Simply Relentless

Leading kingfish team catches near-50-pounder, leads top five by 11 heading into Sarasota finals

SARASOTA, Fla. – After catching a 49-pound, 9-ounce kingfish Friday in the second half of the opening round of Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour competition at Sarasota, Team Relentless is going to be tough to beat in Saturday’s finals.

None of the top five teams from Thursday were able to top their fish from day one, but three of them still managed to make the cut. Teams Slip N’ Slide, Hooligan and My Three Sons – which respectively placed first through third yesterday – qualified in second through fourth place by virtue of Thursday’s catch, each just sliding down a notch on the leaderboard. Making a big comeback into the cut was Team Devocean, which caught a 36-pound, 14-ounce king Friday for the fifth and last qualifying spot.

However, all four of those teams will have some serious work cut out for them in trying to surpass Team Relentless, which established a monster 11-pound lead over the rest of the field.

Relentless – a team out of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., consisting of Capt. Tony Davenport, Mike Brandon and Don Bolt – established themselves Thursday with an eight-place weight of 34 pounds, 5 ounces. On Friday, things started out agonizingly slowly for Relentless, but then the bite picked up a little before noon.

“We went south a long ways to the same area we fished yesterday, and then we started to come back north a little bit,” Davenport said. “By about 11 o’clock, we were starting to get discouraged. Then we saw a fish sky on our downrigger line.”

Their first bite of the day turned out to be their near-50-pounder. They caught it at about 35 feet on a ribbonfish set up on a “super-special rig,” as Davenport put it, while fishing near Boca Grande Inlet.

“I knew it was a big because, as soon as it hit and took off, it almost took the reel with it,” said Bolt, a first-time tournament angler who was on the rod and reel. “It took off about 400 yards of line, but we didn’t fight it for more than 15 minutes.”

“Yeah, we pulled him in real quick because sometimes there are a lot of (barra)’cudas down there that would love to take a big bite out of a fish like that,” Davenport said.

“I don’t think there was a big school of them. We only saw one other fish caught there,” Davenport said.

Relentless left the area, and ended up catching and releasing another 32-pounder towards the end of the day.

“Absolutely, that was the most fun we’ve ever had,” Brandon said.

Slip N’ Slide second, looking for an angle

Day-one leading Team Slip N’ Slide sits in second place with a weight of 38 pounds, 9 ounces, 11 pounds off the pace.

While they didn’t weigh in a fish Friday, Capt. Tom Aberle seemed determined to find the keys to the big kings.

“They move around a lot here. The water cooled off a little bit today. It was 71 1/2 degrees where we were fishing, and we like it a little over 72. They just weren’t there today,” Aberle said. “Tomorrow, it’s no-holds-barred. We’re going to go where we have to go to get a big fish. We could either run 40 miles south or 30 miles north. I’ll know more after I talk to my friends tonight.”

Hooligan third

Team Hooligan will take the third-place weight – 37 pounds, 11 ounces – heading into Saturday’s finals. They also didn’t weigh in a fish Friday.

“It’s all about consistency,” Capt. Joe Winslow said. “If you catch a good fish on day one, you’ve got to back it up on day two. Twelve pounds is a lot of ground to make up.”

My Three Sons fourth

Team My Three Sons, captained by Terry Grantham, also chose not to weigh in a fish Friday. The team sits in fourth place with a day-one weight of 37 pounds, 10 ounces.

Devocean climbs to fifth

Catching the second-heaviest king of the day was Team Devocean, captained by Scott Routh. Their 36-pound, 14-ounce fish moved them up from 42nd place into fifth, where they beat Team Excitation by 1 ounce to make the cut.

“It started out slow,” crewmember Justin Smith said. “Then at 12 o’clock they started biting. At 12:40, we caught that one and came back up here.”

Smith said Devocean caught their king on a mullet bait, which they had to borrow from Team 8 Second since they lost bait-fishing time due to a spun hub on their engine.

“We just went fishing closer, about 50 miles from here,” Smith said.

Final round Saturday

The top five boats will take off at 7 a.m. Eastern time Saturday morning for the final round of competition. The winner – and a potential $100,000 check – will be determined by combined opening-round and final-round weight.