Team Turner Loose wins Kingfish Series event

Team wins Gulf Coast Division event in Texas

PORT ARANSAS, Texas – Team Turner Loose, headed by Captain David Turner of Montgomery, Texas, caught a kingfish weighing 46 pounds, 1 ounce to win the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Gulf Coast Division event in Port Aransas and $12,000 cash.

Joined by Jill Turner, Donny Turner, and Scott Turner, all of Montgomery, Texas, the winning captain ran 65 miles south of Port Aransas to fish a patch of rocky bottom in 35 feet about a mile off the Port Mansfield Inlet. The big fish hit a live blue runner on a long flatline around 10 a.m. Jill Turner fought the fish about 10 minutes and Donny Turner gaffed it.

“He didn’t fight much so we didn’t think it was a very big fish until we got it in,” David Turner said. “When we got it in close enough to get an eye on it and gaff it, we thought the fish was about 36 pounds. We were happy but we didn’t think we had a winning fish.”

Team Turner Loose fished in cloudy and occasionally rainy conditions, but the crew didn’t let the weather affect their strategy. “We just stuck with our game plan,” David Turner said. “We didn’t change anything and it worked out for us. We fished all surface baits because of the depth. The long baits were running about 15 feet deep anyway, so we didn’t use downriggers.”

David Turner said fishing with family fosters team unity and promotes performance. “We’ve been fishing tournaments together since 2003, so we have a lot of consistency. We each have our jobs to do and we do everything the same each time. We don’t have a lot of things break on us and we don’t lose a lot of fish.”

Rounding out the top five teams were Team Yellowfin captained by John Thomas Dusek of Missouri City, Texas (45 pounds, 15 ounces, $2,460 plus $1,845 Yamaha bonus); Team Papotanic captained by Bill Platt of Dickinson, Texas (43 pounds, 3 ounces, $1,640 plus $1,230 Yamaha bonus); Team Obsessed Coonass captained by Glenn Plaisance of Raceland, La. (36 pounds, 12 ounces, $1,230); and Team Lured Away captained by Robert Schoenfeld of Conroe, Texas (36 pounds, 6 ounces, $820).

FLW Kingfish Series qualifying tournaments are one-day events. The field competes Saturday, and the winning team is determined based on the heaviest kingfish. The next FLW Kingfish Series event will be held September 16 in Atlantic Beach, N.C.

The FLW Kingfish Series consists of five divisions – East Florida, West Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina-Georgia and Gulf Coast. Each division is comprised of three events with a $100,000 purse for each event. The top 100 teams – 20 from each division after three qualifying events – will qualify for the three-day, no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship to be held in Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 26-28. The championship winner will take home as much as $75,000.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series, as well as the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Stratos Owners’ Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series. These circuits offer combined purses exceeding $36.9 million through 241 events in 2006.

For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, browse FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.

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 world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.