Coastal Kids: March 2020

My Fishing Adventures

By Christopher Sprague  Jr. Angler-Team Tuppens, Contributing Writer

28.8 lb. kingfish out of Key West.

Hello anglers,

Recently I was fortunate enough to fish a tournament in Key West, Fl. My dad and the rest of our crew met at our house at 3 AM on Thursday to trailer the boat to Key West to bait fish. I was unable to leave that day because I had school and had a huge performance that was mandatory and could not miss. Luckily, I was able to take off Friday! Right after my performance at school on Thursday night, my mom and I headed straight to Key West. It was a long drive, five hours in total. The tournament was Friday due to predicted bad wind and seas on Saturday.  Once we got to our hotel, I went to bed so I could be prepared for the next day. We headed out around 5:00 in the morning. We loaded the boat quickly and then took off and started heading toward our spot. We headed west towards the Marquesas, then we headed a little south to reach the Banana Bar, which in total was around 42 miles of running. Once we got to our spot, we immediately set out our runners that we caught the day before. Not only 5 minutes after we set out our lines, we heard the reel scream! We also saw a huge splash behind the boat, so we knew it was a huge fish. Jason immediately grabbed the rod and began reeling it in. We fought the fish for around 5 minutes when we saw the line lose pressure, the wire had been cut. We had lost the fish right at the boat. We were very disappointed, but we knew we wouldn’t catch anything if we were just sitting there mad, so we set out our lines again. Throughout the next 3 hours we kept getting fish that were around 20 pounds. Finally, we heard the reel scream! It sounded like a wahoo since it ran very fast and went straight up to the surface. Jason began reeling it in, and then suddenly, we saw we had lost the fish. Again, the wire had been cut. This was very odd since we rarely ever lose fish once they are hooked (unless we get sharked). We continued fishing, but we had no luck on getting a big one. Luckily, our friends had a giant 66lb. King and Spiced Rum III got a 51 pounder, so we were happy for them. All in all, we were happy that we got to fish the tournament and had a great time! Fish hard!!