounces.
The fish gave Team Captain Dan a more than 10-pound lead over second-place Delph Fishing Team. And that’s no April Fool’s joke.
“To lead the first-ever FLW Kingfish Tour event my first time as captain is a wonderful feeling,” said Dan Gourley of Hilton Head, S.C., who at age 17 is the youngest captain on tour. “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.”
Team Captain Dan, which consists of Gourley, his parents Charles and Sheri Getsinger, as well as Tommy Strozzo, started the day by running north a brief ways out of the inlet at Fort Pierce. There they keyed on two areas, anchored about a half-mile off the beach and chummed all day. At about 1:30 p.m. the big one hit on a goggle eye and it put up a fight.
“He took 350 yards of line in the first run,” Gourley said. “I fought him for 45 minutes.”
The key to success Friday, he said, was patience. That and a lot of sardine chum.
“We went through about 75 pounds of it. We had a long, long slick going as far as you could see,” Gourley said, adding that staying close to shore was key to finding the big kings. “I think it’s about to be spawning season, so the big fish are coming in toward the beach.”
While young, Gourley is no stranger to tournament success. He started tournament fishing with his father when he was just 4 years old and was the Southern Kingfish Association’s top junior angler in Georgia for four years as well as the organization’s top junior angler in South Carolina for three years.
Last year in SKA competition at Fort Pierce, Gourley’s crew caught another top-flight kingfish, a 42-pounder, and finished in the top 10.
Coming in with some ground to make up but still in the second slot is the Delph Fishing Team, which weighed in a kingfish worth 40 pounds, 10 ounces Friday.
“We started north and then came back this way,” said Captain Rob Delph of Key West, Fla. “That was our third fish of the day. We had two others that weighed just under this one.”
With several tournament wins under their belt in South Florida, the Delph Fishing Team, based out of Key West, consists of brothers Rob, Billy and Michael as well as their father Ralph, who holds a number of IGFA records. Surprisingly, this is their first kingfish trip to Fort Pierce.
Team Hammersdown, captained by Don Wright of Myrtle Beach, Fla., secured third place with a king weighing 37 pounds, 2 ounces.
“We caught one big one and about 10 small ones,” said Wright, adding that they caught their big one on a blue runner in water 35 to 40 feet deep. “We really didn’t put any in the boat except that one.”
Hammersdown, like everyone, battled some adverse conditions when the wind picked up to about 20 mph as the day wore on and produced 4-foot swells in the Atlantic.
“It was pretty rough and a little nasty, but that’s fishing, though,” Wright said. “We had fun, and that’s the main thing.”
Cat Daddy fourth, Young Guns fifth
Team Cat Daddy claimed the fourth spot with 35 pounds, 2 ounces, and Team Young Guns took fifth place with 34-12.
“It’s a great start. There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Cat Daddy Captain Steve Shook.
“We had one bite and one fish,” said Young Guns crewmember Sebastian Butarelli.
Second day could be rougher
Of the 107 teams competing this weekend, 76 of them weighed in a fish Friday. All teams are competing in a one-fish showdown over the two-day event where the heaviest kingfish wins.
The second day of competition is scheduled to begin Saturday at 7 a.m. when the full field takes off from the Fort Pierce inlet.
Saturday’s weather forecast looks even sketchier than what anglers dealt with Friday, and there was talk of calling off day two if the winds are too rough. But tournament director Dan Grimes said he will make that judgment in the morning, adding that he prefers to give everyone a chance to compete as long as it’s safe.
“Tomorrow’s going to be a little rougher on all of us,” said Team Wild Turkey crewmember Tony Thaw. “We’re all going to be in our slicker suits, so you’re not going to see us in these pretty shirts.”