Team Sweet Maria maintains overall lead at Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship - Major League Fishing

Team Sweet Maria maintains overall lead at Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship

Final day of Osage Beach competition scheduled for Sunday
Image for Team Sweet Maria maintains overall lead at Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship
Members of Team Sweet Maria show off an impressive 44-pound, 8-ounce catch. Team Sweet Maria ultimately qualified for Sunday's final day of competition at the 2006 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship in first place.
October 28, 2006 • David Brown • Archives

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – Team Sweet Maria, headed by Matt Henderson of Jacksonville, Fla., held on to an early lead with a kingfish weighing 44 pounds, 8 ounces to top day two of the $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship in Orange Beach where teams are competing for as much as $75,000.

Henderson and teammate Rocky Warpool of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., grabbed the day-one lead Thursday after their big kingfish ate a live blue runner near a drilling rig 30 miles south of Mobile Bay. FLW Outdoors management moved Friday’s second qualifying round to Saturday when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasted rough conditions.

The northern Gulf of Mexico subsided somewhat for day two, but seas were still daunting. Considering their lead reasonably secure, the top team stayed at port Saturday.

“It was rough today, and there are only two 41-pounders and two 37s behind us,” Henderson explained. “We knew it would be hard for (the tournament fleet) to come in with five 45-pound fish to push us out of the top five. So we just took some time off to rest and get all of our gear ready for tomorrow. As rough as it was, we just didn’t want to be out there today beating up our boat and possibly breaking something.”

Henderson and Warpool will start Sunday’s final round by running to a drilling rig southwest of Mobile Bay. Tournament teams have consistently found quality kingfish at this location, so the leaders will look to secure some early confidence.

“We think that a 30-pound fish can possibly win it, so we just want to get a 30 on the boat to take some pressure off of us,” Henderson said. “Then we’re going to go look for a bigger fish.”

Henderson expects a live blue runner to again tempt his quarry: “That seems to be the bait of choice out here. That’s what the big ones like, so that’s what we’ll fish. We have some baits already caught, but we’ll try to freshen up our supply by jigging up some blue runners on our first spot tomorrow. If the bait’s there, the fish should be there.”

Rounding out the top five teams are Team Psycho, captained by Gill Strelec of West Palm Beach, Fla. (41 pounds, 9 ounces); Team LoungAir/Cat Daddy, captained by Danny Mathis of Gonzales, La. (41 pounds, 6 ounces); Team Blondie, captained by James McNabb Jr. of Merritt Island, Fla. (37 pounds, 13 ounces); and Team Force 10, captained by Kevin Alexander of Conroe, Texas (37 pounds, 10 ounces).

Teams caught 18 kingfish Saturday weighing 522 pounds, 13 ounces in total.

The FLW Kingfish Series Championship is a three-day event. The winning team is determined based on the heaviest kingfish from Thursday or Saturday plus the heaviest kingfish from Sunday. Boats will launch from Zeke’s Landing Sunday at 7:00 a.m., and the final weigh-in will be held at the Gulf Shores Wal-Mart located at 170 Fort Morgan Road at 4 p.m. The public is invited to watch teams take off and enjoy free coffee and doughnuts at the Folgers Morning Coffee Break Sunday from 6-7 a.m. at Zeke’s Landing.

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 – qualified for the three-day, no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship.

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, 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.