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 Southern Kingfish Association Competition Angling Team

July 17th, 2010

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Team FishDancer offers our 12 step program for teams thinking about competing in a King Mackerel Tournament...

      Tournament fishing is a giant challenge and it can be as difficult or as easy as you make it.  That is the essence of competing in KMTs and each team is faced with many choices.  Should you make a 100+ mile run one way in the hopes of catching bait and a good fish or should you stay close by and keep your baits in the water longer?  There are good arguments for both strategies.  In our angling career, fishing more than 150 events, Team FishDancer has done both - and just about everything in between - in search of the winning fish.  But for sake of this installment of FishDancer.net let's keep it simple and focus on the key steps a team can take to improve their odds of success.  What 12 major steps does a team need to do to successfully compete in a KMT?

1.  Attend the Captains Meeting.  This is a critical step to take as sometimes rules change at the last minute and missing these last minute changes can cost your team a DQ.  Also don't forget to fill out both the tournament and SKA paperwork to assure your team is legit for winnings and points.  If you don't attend, your team will miss out on the camaraderie between all teams fishing and even perhaps a late tip on where the bait or fish have been....so send at least one member of the team to the meeting...

2.  Have your number ready for checkout and get in line.  Early morning checkouts, sometimes in less than ideal light, can create potential hazards, including boat accidents.  Eager teams will be ready to checkout and if your team falls into line and is ready to show your number and have it verified by the tournament officials checkout will be quicker for all involved...

3.  If you don't buy bait, be sure to cast net bait as soon as it is light.  The first thing is to find bait and many times we will hear the flips well before we see them and don't forget to look for the mud spots....when you find them get the net loaded and ready to cast....

4.  Cast the net where you have seen or heard a flip.  The larger the flip the larger the bait.  Doing the cast net Dance is a real tango between caster and boat operator....they both need to be on the same page and looking at the same pod of bait to insure efficiency.  Nothing is worse than casting a 30 pound net multiple times with no results ... so work together and make sure the teammates are simpatico on what will be done

5.  The netter(s) need to make sure they can actually toss the net.  While this sounds like common sense too many times during a tournament 'THE' FishDancer and I have seen low quality nets as well as poor tosses of the net.  The net should open fully with its diameter creating a full circle over the bait spot.  The picture below is about 85% of a perfect cast....

6.  If you are successful, bring your baits quickly on board and put the largest ones into the live well, keeping the smaller ones for chum. The longer the baits are on the deck the more they will die...so act quickly.  You are now ready to fish.

7.  Once you have arrived at you chosen spot put the baits out in a spread and work the area hard until you get a bite.  Once a fish strikes, clear the lines and send the designated angler to the bow to fight the fish...

8.  Once the lines are cleared and the boat is pointed toward the running fish the gaffman should head to the bow to assist.  Communication between the angler, gaffman and boat operator is critical to keep the fish from under the boat, motors and downrigger gear as well as to give the team the best chance to scale a fish. The gaffer should be patient and only take a shot when they feel ready....trying to gaff too far away from the boat or too deep can create BIG issues like a lost fish.  Most fish are lost right at the boat so take your time....

9.  Once the fish is gaffed bring it into the boat quickly, stop any bleeding on the fish with ice and get it into the fish bag as soon as possible....during one of the SKA events this year 0.01 pound cost a team more than $10,000. That weight was lost in the gaffing and bagging process for sure...

10.  Once the fishing day is over, or IF you have a really big fish early, relax and make a safe run to the scales.....if you catch your fish really late...run as hard and fast as you need to to meet the check-in time....

11.  Check the leader board for where you team ended up in the tournament.  It is always nice to be on the board...

12.  Once all boat and fishing gear is cleaned and ready for the next event now is the time for your team to celebrate your leader board finish. Team FishDancer recommends repeating steps 1-12 in the next event..........

Next up for Team FishDancer is Captain Haps Kingfish Bash on the Bluff out of Darien, GA.  We will be fishing this as a pre-fish event for the Greater Jax event next week. Nancy and I will be taking our 12 step program with us and may begin with step 12.....it makes steps 1-11 so much easier and even JOBU likes it - good mojo for the team. Stay tuned

>>))))))">

  It is always good to see your team's name listed on the leader board.  It is better to see it on your hometown event.  And it is priceless when you get there fishing with your fishing mentor at a spot of your choosing. This was the situation for team FishDancer during the 28th Annual NSFA Tournament of Champions.  The plan was for Captain Jeff and Terry LaCoss to fish together on Friday with Nancy joining the team for Saturday's fishing.  After doing some pre-fishing and checking of the near shore waters we decided to fish the beach at the slough....a good decision for us both days as we caught a 24.58 on day one and an 18.02 on day two, leading to a 13th place finish.

    The conditions to fish the beach were just about perfect.  Warm water, shrimpers working the area for a week, bait pods stacked on the south end, light sw winds and virtually flat water. All good signs for a beach bite at the Smiley House. Captain Jeff found a decent fish during pre-fishing and it was with some excitement that we made the run down the beach.  After netting some good sized pogies we set the lines and trolled as slow as we could looking for a 40+ pound fish.  We managed a 24.58 pound fish and were in 9th place after day one.  Not too shabby.

      Day two we headed offshore for a few hours to let the tide get right and then headed back into the beach.  We had a small fish offshore that we released.  Once back at the beach we netted up pogies and trolled until the last minute looking for the big girl.  All we could muster was a small 18.02 but the first day 24.58 was good enough for 13th place overall and a spot on the podium and leader board.

      Thanks to everyone at the Nassau Sport fishing Association for a fun event and it was good seeing a strong turnout for our local King Mackerel tournament. 

The Chum Slick

Editorial Comment by Captain Jeff

What's the difference between a PRO tour and a manufacturer's division???

       I was spending some free time reviewing past issues of ANGLER magazine when I came across the following text from an editorial published in the October 1998 issue..

 "Their(sic) will be no open division next year.  It will be replaced by the Professional Kingfish Tour, a series of five events produced by the SKA.  All Open Division fishermen who have been fishing over the past three years are automatically grand fathered in.  The top six boats in each division will also get an invitation to participate in the Pro series.  Scoring will be based upon one fish per day, 10 fish for the five events with the best seven to count. We are about to give the manufacturers the arena to showcase their products along with some very good talent.  They're excited."

Wow, it sounded exciting even back then.  The original construct of this Professional series was clear, an exclusive tournament series that offered head-to-head big fish competition and a platform for qualifying angling teams to show off their fishing talent using the most cutting edge technologies and equipment.  It was true in 1998 and remains true for a PRO series today.    92 teams weighed fish in the old OPEN division (19 of which ran Yamaha motors) according to Angler magazine standings published in October of 1998 and according to the Pro Tour standings published in the May 1999 issue of Angler 94 teams made the transition to the new PRO format - sponsored in 1999 by Yamaha.   26 of those teams ran the sponsor's motors a nice increase for Yamaha.  So the new tour and its new title sponsor were off and running.  The core construct of the new circuit was to have teams that qualified; meet in head to head competitions 5 times a season, showcasing the nexus between angling talent and cutting edge motors, boats and angling equipment.  The PRO tour was a place for divisional competitors to aspire to... a great concept, one strong enough to have survived and thrived despite competition and a concept that frankly captured my attention so much so, that it became one of my fishing objectives.  Team FishDancer was determined to qualify for the PRO tour and fish head-to-head against the best anglers. It took us awhile to make it and what a thrill it was. Now fast forward to 2007.

Following the growth of the SKA and ever growing popularity of KMTs, in 2007 the Yamaha Professional Kingfish Tour was at its peak in participation (105 teams), payout ($40k first prize at 5 specific events) and popularity (TV coverage).  Despite the lingering affects of the failed FLW kingfish tour and series (also sponsored by Yamaha),  105 kingfish teams were competing in five distinct locations on the PRo circuit testing their skills and equipment against one another in widely varied waters with the ultimate goal of earning the title of Angler of the Year (AOY). AOY was promoted by the SKA as "..fishing's most prestigious title...".  Between 1998 and 2007 some of the teams had changed, some were the same from the inaugural season.  Overall sponsorship had grown with Boater's World, Raymarine, AFW and Hi-Seas as prominent sponsors along with Yamaha and Contender.  Over the years the 'PROS' had gained a reputation within the SKA and outside with anglers, sponsors and the general public as '..the best of the best...'.  Interestingly enough, after nine years of the Yamaha PRO tour, in 2007 during this peak season of the Professional Kingfish Tour, a smaller percentage of PRO teams ran Yamaha motors (22 of 105 or 21%) than did in the inaugural season in 1999 (26 of 94 teams or 28%)!  There are a variety of reasons for these statistics BUT they are what they are and they are what created the genesis for change in the Pro format and schedule for 2010. 

       As Yamaha informed me when I provided my input regarding the proposed new PRO series format in late 2009;

"...While (we) can appreciate how much you've enjoyed the relatively comfortable confines of the static group of anglers you've run with all these years .... we needed to try and get whatever separate tour/mechanism we would fund to try and increase numbers.  Period.  So we started with the teams of 'ours' who had indicated most clearly that they would NOT participate in another 5 event fixed site tour...'  

So the fundamentals and motivations of the 2010 Professional Tour schedule and format were much different in intent and design than those which originally created  the circuit and attracted our team to fishing as soon as we could qualify.   Gone is any need for  qualification - lowering the bar to enter the tour and weakening the camaraderie created by the shared qualification experience of the competitors.  Gone is the uniformity of the head-to-head competition replaced by wildcard events creating a less than equal playing field as well as the unintended consequence of additional costs to any teams trying to compete for AOY as more events needed to be fished to fulfill the WC scorecard. Gone is the sense of a circuit created by the shared values of divisional qualification and the head-to- head competition.  Gone is the big fish scoring replaced by a points system required to support the WC scoring and most importantly gone was the concept of a partnership between anglers and OEMS to showcase talent applying new cutting edge angling technologies all under the banner of the SKA.  This is the core of what a Professional Tour should be all about. As the saying goes if it looks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck.....IT'S A DUCK!!!! 

The current PRO format is primarily a manufacturer's division and the numbers tell the tale.  According to the SKA website in 2010 with the changes,  only 59 teams are competing on the 2010 Pro Tour and fully 39 teams or 66% of the teams are currently running Yamaha motors. A big change in both participation (down 43% vs. 07) and motor usage (an increase of 56% vs. 2007). We could blame the decline in participation on the economy or the decline in discretionary spending or the drop in housing prices - and each of those variables has had an effect, but there are other micro-economic issues in play.  In the end tournament anglers are a core customer segment for ALL boat and motor companies and the SOLE customer base for the SKA and it seems crazy to be alienating this core group under any circumstance.  As a point of reference in our SKA 'career' Team FishDancer has run Century, Wellcraft, Donzi and Contender boats as well as Yamaha and Mercury motors -- so today's competitor is tomorrow's customer.  It seems that adage has been lost.   So I ask what have we gained as a sport when AOY will be decided with 2 fixed events in the same waters, another fixed event 300 miles away and coupled with a variety of non-head to head WC scores from Texas to North Carolina?  It seems clear that the changes in format, scoring and schedule have altered the 11 year  comparative history of AOY and this once prestigious title has been seriously altered, perhaps irreparably.

      As the SKA put it in the 2007 Professional Tour Official Guide "....fishing a PRO Circuit is not for everyone.  It's demanding and certainly time consuming.  As one Pro put it 'it's the toughest test of skill in saltwater fishing today.  I fish it because of the friendships I've formed over the years, hopefully placing in a couple to cover expenses, but most important, I want the chance to prove I am one of the best'".

I do want to be clear that I have nothing but respect for all teams currently fishing the current iteration of PRO tour, it is never easy under any circumstances, and I wish them luck for the rest of the season. I am merely sad at what this once prominent tour has become but as I have always said "..fish where you choose and for the reasons that best fit your team."  Maybe 2011 will bring some improvement but only time will tell. I can honestly say it would be difficult to get back into a dedicated 5 event series once it has stopped as there are so many other fun and exciting things to do.  We hope to see some of our 'old' friends at the Big Dance this fall .....

'Captain Jeff '

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This high energy husband and wife team joined the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour after qualifying by finishing 8th in SKA Division IV in 2002.  In 2002 they won the Kingfish Division of the Offshore Blitz, won 1st place Lady Angler in the Two Way KMT, 2nd place Lady Angler and 9th overall at the Halfmoon KMT. Team FishDancer won the final leg of the SKA Pro Tour in Louisiana in 2003 by landing a 61.1 pound fish, the 2nd largest of the season and the largest weighed by a Lady Angler.  Team FishDancer has had 17 top ten day one performances on the SKA Pro Tour and seven top ten finishes; including  2 top Lady Angler wins; Golden Isles leg of the SKA Pro tour in 2007  and the Jacksonville leg of the SKA Pro Tour in 2005.   So far in 2008 the team has finished in 18th place overall in the Junior Angler Jacksonville King Mackerel Tournament and in 8th place at the SKA PRO tour stop in Brunswick, Georgia.   In 2007 the team has finished 4th overall at the Brunswick, Georgia SKA Pro Tour and earned 5th place in the 2007 ASWSC  20th Anniversary Sailfish Tournament, in Palm Beach, Florida. The team performed well in 2006 with 4 in the money finishes, including the 2 National Championships, 17th in the Rumble in the Jungle,  a 7th place finish in the 2006 Little River stop on the SKA Pro Tour and finished 6th overall in the 2005 SKA Pro tour event in Jacksonville. Nancy and Jeff, one of the top performing husband and wife competitive angling teams in the nation, finished 14th overall for the SKA Pro season with Nancy earning 3rd place Lady Angler. Nancy and Jeff  earned The team has completed the SKA Professional kingfish grand slam weighing in fish in the 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 pound classes, holds the SKA big fish (61.1)  for Port Fourchon, LA and has finished in the money 26 times in its SKA career.  Nancy is considered one of the top Lady Anglers in the nation and Jeff has received the prestigious SKA Director's award for his 'unselfish contributions to our sport"'

Nancy@FishDancer.net or Jeff@FishDancer.net

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