by Christopher Sprague, Contributing Writer
Hello Anglers,
We fished the Meat Mayhem in Key West, where we heard the weather was going to be nasty. This is the first big tournament of the new year. We traveled 47 miles to get to our spot. The day did not start well as we had our first bait caught in our prop, and then we got our downrigger ball caught on an old lobster pot. We also got cut off 3 times in a row!! Finally, we started catching kingfish, but nothing big. We watched a boat next to us haul in a big fish, we circled around and then our reel started screaming!!! We had our hopes high, but it ended up being a giant amberjack. We heard our friends on Spiced Rum III had a couple big fish just 1 mile to our East. We reeled all our gear in and moved to a new location.
After several hours, we had only a few kingfish, but nothing bigger than 25. We kept on fishing, and then we heard a scream! Downrigger!!! Fish on!! After 10 long minutes, we saw a huge silver fish in the water. We gaffed the kingfish and we were in awe!!! We guessed it to be 60 pounds. We tried a little more, but it was getting late, so we headed in. At weigh-in, the scale showed 59.2 pounds! We got 3rd biggest kingfish and our friends Spiced Rum III got first place aggregate. There were 10 fish weighed in all over 50 lbs. Key West produces monster kingfish!! I am looking forward to a lot of tournaments coming soon.
Tight Lines
Christopher Sprague