It is days like today that make you think about the reasons why you fish the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour.  The weather forecast was poor and at last night's Captain's meeting a vote was held by the Pro Captains to decide IF we should fish one day (Saturday) and be able to weigh two fish or fish two days.  By a margin of 3 votes the majority decided to fish two days.  This decision is completely understandable -- eliminate the luck factor and test ourselves against each other AND Mother Nature.  The checkout went smoothly at 7am and Nancy and I had made a last minute change of plan - on the water decision regarding our fishing spot.  Rather than fish right out front of Key West, we decided to run West as far as we thought was reasonable and try to make it some spots where we had enjoyed good luck in the past.  The first 20 miles was fine with the new FishDancer humming along around 45mph.  The last 15 was MISERABLE.  Once we passed the Marquesas the ocean got ugly in a hurry and we plodded our way another 15 miles to our chosen location.  After trolling in 20-25mph winds and seas all of 4-6' we got a strike and began our first 'Kingfish Mambo' on the new Contender with Mercury Verado 300s.  After a daunting dance, Nancy was able to bring the fish boatside and I was able to gaff the fish...we both figured mid 30s, a good fish to christen the new boat.  We fished for another 90 minutes or so amid the building seas and decided to head back closer to home base...so we turned the bow directly into the winds and seas and and headed the 30+ miles back towards Key West.  The Contender 33T handled the seas with surety and solid feel, landing softly when needed and there was no better sea trial for the boat than the seas we fished in today.  The Mercury Verado 300s did their job without complaint, quiet, sipping fuel at our low cruise speed and easy to drive due to the power steering. We fished the afternoon away at the Western Dry Rocks without a bite and headed to the scale to find the fish tournament fish weighed on the new boat weighed 33.27 pounds and put us in 14th place after day one.  Oh yeah, despite the trials, seas, winds and other hazards the reason we fish the SKA Pro Tour is that it is so much fun.  We are glad to see several of our 'old' fishing buddies -- The Reel Won and Four Sons -- are back to fish in this circuit......stay tuned......

Nancy and I have arrived in sunny Key West, Florida -- the site for the start of the 2008 SKA Professional Kingfish Tour.  We left Fernandina Beach for the 550 mile one way trek and decided to make the trip in two parts, first traveling to Weston and staying overnight and then making the last leg of the journey to the keys.  The good news is we arrived without incident and safe, no DOT issues or other mishaps but the bad news was the 2nd leg of this trip took forever.  Almost 5 hours from Weston to Key West -  it seems there were myriad 'Sunday Drivers' coupled with a nautical flea market in Islamorada and a new traffic light on Deer Key which both had westbound traffic tied up for miles.  Upon arriving at Kings Pointe Condos and Marina (formerly known as Oceanside) we got the boat settled into her slip and 'THE' FishDancer and I settled in our condo overlooking the marina.  Although very pricey, this set up is one of our favorites along the circuit.

We had the chance to take the new FishDancer out this afternoon and played around a bit at the KW buoy and a few other close in locales seeking bait.  We had a few bonita, a small yellowtail and 3 blue runners. We also checked out where we think the scales will be -- if we are right just go between the cruise ships and you cannot miss it, but we are not sure.  Weather wise all looks good until Wednesday when a front is expected through and the seas are projected to be up.  Thursday's NOAA forecast is calling for 5-7' beyond the reef and the same for Friday.....YIKES.  We hope the accuracy of the forecast is in play here and if the front passes on Wednesday and we get a blow Wednesday night and Thursday that perhaps the winds and seas will calm a bit for the first day of the event.  Stay tuned....

 

We Splashed our 2008 Contender 33t with dual Mercury Verado 300s today. All I can say is WOW!!! After Nancy backed me down the ramp, I turned the keys and said "S*&t there is something wrong, the %$#&*@&#^$## engines won't turn over." I walked to the transom to diagnose the problem and realized they had both fired immediately and were so quiet I didn't hear them. Humbled already by the engines and DTS, I was hooked. The Mercury Verados are simply AWESOME. Quiet, powerful, DTS is slick and with the standard power steering it makes the 33t responsiveness similar to a sports car. The ability to control the boat with DTS is much enhanced vs. traditional throttles and I artfully made the Contender 33t pivot in place while docking at the marina....it actually looked like I knew what I was doing!!!!!! After splashing her and running the boat for 15 minutes, I wondered how we ever lived without them. We are still breaking in the motors but with 150 gallons of fuel, three full livewells and two people we topped out at 57MPH on the GPS. We ran Tempest 23 props. I would expect there might be a bit more speed available with some tweaking but all in all the 33t is a great hull and the Mercury Verado 300s are already well above my wildest expectations.....

 

 

Every angling team needs support assistance and Team FishDancer is no exception. In our 12 year angling career we have found none better than Charlie, ED and Sherrie from River Marine whom we depend upon for our Mercury support and engine service. And we count upon Robert Salas from Quality Marine as our chosen electronics expert.

 

Thanks to all for assisting us in getting the FishDancer rigged and ready to head south for the start of the SKA Pro Tour season.  We have less than 2 weeks to go..stay tuned.....

 

Regular readers of this website know that the 'FishDancer' team name was derived following a long ago vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii and a visit to the 600 year old fishing village at Lapakahi.  Here the fish and weather gods were called upon and danced to; assuring the safe return and bountiful catches of the village's fisherman.  This was a rough living for these ancient anglers and we have come to honor the respect they showed for the forces of nature. Winds, seas, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods and droughts were all a common occurrence on the islands -- in fact just prior to our visit, the Big Island experienced a hurricane, earth quake, volcanic eruption of Kilauea and a tsunami alert all within the same week.  These were not islands for the faint hearted!!!  Thankfully modern civilization is just a few miles away from the ancient village and we enjoyed our 100% Kona coffee each morning of our stay on the veranda of our condo overlooking Maua Kea and the 9th hole of the Waikoloa Golf Course, literally steps from the beach. The Mauna Kea mountain is 13,000 feet tall and is in the winter season snow capped.  It hosts some of the Earth's most powerful telescopes as the clear air of the islands coupled with very low light pollution create astronomy's best window into our universe.  It is quite a site under any circumstance; literally a 13,000 foot mountain of cooled lava. 

 

It has been 5 years since Nancy and I have ventured back to the fishing village which is the inspiration of our fishing team and we wanted to be sure the fish gods were not displeased with our absence.  We brought with us a Mardi Gras coin from New Orleans and obtained some beads on the island to leave among a collection of lava rocks and coral we assembled at the Lapakahi site. This offering should please the Hawaiian god of volcanoes Pele and her sister the Hawaiian god of the seas Namakaokahai. Hawaiian mythology has these two siblings always fighting and this can still be witnessed today as lava seeps out of the Kilauea east rift zone and travels to the sea to be savaged by the forces of the sea. Polynesian and Hawaiian myths all indicate that Namakaokahai always seems to win these battles with Pele needing to move from island to island. These types of offerings to the gods were commonplace in ancient Hawaii and along with human and animal sacrifices. Sacrifices were a staple of the Kapu system of governance.  A Kapu was a forbidden act and punishable by death.  Kapu acts could range from taking fish out of season to having your shadow pass by an Ali'i (royalty).  Since we wanted to be sure to honor the gods we left our offering and can only hope that our meager offering will please the ancient gods on the Big Island.

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John Prine sings with editorial license from Captain Jeff

"Up in the morning - fish for a hog;

Is better than sitting like a bump on a log.

Keep your baits happy and troll your lines straight;

Someday you’ll catch a fish with the winning weight.

 Now I know a fellow, he is tall like a tree;

He publishes a web site to help anglers like you and me.

You ought to see his wife; she’s a cute little dish;

With a smile like the sun, she dances with fish.

There’s a big ‘ole goofy man fish dancing with a lil ole goofy girl

Oooooooo baby, Kingfishing it’s a big ole goofy world"

 

Anyone who has ever wet a line knows that fishing can be a strange pass-time.  Anyone who has ever tournament fished for king mackerel can testify about the strange and weird occurrences from the weather, to fish behavior, to decisions of tournament officials.  As John Prine reminds us above "...ooooooooooo baby, Kingfishing it's a big 'ole goofy world..."  With this in mind I thought I might try to list the top 10 'goofy' things about the Kingfishing world from the FishDancer tournament experience.....

1. Nature/Weather - nothing is 'goofier' in this sport than nature!  Sea conditions, weather and other natural phenomenon create havoc for us.  Fog at the nationals several years back made the 120 mile run to the west delta interesting, water spouts, seeing lightning turn the ocean red, fishing in 40 degree air temps in Key West, bites turning off due to passing fronts, catching pogies in the 'Hawaiian-like' swells off of Hatteras, the monsters who live under the waves of the mouths of certain inlets, thermoclines and catching kings in the gulf when the H2O surface temperatures were in the 50s all prove that Mother Nature in the number one Goofy variable along the SKA Professional Trail....don't anger the fish gods or mother nature!!!!

2. 61.1 three circles - If you participated in my Kingfish College series you would be instructed to take a gaff shot anytime the gaff man feels ready and able to gaff the fish.  I should follow my own instructions. In 2003 while fishing the SKA Pro Tour stop at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, Team FishDancer was able to score a decent fish on day one - a 43.49 to keep us in the running at this event.  On day two we headed back to our 'secret rig' and placed a high 40s fish and then a fish over 50 in the boat.  We fished a bit longer and 'THE' FishDancer angled the fish to within gaffing distance. As I was on the gaff, and I did not want to kill another fish, that seemed to me to be about the same size as what we already had in the bag, I kept asking are your sure?  "Are you sure this fish is bigger"?  All the time the fish would surge again and head away from the boat straining our tackle to the limit.  Finally my crew advised me that if I gaffed this fish it would be the biggest fish we ever caught.....so I did.   The fish was 61.1 pounds and how GOOFY is it to have watched this fish on the surface for about 10 minutes trying to decide its size?  GRANDE GOOOFY!!!

3. Fuel water separator alarm on the Century -When Nancy and I first got into this goofy sport, we were running our first boat a Century 2300 with a single Yamaha 250 OX66 motor.  We were new to boating and learning the ins and outs of boat handling, engine maintenance and the finer points of how to compete, something we are still working on.  We checked out, plodded out to our chosen spot in some sporty seas and fished for a while when alarm went off telling us that our external fuel/water separator had failed.  Not knowing what exactly that meant we decided to head back in...so we plowed our way back to the dock and called our dealer only to learn that our boat/motor combination did not even HAVE an external fuel water separator and apparently we were getting a false alarm!!!!!  GOOOOFY??? Undeniably.

4. Losing equipment overboard - without recanting the sad stories about each lost piece of equipment, here is the list:  rods, reels, rods and reels attached to fish, 30# boga attached to a 28# redfish, castnets, downrigger balls, cell phones, bait, sunglasses, reading glasses, hats, shirts, gloves, sandwiches, drinks, buckets and the Captain on several occasions.  "...ooooo baby its a big ole goofy world...".

5. Watching the winning fish caught next to you - we have learned the hard way that anyone who thinks that the only reason the others are catching fish and you aren't is luck -- think denial is a river in Africa. While luck comes into play, there are other factors far more important. There are countless examples of when we were in the right place at the right time and got skunked while more experienced and flexible teams caught fish.  The best example of this is years ago we were fishing at the Elton Bottom one day with about 6 other teams.  Dave Workman's 'Strike Zone' was there and Nancy and I watched as they caught fish all day long and the other teams did not -- including us; it was a true Kingfishing clinic.  When we asked Dave about this at the store one day, he only smiled.  We have learned over the years that there are techniques not everyone knows or uses and there is a level of skill required to be consistently good.  GOOOFY?  Especially if you don't learn!!!!

7. Captain's meeting information - I can honestly say that information I have received during the Captain's meeting has been among the goofiest things we have encountered during our fishing career.  The information bantered about during these gatherings reminds me of some sort of bizarre farmer's market; you can get information on anything you seek, bait, fish, water conditions, seas, etc -- you just don't know if it is ripe enough to use. During one SKA Div IV event in early May several years ago Team FishDancer was working with 5-6 other teams sharing information.  Every team we worked with indicated they would be employing our Joe Namath strategy (go deep) and would see us at our chosen fishing grounds -- we confirmed this at the Captain's meeting with each team!  Next day we headed east some 55 miles and had the joint to ourselves - catching the 2nd place fish in the event.  It seems our 'angling buddies' all decided to head south and all got skunked. Lesson learned for us -- we enjoy working with other teams but always have our own plans. Oh well........this seems TRES GOOFY to me.

8. TEAM meetings - I would like to highlight that our DONZI team Captain, Dan Upton, hosts one of the best meetings with great food, excellent company and lots of fun.  Many times folks ask me what I learned from the Team Meeting I attended and I almost answer that the drinks were cold and the food hot.  One team shared their experience with us, when they attended a 'Team Meeting' for the first time.  They indicated all teams indicated that the fish were scattered along a 50 mile line and no one knew exactly where they were going.  At checkout each and every one of these teams checked out, turned in the same direction and fished the same spot!!!!  Man the beer was cold but so was the information at the meeting.  Expecting any teams to share 'hot' information about the fishery is GOOFY..........

9. Boat ramp follies - I don't think much more is needed here.  While we have had a few ramp follies ourselves....the activities during any given weekend at the ramp could make up a full list of GOOFY all by themselves.  For us the Jensen Beach event has been the worst at the causeway ramp.....those people should be ashamed. They are beyond GOOFY.........

10. The Doomsayers and Paydayers - over the course of the past several years I have written extensively on these GOOFY folks.  They have predicted the demise of the SKA -  WRONG!!!!  They have predicted Jack Holmes would get fired -- WRONG!!  They have predicted the FLW would take over kingfishing -- WRONG!!!  They have predicted that anglers would be able to make a living kingfishing -- WRONG!!!!  They have threatened me personally - GOOFY!!!! The FishDancer philosophy has always been to fish where you choose, for the reasons that best fit your team.  Is that GOOFY???  I will let you be the judge of that!!! 

Team FishDancer will be preparing for the Little River SKA Pro event and the Rumble in the Jungle over the coming weeks and are seeking to move up in the standing along the SKA Pro Tour.  We hope we see you there....stay tuned

The Final SKA Pro standings to the left and day one standings to the right

  

What a tournament for 'THE' FishDancer and Captain Jeff.  The headline is Nancy won the SKA Pro Tour Lady Angler and the team finished 4th overall in the SKA Pro Tour stop at Golden Isles, Georgia. We caught two good fish a 27.70 on day one and a 24.32 on the second day of competition for an aggregate total of 52.01.  All of this was made sweeter as Team FishDancer accomplished it after posting Nancy in the Day 1 Lady angler lead and the FishDancer Team in 5th place overall on day one.  Nothing beats getting off to a great start in a two day event, nothing that is except improving your position or holding the lead through day two and the final leader board.  Nancy and I are proud to say we did both!! Nothing however is ever easy and competing with the best on tour in a two day aggregate format always has its own challenges.

Following a wonderful wedding in NY, where my Niece was married, both Nancy and I came back to Florida with some kind of virus we picked up in the big city. While we had a great time spending some time with our family, seeing a show in NYC and attending the wedding ceremony and reception, unfortunately somewhere our old NJ antibodies have worn off and we were both struck by some kind of flu bug. By the middle of the week it was doubtful that we would even be able to compete in this event and we began to make plans in case we could not.  This was a strange thing to be doing, making plans in case you can't fish -- YIKES, this is something we never had confronted before. Dragging ourselves to the Captain's meeting we decided to sign up only for the SKA Professional tour event and decided, due to the uncertainty of our participation,  not to enter any of the calcuttas or the local division IV SKA event, something we always do.  The weather forecast was getting worse, as was the hacking and coughing from Nancy and me, but we decided to give it our best effort despite our feeling poorly and the miserable weather forecast.  We needed to make a fishing plan and as such, I have always said that IF you landed from outer space and needed to catch a kingfish from the SE GA/NE FL area the two places to fish would be Grey's Reef or Elton Bottom.  Both are large areas and have many places to fish even in a crowd.  As it turned out either place was the right one ....

     

We chose to fish north and were greeted at 4:30am by a driving rain that would not stop the entire day.  We stopped briefly to look for pogies but decided that the low clouds and rain would have the bait suspended and it might take too long for them to come up, if they came up at all. We had 18 frisky blue runners courtesy of casting the green net with Mr. Sportsman (Eric) so we turned the bow NE and headed the 30 or so miles to our chosen spot.  We must have had 3-5" of rain fall on us during our fishing time, a miserable, cold and wet experience.  The torrents of rain caused our fish boxes to fill and our bilge pumps were busy most of the day pumping out the rain water that had fallen.  Feeling crummy, dressed in our foul weather gear and fishing hard, day one was the single most miserable day Nancy and I have ever spent on the water and it was only mitigated by the fact that we were able to find a 27.70 pound fish and came away from day one in 5th place with Nancy the leading lady angler.  Following the weigh in we headed back to the hotel and started to ask ourselves where we should go to fish the following day, we were so worn out from our flu and the rain we did not check with any other teams for fishing reports and were virtually blind to where any fish had been caught other than the few we actually saw.  We decided to head back to the same spot and fished hard all day and waited for our chance, something we both believed would come if we, as Terry LaCoss always taught me, were patient.  

The ride out was nasty with the winds up from the NW and seas running a strong 3-5' and the Mercury Smart Guages warning us of water in our fuel.  YIKES!!!  Was it from all of the rain yesterday?  Bad gas in Fourchon, LA?  Bad gas from GA?  Who knows but it is not fun to bleed out the water from the Mercs in 3-5' seas and 20+ mph winds; nonetheless I got the water out of our fuel system and on we went.  We arrived at the spot around 8am and fished hard seeking the shot or two we felt confident we would get. We ran into The Four Suns II and they had not been successful out deeper and later in the day fellow members of the DONZI nation, Sweet Caroline were fishing near us.  Nancy and I both felt we would get a chance at a fish, we were both right!!!  Our chance was a single bite coming late in the day, around 2:30pm when a decent fish skied on our bait and we hooked up.  Performing a quick Kingfish Mambo, we had a fish that we thought would keep us in the top 10.  As we had been having water in the fuel problems all tournament long, we left as soon as we iced this fish down and headed to the scales and drained the water out of the fuel once on the way to the scales.  The fish would weigh 24.31, enough to let us get rid of our 14 pound drop fish, earn Nancy her 2nd Lady Angler award and put the team in 4th place overall. 

'THE' FishDancer was pleased to come up on stage and accept her SKA Professional Lady Angler award from Marty Bistrong from Contender Boats and Mike Dixon joined Marty and Jeff in the presentation of the 4th place overall plaque and check.  It is always a great feeling to do well in any event, especially nice when you improve during the second day and even sweeter when you fish well in your 'home' waters. We want to thank the fish gods for smiling upon us during this event as well as all of our angling buddies who shared their genuine concern for both Nancy and me and our physical condition.  All in all, considering our health, the weather and fishing two days for two bites, this event was just what the Doctor ordered. 

Next up on our schedule is a trip to the birthplace of the FishDancer......the Big Island of Hawaii and Lapakahi Park and then the final stop on the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour circuit, Little River, SC.  We have done the math and believe the top 20 will require about 222-228 points and we have 213.63 with a 17.82 pound drop fish -- we know we can do it.  Wish us luck and stay tuned....the final event of the season will be a shootout at the top.......................

   

 

HE' FishDancer and I are focused upon the upcoming fourth stop on the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour - Golden Isles, Georgia.  This event will be fished from the Golden Isles Marina on St. Simon's Georgia and will allow Nancy and me to fish a 'home waters' event for the first time in several seasons.  We are looking forward to the competition and had a chance to do a bit of prefishing this past weekend.  After finding bait plentiful in several location we fished Nassau Sound, the Nassau live bottom and several of Georgia's alphabet reefs - all without finding a tournament grade king mackerel.  We were treated to a hookup at the Nassau slough of a large tarpon - which burned more than 300 yards off the reel.  We fought him and brought him boat side to be gently released back into the ocean -- he was a large fish over 6' long and we approximated his weight at between 125-130 pounds.  We were also able to find several small teenage kingfish but not tournament grade fish were located.  We will have video of both the Tarpon and Kings we caught posted on the site soon....stay tuned we are calling ALL fish gods of the greater SE GA and NE FL area......

 

 

We have enjoyed a few days of great weather and calm seas, which has allowed Nancy and me to fish far to the North and South seeking the best place to fish during the tournament. We fished the first day some 55 miles North of St. Lucie inlet and found bait difficult to come by.  Bait fishing our way along we were able to only catch 3 blue runners but were able to catch some sardines, greenies and cigar minnows.  We fished for a few hours and caught 4 fish the largest of which was in the 30 pound range.

Day two we decided to visit our angling buddy - Eric Wetterman and purchase some baits giving us more time to fish.  We made the run to Jupiter inlet and Eric was able to furnish us with enough bait to fish for the next two days.  We depend upon Eric during all of the SKA Professional Kingfish tour events and have been pleased with Eric's ability to deliver quality baits to us in a consistent fashion.

 

Once the baits were secured in our livewell we headed back out Jupiter Inlet and turned South to fish some our favorite numbers along the drop. We were surprised to find literally more than 100 commercial boats fishing the edge and were disappointed with a slow day of fishing.  A few smaller kings were caught, including the baby fish pictured below caught on a sabiki rig.

For our last day of pre-fishing we debated whether we should fish the beach or head back to our favorite spots where we did not do well the day before.  We decided to take another look at the offshore spots and were greeted with a new day and different results.  Fishing from Lake Worth to Jupiter we found fish at almost every place we stopped including several good fish -- the first below a mid 30s fish and the second picture below we estimated the fish near 50 pounds.

So we have located fish and now need only to make a few minor decisions - like which direction to take after check out - and repeat our performance and we will be in good shape for the tournament.  The weather is looking great, the fish are here and we are excited about the coming few days.  Stay tuned we are calling all of the fish gods of the great Jensen Beach area.....

Nancy and I have been teaching the value and benefits of proper preparation while fishing the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour.  This preparation can take many forms; prefishing, scouting the water for bait, logistics preparation and other forms of pre-work required to create an opportunity for success along the ever competitive trail.  Many times we do work several events in advance and this past week we had a chance to scout out the restaurant in New Orleans that the SKA Pro Tour and Division VII competitors will have the chance to dine at during June's stop in Port Fourchon.  According to the SKA website, anglers will have the opportunity to take a bus ride from Fourchon for a night in New Orleans, a great opportunity to see the city, dine at Anatole and gamble at the Casino -- sounds like a fun night for all.  Since Nancy and I were going to be in New Orleans for my keynote speech at the International Business Forecasting Conference, we decided to do some 'pre-eating' and check out Anatole ourselves and we were not disappointed.  When we arrived on Lafayette Square were pleased to see a Wednesday in Square concert was going on and after listening for a while we headed across the square and into the restaurant.   We dined for several hours and enjoyed our meal -- those of you planning on attending the night in New Orleans will certainly get a great meal.

Anatole is located in the Lafayette Hotel building, a building built at the turn of the 20th century in the post Victorian era. The interior of the restaurant is a blend of rich woods, high ceilings, fishing based art and great views of the century old oaks shading the square itself.  As I sipped my McCalan 18 year old scotch I could only wonder what those trees had experienced from perhaps the civil war to Katrina and virtually everything in between.  We explained to the staff our connection with the SKA and the Toups family and soon executive chef - Raymond Toups, brother of Kajun Sportsman Anthony, came by our table to chat for a minute.  This is always a nice touch,

The service we received was timely and unobtrusive.  Our waiter skillfully took us through the specials of the day and Nancy settled on a free range chicken blackened and served with mushroom ravioli in a chicken broth that was delicious.  I chose the air dried Alto Asiage Italian Ham for a starter and finished with the Gulf Shrimp for dinner. Following dinner the pasty chef came out and detailed his special concoctions of the day and we chose the cream puffs stuffed with vanilla ice cream and drenched in a raspberry sauce -- very good indeed.

The city itself is working hard to come back from the devastation of Katrina.  It is difficult to not notice the differences.  There is reconstruction going on virtually everywhere -- from our hotel to Jackson square as people and businesses try to complete their renovations. But the city is still the Big Easy -- a unique blend of the European and American all in a small space.  We began to wonder what Biloxi will be like this November for the SKA National Championships?

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We will be heading to Jensen Beach on Sunday of this week and will be docked and housed at the Hutchinson Beach Marriott hotel and marina.  Nancy and I will be prefishing and bait fishing all week and will post some reports and pictures as we can.  We are calling all fish gods of the greater Jensen Beach area......

There has been much said, written and rumored about the pending sale of the Southern Kingfish Association.  Some doomsayers and paydayers have been calling for the demise of the association for the past 5 seasons and lo and behold they once again proven themselves to be poor predictors of the direction of our sport.  This past week the SKA published on its website that it would not be sold and in fact continue to sanction its divisional events and produce the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour.  We are please to see this tempest in a teapot controversy finally end as it does nothing for the confidence of the competing teams, our sport overall or potential sponsors or new competitors who might want to fish the trail along with kingfishing's best teams.

Nancy and I are preparing for the 2nd leg of the SKA/Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour to be hosted at Jensen Beach, Florida in two weeks.  We will be housed and docked at the Hutchinson Island Marriott hotel and marina and are looking forward to this event.  Recent reports from this area indicate that bait has been very difficult to come by and no reports of good sized mackerel have been made by anyone from Sebastian to Port Everglades.  This on again off again spring will possible play havoc with the normal migration of the king fish and could pose the competitors problems during the event.  We are familiar with these waters and will have ample time to prefish and search for bait but we are more concerned than normal regarding the conditions for this event.  Stay tuned we will post reports and pictures, including the leader board from each day...we are calling the fish gods of the greater Jensen Beach area...

The first 2007 SKA Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour event in Key West, Florida was greeted by Chamber of Commerce weather and good fishing for the 75 teams competing for the $40,000 first prize. While we found good fish prefishing we had a difficult day during the first day of the event only able to weigh a small 17.82 pound fish. 

We worked hard again on day two some 40 miles west of Key West and were able to scale a 37.88 pound fish, a more representative fish for these fertile waters.

So after the first SKA Mercury Professional Kinfish Tour event under our belts we leave Key West in 39th place with 55.70 points. Under our goals for this event but still within the overall season plans we have made to score 220 or more points, finish in the top 10 and earn Nancy the Lady Angler title....

 

Our DONZI team leader and fellow member of Mercury's Pro Staff team, Dan Upton won the event with a two fish aggregate of 96.96.  CONGRATULATIONS to Dan, Ken, Jack and Camo.  The final leader board is listed below in 2 pictures. 

The SKA Captain's meeting is always fun and this one was no exception as we renewed some friendships that have lagged over the long winter.  Team 'WoundTight er' was there to enjoy the festivities and Ian and Johnny Z were up the their usual antics.  We hoped to see Johnny Z during both days of the event as he would be manning the weigh in boat.

 

Jack and Deona along with the SKA regulars, including Bobby Flocken, were on hand to host the registration and Captain's meeting and it was good to see that the title sponsor of the tour was well represented. Pam Behnke was handing out hats and visors to anyone running the Mercury brand and the anglers were all appreciative of the support from the leader in outboard motors. It was also good to see the support of Contender with Marty Bistrong in attendance and the continued support of factory trailers from Loadmaster and Mercury.

'THE' FishDancer and I headed to the 'highly secretive' team DONZI meeting, pictures of which have never been seen before in public.  Dan Upton hosted the meeting which was full of free drinks, good food and some sharing of angling knowledge - along with some fun had by all.

   

 

  

We fished hard and found the fish and the teams scattered all along the reef line anywhere from 10 to 80 miles from Key West.  Our angling buddies on Koolau had several nice fish on day one.

  

We enjoyed fishing with our fellow DONZI teammates like team Sweet Caroline and ProStar.

  

'THE' FishDancer piloting the FishDancer through the maze of crab pots off of tail-end.  The sea conditions were never above 3 feet all week allowing us to fish each day of the week, a true luxury for us.

Following the final fish being weighed Team DONZI was announced as the winner and I spent some time congratulating Dan.  His team was pelted with water balloons, sprays of beer and even a 5 gallon bucket  full of water heaved from the crowd as they were crowned as Champions of Key West, 2007.

All in all we had a good time - stay tuned for an in depth fishing report from our Key West adventures. Next up for us is the Jensen Beach SKA Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour event the last week in April.  We are calling the fish gods of the greater Stuart area....

Tuesday 2.27.2007 - The weather has been just what the Dr. ordered over the past few days. Calm winds and warm air with flat seas, all very enjoyable.  We ran into the Gulf of Mexico on Monday some 50 miles in search of bait.  We spent the better portion of Monday running and gunning in the Gulf trying to catch enough bait to fish with on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The waters in the GOM are not pretty right now, parts are very murky and other parts look like someone vomited into them for miles -- and these are the nicer areas.  There is some kind of 'red tide' or other water borne phenomenon going on. We stopped at a few towers with no runners (plenty of amberjack) and thought we hit the jackpot at a wreck when we were bringing in very large blue runners a couple at a time and performing our usual routine of de-hooking them and placing them in the DONZI's spacious bait well.  After about an hour of this I stopped for a soda and looked into the well and ALL of the hardtails were DOA.  YIKES!!  So we started over filled the well and ran towards Key West as fast as we could and when we got into the Atlantic only about 1 dozen survived.  At least we had enough bait to fish with today.  This morning we headed west some 50 miles and fished an area that has been good to us in the past.  We were busy until our baits ran out and headed back east to scout up more runners to fish with tomorrow.

Nancy at work on the bow of the FishDancer

A good size king released to grow even larger. We had about 6-8 fish.

 

The life of a blue runner sometimes meets its end at the business end of a shark. A smaller king also released boat side.

 

Donzi teammates are already in town.  Is that Nancy trying to land a cruise ship?

Sunday 2.25.2007 Nancy and I headed south down I-95 the more than 600 miles we needed to travel to Key West, Florida.   We broke the trip up into 2 segments and after over-nighting in Weston, Florida and enjoying a good meal at Il Toscano we hit the road early and pulled into the parking lot at Oceanside Marina around noon.  We have used the Oceanside Marina for each of our trips to fish Key West and it always feels like home to pull into a slip at this great facility.

Upon arrival we were expecting the high winds and big seas that the forecast had in store for us but were pleasantly surprised with calm winds and very warm temperatures, over 80 degrees.  When we met with the Walt from Key West Properties and got situated in the condo we rented for the week, we were again pleasantly surprised -- what a nice place.  After having stayed in some fish camps, it was with much pleasure that Nancy and I set up in a true luxury condo.  Views of the ocean from 2 sides this will be one of the finer places for us to fish from and right on the same property where our boat is docked, all less than 1/4 mile from the open Atlantic. 

 

"THE" FishDancer and I have re-powered the boat with brand new sticker 2007 Mercury Opti-Max 225s and are anxious to get the 2007 season underway.  On our schedule is some prefishing and bait fishing over the next three days - Monday-Wednesday.  If all goes well we will take Thursday off and get everything ready for the tournament on Friday and Saturday.

 

 

 

Spring is a great time of year -- the cold dreariness of winter is on the wane and the warm renewal of the changing of the seasons is upon us. The older I get it seems the longer the winters become.  April is the month that the king fishing season is getting underway, with SKA events in Divisions 6, 10 and 11 as well as the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour. We have already completed the first stop of the SKA Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour in Key West and are looking forward to the second stop at the end of April in Jensen Beach, Florida.  As much as we love king fishing there are OTHER things to do an see in this great country of ours.  In addition to the weather and waters warming up and the fishing beginning to improve there is the kickoff of the baseball season and a few other large sporting events like the Masters. 

I was lucky enough to combine my business travels with attendance at a practice round of the Masters, a Houston Astros home game and last night the home opener of my favorite sports team, the Atlanta Braves.  The Augusta National Course is a true cathedral for golf -- the most beautiful course I have ever seen.  Dogwoods, azaleas and other spring flowering shrubs and flowers coupled with a carpet of grass entice the golfers to play their best.  We were able to see Tiger Woods, Tom Watson, Jim Furyk and playing in his 50th masters the 72 year old Gary Player.  All in the Masters is an interesting event made special by its competitors, history as well as its natural beauty -- sounds like the SKA Professional tour.  Full of solid competitors, has a great history with all of the sport's best and it takes place on the beautiful waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

I was in Houston, TX this past week and had the chance to attend the Astros - Pirates game at the Minute Maid park.  A new ballpark, with a short 315 left field porch and a retractable roof, the park is a great place to see a game.  Both teams played well and unfortunately for Astros fans they ended on the short end of the score.  Heading back to Georgia on Friday, 'THE' FishDancer and I had the opportunity to attend the Atlanta Braves home opener.  The Budweiser Clydesdales were there, Tracy Byrd sang the National Anthem as a HUGE American flag was unfurled on the field.  A flyover from 4 US jets capped off the festivities and unfortunately the Bravos got clobbered 11-1 and the 50,000+ fans went home disappointed.

So what does all of this have to do with King Mackerel angling and how do I avert this article from becoming a '..what I did on my spring vacation....' blog?  EASY!!!  We all need to become more aware of the alternatives that anglers have to spend their hard earned money.  Tournament directors are competing with all of these events as well as thousands of others for our attention and the more we can assure the events sanctioned by the SKA are connected to the local economy and are fun and attractive to anglers, the more the events and the SKA will be successful.  Finally I was struck at the professional behavior of all of the athletes, no matter the score, no matter what had been screamed at them from the crowds and most importantly what had been written about them.  As Professional anglers we are the ambassadors for King Mackerel Angling and need to carry ourselves as such, ignoring the loud voices of the few who wish to tear down and practice the politics of personal destruction. So enjoy spring, head to a few ballgames or golf tournaments but stay focused as the king fishing is getting hot and will be in full swing soon.

 

One of the keys to success in the SKA Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour is to make accurate decisions about where to fish and execute those plans. After prefishing, consulting Hilton's Real-time Navigator and networking with locals and others fishing the SKA Pro tour we head to the Captain's meeting with four basic plans; Plan A -- this is where we want to fish based upon our assessment of what we know.  Within this plan we have a good weather and bad weather plan.  We also make up a Plan B, where we will fish IF Plan A doesn't work out and within Plan B we also have a good and bad weather plan. Therefore we have 4 plans in our minds before checking out -- we also will NOT change our plans at the Captain's meeting where a variety of accurate and inaccurate data is shared.  While this is a simple concept when written as it is above, there are many influences and variables that can cause a team to vacate its plan for what it perceives as 'greener pastures'.

While at the Captain's meeting information is ricocheting back and forth across the tent, with teams seeking the last minute information that will lead them to victory.  It seldom happens at the dinner or Captain's Meeting.  While fishing an SKA division IV event one season Nancy and I had hooked up with several teams to share information.  At the Captain's meeting we all seemed to agree that we would meet at an offshore reef area and share our findings.  Following checkout we headed east and ran for a while, pulling up to our 'agreed upon' spot and were surprised to find we were the only ones there.  We caught fish all day long, weighed in with the lead in the tournament and finished 2nd overall.  When checking with the other teams they all decided to run 50 miles south and fish the beach in St. Augustine and not a single one caught a fish.  

Many teams, including the FishDancer team, fish with multiple VHF radios, some even deploy transmission scrambling technology, and all listen intently to what others are doing.  This type of radio fishing can assist the team or cause you to pull up stakes and run to fish that may or may not exist.  I recall several seasons ago fishing the West Delta,  when a factory team believed their scrambled transmissions had been intercepted.  One of the teams broadcasted a hot bite at a specific rig number and lo and behold within a few minutes about five teams were up on plane and running in that direction, I often wonder what they thought when they arrived at the rig and there we no other boats there?

While executing Plan A or B, teams need to exercise patience.  Once on a chosen fishing location, the team should asses the water quality, bait abundance and sonar markings to assure the conditions exist to support the team's plan.  If the correct conditions exist good, if not fish for a while and then execute plan B.  While fishing from Port Fourchon several years ago, we found a great location prefishing and caught fish in excess of 50 pounds so you might imagine this location became Plan A.  Upon checkout we ran 40 miles west pulled up and found the water to be much bluer than just a day prior.  After fishing for about an hour we decided to run back to the east some 40 miles and execute plan B.  We caught a 44 that day and a 61.1 on day two at our plan B spot and won the event by more than 10 pounds.

In our experience the trick to correctly assess your opportunities comes from having a consistent approach or theory regarding what most influences the fishes behavior.  Is it moon phase, tides, water temperatures, salinity or general weather patterns?  Bait concentrations or historical catch data?  There are a variety of variables that we look at -- but we ALWAYS look at the same data and attempt to interpret it in the same manner.  This is critical to avoiding the temptation of radio fishing or Captain's meeting planning Bingo, a game I refuse to play. 

The same assessment, consistency and execution strategies exist at all levels within our sport. Each team need to make its own decisions regarding where to fish, what tournaments to enter and which circuits to support.  After assessing the tournament playing field, Team FishDancer has made this decision consistently over the past ten seasons. We support the SKA and encourage others to do the same. Why?  Simply stated the FishDancer team wants to fish a circuit where your angling performance determines the tournament prize structure. Along the SKA Pro Tour 100% of the tournament prizes come from the fish you bring to the scale rather than the new trail where 60% of the tournament prize structure comes from your equipment choices. More power to those who fish under these rules, they just do not entice our team.

As with the Captain's meeting information, radio fishing or the last minute changes of where a team will fish, 'THE' FishDancer and I discount this 'noise' in our planning processes.  As for the 'mine is better than yours crowd', AKA the doomsayers and paydayers, we discount at a high percentage, their anti-everything rants.  It never ceases to amaze ME that, in general these 'anglers'  who have accomplished little in our sport, represent themselves as ambassadors or 'in the know' regarding on thing or another. Some of these naysayer's have radio rig hopped, in some cases being disqualified from events and circuits due to their behavior and comments. They post on virtually every angling website, until they are banned, spewing their politics of personal destruction venom, seeking to convince others of the righteousness of their 'cause'. Since self rationalization and aggrandizement is the root of these posts just like those who pick up and run to the rig they heard about on the VHF, Team FishDancer keeps our lines in the waters and executes our plans, wondering why they are running away from the real action? 

On a sad note, this week a fellow angler and kingfisher - Steven Senecal - was apparently lost at sea while fishing alone off of St. Augustine.  Steve was a true ambassador for our sport and will be missed by many.  We wish Steve godspeed and send our prayers to the Senecal family. 

Next up for the FishDancer team is the second stop on the SKA Mercury Professional Kingfish Tour in Jensen Beach.  We are working to create our plans so stay tuned......

 

 

THE' FishDancer and I are pleased to be able to compete in yet another season of the SKA Professional Kingfish Tournament Trail.  The 2007 season will be our 12th overall in the SKA and marks the 5th consecutive season for us competing at the 'Elite' level of SKA competition - the SKA Professional Kingfish Tournament Trail. This is no small accomplishment for a two person, husband and wife team who began our career in a small 23' single engine boat and not much of a clue of how to target king mackerel.  Over this winter, we have strengthened our relationships with our fellow competitors and renewed our arrangements with many of our sponsors and will be sporting new 2007 Mercury Optimax Motors on the transom of our DONZI 35 zfo.  Over our past four seasons Team FishDancer has been accepted as strong competitors on this elite circuit and Nancy and I are very proud of our angling accomplishments.  We have not only been accepted into the ranks of SKA pros, but we have been able to join with the best of the best with our angling performances.  We were able to join the 'Champions Club', by winning the 2003 Port Fourchon SKA Pro event.  As a result of this victory we have joined the ranks of the 'SKA's Record Holders' currently holding the big fish record for Port Fourchon at 61.1 pounds as well as the aggregate record for Port Fourchon with a two fish aggregate that has not yet been surpassed - 104.59. We have also joined the ranks of the 'SKA Pro Kingfish Slam' group, a very small and select group of SKA Professional Kingfish Anglers who have scaled fish in the 20,30,40,50 and 60 pound class. In our previous 4 seasons on the SKA PRO Tour 'THE' FishDancer and I have scaled twenty pound fish from events as diverse as Ft. Pierce, Key West, Jacksonville, Hatteras and a few other places, we have scaled 30 pound class fish in many places including Port Fourchon, Venice, Jacksonville,  Golden Isles, Little River and Ft. Pierce, 40 pound class fish in Port Fourchon, a 50 pound class fish in Key West and the big girl a 61.1 in Port Fourchon. There are literally only a handful of SKA Pro teams who have been able to submit the appropriate credentials to enter this exclusive 'grand slam' club.  Our smallest fish a 14.8 scaled during the 2005 Savannah event, and a 14.63 scaled in 2004 have been more than offset by the larger fish we have been able to catch. During our past 4 seasons the average weight of a FishDancer fish brought to the scales has been a respectable 29.43 pounds with 25 out of a possible 28 fish being weighed.  We have accomplished all of this while competing with the best of the best; teams like Strike Zone, Kwazaar, Wild Turkey, Reel Won and others.

The purpose of this review is not to blow our own horn, albeit both Nancy and I take pride in what we have been able to accomplish, but rather to encourage ALL teams who have qualified to come and join the party.  The more the merrier and you cannot and will not find a better, more competitive and friendly tour to fish -- who knows maybe you too can 'Join the Club'?  Next up for us is the Miami Boat show quickly followed by the 2007 kickoff of the SKA Pro season in Key West, Florida.  Several new members of the 60 pound club have been made during this year's Hog's Breath event -- welcome to all, and we look forward to heading over the 7 mile bridge during the last week in February......we hope to see you there too.....

Today was the final day of the ASWSC 20th anniversary sail fishing tournament.  Nancy and I wanted to have a winter fishing break and we decided to fish this event again -- its a real hoot, no long runs and easy fishing right at the mouth of the Lake Worth inlet. The FishDancer goals were modest but firm for this event; catch 'THE' FishDancer her first sailfish, see if Captain Jeff could actually fly a kite and catch a fish on the kite baits.  I am pleased to write we achieved all three of our tournament goals and finished in 5th place overall and received a nice plaque for our efforts.  FishDancer thanks go out to the Atlanta Saltwater Sportsman's Club for hosting a great event.  Next up for us is the Miami Boat show in February....stay tuned.....

It is Friday and we fished in big seas and did not find any sailfish. The conditions were 'sporty' to say the least, you can tell the seas are up when the big sport-fishers are hiding behind them.  Winds blew 25 knots again today from the east creating a sea full of 5-7' waves with a few periods of higher winds and larger seas; and a few brief showers thrown in to wash off the salt. We caught many dolphin - at one time we had a triple hookup with only the two of us on board - very exciting, especially in these conditions.

Many thanks to the battle wagons who endured our Dolphin Dancing while fishing from a dead boat in high winds.  The one dolphin was the largest we have ever caught and we estimated him to be well over 30 pounds...a true gaffer.  We released all of these fish to fight another day and grow larger, despite the cries of all of the folks back on the dock. One of the best things about fishing from Sailfish marina is that in two full days of fishing we have burned 22 gallons of fuel......very nice indeed.  So far we have had a hoot.....check back again soon....

We are competing in the Atlanta Saltwater Sportsmen Club's 20th anniversary sail fishing tournament in Palm Beach.  A quick update...the weather is snotty -- true 4-6' seas with 20+ mph winds have made the angling difficult for all.

Nancy -- aka "THE" FishDancer, braved the weather and did the Sailfish Samba, releasing her first ever sailfish today and as the fishing was tough and the weather kept everyone close to the inlet, we are placed highly after day one of the three day event.

Team FishDancer scored one sail a nice dolphin and had 4 mystery knock downs which we never saw.

To top it all off, Captain Jeff, in his first official attempt ever, was able to fly and keep a kite airborne, at least for a while, and fish goggle eyes under it. This is not as easy as it might seem, even in high winds!!!!!

Check back tomorrow for more......we are calling all of the wind gods of the greater Lake Worth area.....a bit less wind would be nice....

 

 

 

 

Joe Jackson Sings:

"What the hell is wrong with you tonight? I can't seem to do or say the right thing. Wanted to be sure you're feeling right; Wanted to be sure we want the same things...

She said;  'I can't believe it, you can't possibly mean it!  Don't we all want the same thing?  Don't we?'

Who said anything about 'fish'?  Don't you know it's different for girls? Don't I know?  She said 'Don't you know it's different for girls?

You're all the same...."

The recent advent of Lady Angler titles and prizes in most kingfish tours has created a new wave of tournament competitors; the ladies.  As Joe Jackson reminds all men above, we should be aware that in fact king mackerel angling is different for girls. Before we look into some of the way's a tournament experience is in fact different for girls, we must not confuse the fact that women are competing on the SKA divisional circuit and SKA Professional Kingfish tour, with 'traditional' societal views of women and anglers. Today's assemblage of lady anglers, especially those tournament fishing, is as competitive as any group of men. Anyone who has ever fished with or in competition with Sue Woithe, Jan Chase, Sharon Kamp, Doreen Fletcher, Becky Smith, Cathy Gray, Jaime Mixon, Susan Kaminsky or Donna Gowen-Poe can attest to the accomplishments of today's elite lady anglers.  I have been so fortunate to have fished with one of these 'girls' over the past 10 competitive SKA seasons, her name is Nancy.

I spent some time discussing angling experiences with 'THE' FishDancer over this holiday season, trying to gain further insight into the motivations of one of the SKA's best Lady King Mackerel anglers. With humble beginnings in SKA competition, Nancy learned to fish for King Mackerel from one of the premier anglers in NE Florida, Terry LaCoss.  After often chartering Terry as our captain, Nancy's ability to learn quickly and natural angling skills earned her Terry's favorite client moniker.  Nancy was once 'challenged' by Terry's young son TD (he was about 15 years old) who indicated that girls can't fish and would be a nuisance onboard.  TD quickly learned that Nancy was serious as she battled a 100+ pound tarpon with a combination of patience and pressure that would be the envy of any well schooled angler. 

Nancy views the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour as the ultimate challenge to her angling and boating skills and works as hard as anyone on tour to practice and apply her skills.  One of the biggest differences in tournament participation for Nancy is that there are some tasks not suited to her skills.  Cast netting is difficult for Nancy as the weight of a wet 12' net and the physical strength needed to pull it in full of pogies is not an easy task for anyone.  But what Nancy lacks in physical power she more than makes up for in touch and finesse.  In the 10 seasons Team FishDancer has fished on the SKA tour, Nancy has 'pulled the hooks' on an amount of fish that could be counted on one hand.  She has developed an innate sense of what the fish is doing and has honed a sense of anticipation that when properly applied during the Kingfish Mambo allows our team to land a high percentage of the fish we hook.  Speaking of hooks, twisting rigs is another area that 'THE' FishDancer has some aesthetic issues with -- nothing worse than breaking a nail while twisting a ribbonfish rig!!!  This is actually a good thing as I enjoy the task of creating rigs, its good when a task assignment can keep us both happy.

Nancy has honed her boating skills, especially the use of the Raymarine electronics, and can be depended upon to keep us trolling in the correct pattern. Many times over our SKA career has Nancy found the bait and fish for us as we were prospecting our way from one spot to another. Nancy has assumed the primary role to assure our safety equipment, pfds and other emergency equipment is ready and able to assist us.  Generalizing now, men many times refuse to take the time or make the effort to assure each piece of equipment is ready but the fairer gender has an uncanny knack in this regard.

Traveling with a Lady Angler has its owns challenges, benefits and rewards. One of our team's unbreakable rules is that we need to stay in a safe and clean environment -- not just any place to crash.   While this rule can cost us a few more dollars each season it has enhanced our time spent at a tournament destination and allows us to spend some quality time together. Nancy has taken over our land logistics, assuring all equipment and gear is stored and packed before we leave for an event.

Nancy has also become a true ambassador for our sport and our team. There is no better representation for our sponsors than Nancy's smile holding up a large fish in her Mercury hat and Donzi emblazoned team shirt. Unassuming and friendly to all 'THE' FishDancer, and girls in general, many times seem better suited to these tasks than men. I can only laugh when Nancy gets to the head of the 'bait' line in the morning or gets someone to assist us well beyond expectations, when if I requested the same thing, I would be rejected. 

When I asked Nancy her thoughts on the competition within the Lady Angler category of the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour, she indicated that while she is always pleased to see teams doing well, she takes a personal interest in how the other lady competitors are doing.  While working to finish in 3rd place in the lady angler category in 2006, Nancy watched fellow lady anglers -- Sharon Kamp and Sue Woithe finish ahead of her; cheering them both on at each event. The ladies seem to have a special bond not shared by men as each watches out for the other -- competing hard at every event, but happy for the success of the other lady anglers.  So it seems we have much to learn from the SKA Lady Anglers, I am just pleased to fish as part of Nancy's Team....

Next up for Nancy and me is the Atlanta Saltwater Sportsmen Club Sail fishing tournament next week....stay tuned, we are calling all fish and weather gods of the greater West Palm Beach area.....

 

 

  

The theme for the 2006 SKA National Championships was "A Pirate's Life For Me", and with that the association in conjunction with the city of Ft. Pierce and County of St. Lucie was host to yet another great event.  Nearly 300 of the best king mackerel teams headed to Ft. Pierce in search of two good king mackerel that would allow them to be crowned the National Champions of king mackerel angling.  Pictured above is Bobby Flocken of the SKA in full pirate regalia as well as the table centerpieces on each of the tables during the Captain's meeting.  'THE' FishDancer and I hit town early and fished 6 out of 7 days.  Our adventures began on Saturday before the event when we got situated at the Dockside/Harborlights resort, conveniently located right on the Inlet waterway.  The boat was moored at the Harbor Isle marina directly across Seaway Drive, a nice calm home for the boat and baits we were hoping to catch. After four seasons with our 'old' bait pen, it was retired following the Little River SKA Pro event and a new, larger and better bait pen was constructed.  This would be its maiden voyage.  This pen was built from plans that indicated you could build it for less than $25 ... HA, we spent more than $25 in fuel driving to the Home Depot about 8 times getting the items we had forgotten from the last trip.  All in all the new pen, nicknamed Charlotte for the PVC piping we used, worked well and will house HUGE quantities of bait during any event.

Once we got ourselves and the angling equipment situated we headed out to do some bait fishing and prefishing.  From Sunday through Wednesday we fished hard, capturing baits and finding and releasing a few fish scattered all over their usual Ft. Pierce haunts.  We had a major fun time, catching dolphin on the sabiki rigs, trigger fish on the ribbon fish rigs and a few kings.

 

The DONZI/Mercury combination was running well and both Nancy and I were getting excited about our chances during the event.  On Wednesday evening we attended the annual DONZI awards and dinner and were pleased to accept our performance bonus money for finishing 14th in the SKA Pro Tour, from our team Captain, Dan Upton.  All in all the 2007 SKA Pro season for us was a great one and we appreciate our relationship with both of our primary sponsors DONZI and Mercury.  They have treated us well.

We took a much needed day off on Thursday and began to formulate our tournament plans for Friday and Saturday.  On Friday we headed south to fish off of Jupiter inlet and fished among a few boats and were fortunate enough to have a single bite and a 32.65 pound kingfish.  The picture below right was featured in the local newspaper the third consecutive season Miss Nancy has made the local paper during the events held here.

     

We were faced with a dilemma on Saturday.  After having finished the first day of competition in 14th place, we were in the hunt to win this championship and needed to decided to return to Jupiter for the possibility of a single bite or fish elsewhere.  We decided to fish the beach with the pack for the tide change in the morning and then run up to the Pines after about 9am.  I confess that I am not a good beach fisherman, I would much prefer to be offshore.  We started fishing with the pack, 60-75 boats on south beach and we felt we were fishing in a virtual angling lottery, something I am not a fan of.  There were hundreds of baits in the dirty water, so about 8:45am we decided to make the 35 mile run to the Pines.  Upon arrival there were about 25 boats fishing this area and we saw several boats hooked up. There was also radio chatter of several good fish being caught. We immediately hooked up and released a dink and then we hooked up again and had a small fish in the boat.  We didn't think this fish would be enough for us to get in the money so we kept on fishing the area hard.  We watched  several DONZI team mates hook up with good fish. Sweet Caroline hooked up right in front of us, fought and gaffed a fish, their celebration indicated to us it was a good one, ultimately that fish weighed 47 pounds.  Next thing we heard was someone whistling behind us and again a fellow DONZI team 'THE CHASE' was hooked up to a fish that had run directly under our boat.  We tried to untangle the mess the fish had made and quickly realized that without cutting all of our lines and gear they would have little chance of landing this fish.  Nancy shut down the engines and tilted them up and I cut all 6 lines and two downrigger assemblies and was please to see their line come straight and Jan was back on the fish.  Cutting your gear and clearing the other team's line is the ONLY thing to do in such circumstance and The Chase team leaded a 31 pound fish allowing them to finish in 5th place overall.  Pictured below are (R to L) Chris Chase, Jan Chase, Charlie Lyons, and Pam Behnke accepting their 5th place money and prizes.

We kept fishing but could not better our small fish which weighed just under 13 pounds and although it was the smallest fish we weighed throughout 2006, it was enough for Team FishDancer to squeak in the money at 37th place overall.  Nancy is pictured below greeting Jack as well as registering the 32.65 pound fish caught on day one.

All in all we had a blast and are looking forward the the 2007 season.  We are wishing all of our readers a happy Thanksgiving and looking forward to our next adventure, a Sail fishing tournament in West Palm Beach in January.....stay tuned

We have not scored double zeros since 2003, three years ago, when boat and logistics snafus created serious problems for us.  Since then Nancy and I both have accomplished many objectives on tour and at the end of the day, our 2006 SKA Professional Kingfish Tour season comes down to this.  At the last stop of the SKA Pro Tour, Team FishDancer will need a two fish minimum total of approximately 60-70 points to achieve our 2006 tournament objectives. While we have plenty of experience and confidence that we can, indeed, accomplish this objective by catching the fish required, we have much work to do to better understand the bait and fish situations in October in South Carolina.  Our lack of success during the SKA Pro leg in Savannah, Georgia has dropped us from 24th to 48th place overall and dropped "THE" FishDancer from 5th place Lady Angler to 9th. But all is not lost -- not yet.  Team FishDancer is the top ranked team which has weighed 5 fish and with two open scale slots, we have the opportunity to move up, dramatically, in the standings.  Currently a 7 fish total of 259.6 points lead the SKA Pro Tour  (Bandit) and a 7 fish total of 241.48 (Lured Away) leads in the Lady Angler category.  The FishDancer 5 fish aggregate of 178.1 calculates to an overage fish size of 35.63, 13th best overall and 9th best for teams who have scaled 5 or more fish at this point in the season. In the Lady Angler race, 'THE' FishDancer holds the lead in average fish size with 35.63 ahead of Lured Away's 7 fish average of 34.40, C-Numb's 6 fish average of 34.18 and The Reel Won's 7 fish average of 34.17.  After reviewing the history and current standings, I would estimate that 270 points would win the Angler of the Year and 245 would win Lady Angler. It is also my estimate that it will take about 230 points to crack the top ten and about 215 points to crack the top twenty.  So you can do the math and figure out what we need to do; the way we have it figured is we need to weigh two of our average fish, or somewhere near 70 points to keep Nan in the running for Lady Angler and put us somewhere near the top 10 in the AOY pace.  

As far as reviewing the standings and prognosticating on who will win, it is as wide open as it could be at this point. For Angler of the Year, the top 3 teams are separated by less than 9 pounds, the difference in upgrading your drop fish. There are 5 teams with 6 fish scaled and several have small drop fish, so a solid performance in Little River could vault them well past the current leaders. On the Lady Angler front, the top three are separated by just a bit over 5 pounds, there are 5 additional teams with only 6 fish weighed who will move up with a good performance and then there we are with 5 fish and a high average and a good chance to move up the leader board.  There are so many good angling teams out there it is difficult to predict who will finish where, and as in the wild card race in baseball much depends upon relative performance at the last event.  We could in fact achieve our plans and other teams do even better and we could conceptually move down in the standings, a fact we ultimately cannot control.  Just as weather, equipment, fish migrations and other exogenous variables will come into play, the race is so close with so many possibilities, it will be fun to compete in shaping the final results.  We will do everything within our power to move up by focusing our efforts on our own angling performance and wish the best to all other teams trying to achieve their 2006 season goals. My prediction for the final result is that there will be a large shakeup throughout the current standings, as there are teams who, like us, have a chance to change the outcome with a good performance in Littler River. We know what we need to do, we have the skills to do it, now all we need is a bit of good fortune and the fish gods smiling upon us at the right time.  After all isn't this what tournament fishing for king mackerel all about?  You have got to love it......we are calling all of the kingfish, weather and other gods of the greater NC/SC area.......stay tuned it will be a hoot whatever happens. Good Luck to all.............

Pete Seeger sings (with the usual editorial license from yours truly:

"Where have all the kingfish gone? Long time passing; Where have all the kingfish gone, long time ago?  Where have all the kingfish gone? Gone from Savannah and we got none; when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?"

This is not a sport for the fainthearted.  Just when you think you have it figured out with a plan in place; as Emeril likes to say BAM you get spanked with the dreaded double zero?  Sometimes no matter how hard you prepare and how well you execute things just don't work out and for us this was the week.  We were prepared and ready for the event, the boat was humming, all angling equipment was ready and both Nancy and I were excited to be back on the water to fish.  Our prefishing and information from others indicated a scarcity of fish; they seemed to be scattered and moving each day, so no one had a line on where to fish.  We heard plans from teams to fish from as far north as Georgetown and as far south as the Redtops.  Our plan was to fish this event not like an aggregate event, but rather a big fish event, we were seeking one tournament grade fish from this tournament so we would fish offshore one day and on the beach the next.  This plan has served us well over the years in SKA divisional tournaments, and the idea is to head offshore and pick up a points fish and then head in and hunt the big one.  We figured this plan provided the team the best chances to achieve  our objective for the event.

At the Captain's meeting we were able to confirm our suspicions that fish were scattered and we were pleased to hear that another team had caught a good fish at the offshore reef we were planning to fish on day one.  We rose at 4:30am and headed off to the docks at the Weston resort to load up and meet up with our bait man, we secured a dozen gogs and a dozen runners and headed to the checkout boat. This required an 18 mile run in the dark down the Savannah River, something I think I will never get used to doing.   We were third in line and off we went some 50 miles e/se from the mouth of the river.   We arrived at the spot and put out baits and fished for about an hour without marking bait or fish.  We pulled up and ran back N for about 8 miles and met up with 4 other tournament competitors.  We fishing this spot, ledges and outcroppings, until about 11:00am when we decided to head back inshore as none of the boats fishing had landed a kingfish.  We headed in some 27 miles to Grey's reef where we have some numbers that have been good to us.  When we arrived the spot was alive with Spanish jumping and bait marked by the sonar and we were sure that a fish would come from this.  Unfortunately for us, it did when another competitor came over and brought into their boat a fish of 32 pounds, but that is just fishing.  No harm no foul.  We fished the rest of the day without a strike and headed back to the dock wondering what else we should have done?

Day two we rose a bit later as we would be looking for pogies in the morning and needed not to be one of the first in line.  We checked out and headed a few miles north, off Hilton Head with many other boats.  The winds had picked up from the north and the sea was much different from day one, when it was calm.  This morning the sea was kicked up a bit, which makes finding bait a bit more difficult.  I tossed the net on a flip and was rewarded with about 100 pogies.  Was this a sign for the day?  NOT!!!!  We had decided to fish the Savannah ship channel and only had about 5 miles to run, but when we arrived it was pouring rain.  The storm was more an omen than the bait.  We fished hard for the entire day, pogies up, pogies down, live spanish in the propwash, ribbons down, up and long and never had a strike from a kingfish.  There were about 10 other quality teams fishing this spot and we did not see a single fish boated!!  YIKES!!!! So as Pete Seeger could have written and sang:  "Where have all the kingfish gone? Gone from savannah and we got NONE, when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?". 

So to achieve our objectives for the 2006 SKA Pro Season, the pressure is now clearly upon us to perform well in Little River, SC; a place we have never before fished. There is no one to blame, it is what it is, we have created our circumstances and we can cure them as well. While this is not what we had planned we can still accomplish our 2006 tournament season goals, wish us luck.  Stay tuned we are calling all kingfish gods of the greater Cape Fear area.....

Sometimes 1+1=3.  How can that be, as the mathematical equation that 1+1=2 has been proven to be a fact many times over? Due to poor weather conditions at the Fort Pierce stop of the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour, teams were able to weigh in 3 fish during this past week's event in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Nancy and I decided that we would set between 105 and 120 points as our objective during this event, thinking that three 40s would be great but three 35s would keep us in the mix to achieve our objectives for the 2006 season. 

 

We came up a few pounds short with 98.25 points with fish of 36.71, 31.07 and 30.47 pounds weighed in. 

Fishing this area is always a treat for us and the amazing diversity of mother nature was on full display for us both during our visit.  The savagery of the 2006 hurricane season is still fully in view with manmade structures of all sorts in disarray.  Camps gone, hotels and marinas with structural damage and most amazing is that some of the favorite rigs we fish are either gone, sporting severely bent platforms or high water marks beyond belief. On the fishing front, we had a blast angling these fertile waters.  We caught trigger fish, blue runners, bonita, spadefish, amberjack, white trout, red snapper, the largest jack crevalle I have ever caught, about 35 king mackerel, a 40+ pound cobia, a 200+ pound shark of some sort and we chased away a hammerhead looking over our baits.  As the license plates proclaim Louisiana is a true "Sportsman's Paradise". The Captain's Meeting Dinner hosted by Kajun Sportsman was great, prime rib au jus, cajun potatoes and dinner rolls, this dinner is by far the best on the circuit.

We prefished on Wednesday and baited up on Thursday and were ready to go on Friday morning, with the check-out at 6:30am.  We had picked our spot in about 100 feet and were ready to navigate the 40 miles, heading W/SW of the inlet.  We ran hard and were the second boat to the rig. We put out the lines and were greeted by a double hook-up.  The mathematical equation that 1+1=2 was proven yet again with our double hookup. If ever there was a venue where competing with just two on the team increases the degree of difficulty, Louisiana is the place. The efforts required to bait fish, set the lines, clear the lines, fight the fish, gaff the fish, tie the rigs, set the lines time and time again, is enormous and a second, third or fourth crewmember is a distinct advantage in the Gulf. Luckily we were only fishing four lines and one fish hit the downrigger, so as we did the kingfish two-step duet the other two lines remained out.  At first we thought Nancy had the better fish as the runs the fish was making were long and strong but as it turned out, it was a smallish 20 pound class fish which was foul hooked and frisky.  I quickly brought the 'other' fish to the boat and was surprised to see it roll up much larger than I expected, a fish I estimated to be about 38 pounds.  We released Nan's fish and stuck the gaff in the larger fish and iced it down in our Kikngfish Koffin fish bag.  For the next three hours, I never had a chance to sit as we were either clearing lines, fighting fish, deploying lines or retying lines.  We prepared for this by bringing 9 fully ready rods/reels all pre-rigged with our chosen rigs, more than 200 pretwisted bait rigs and a myriad of tackle supplies but even that advanced preparation was no match of a great Gulf of Mexico bite between 7:30 and 10:30.  Between 10:30 and 11:00am the bite just stopped, so we fished a while longer and headed to another rig some 19 miles E/SE of our spot and in deeper water.  We had a few small fish there and decided at about 2:30pm to make another run of more than 20 miles to a rig we knew would have bait on it.  Again the mathematical equation 1+1=2 was proven, as it takes us a bit longer to catch bait so we prepare for it by setting aside some time to baitfish today for competition tomorrow.  After securing enough bait for day two, we cleaned up the boat, headed back to our rented 'camp' cleaned up and had dinner.  The alarm rang early on day two as we prepared for our second day of competition.

We checked the leader board to see who caught what and decided it was possible that the leading fish was caught at the rig we were fishing the day before, so back we went.  The winds had picked up a bit and the ride out was sloppy but safe and we arrived at the rig around 7:50am due to the increased seas. We put out the lines and again immediately got a strike - Nancy angled the fish to the boat and we put the fish in the bag.  A second slightly larger fish soon was boated and we were hopeful that perhaps we could find the 50 pounder we sought?  It was not to be, as the bite again shut down around 11:00am.  We trolled all areas and rigs in the general area and had to settle with a 30.41 pound fish.  All in all, although we were short of our goal, we had a fun time, saw many of our fellow actors in the traveling circus and now have tallied 178.13 or a 35.62 pound five fish average.  We will not know exactly where we are placed in the standings until the SKA publishes the final results later this week. An interesting fact is that we are on pace to tally somewhere between 220 and 250 points and 245 points won the AOY in 2005.  It seems that 2006 will be a banner year of scoring for the SKA Pro Tour and our goal to be in the top 20 on tour will be all the more difficult but all the sweeter when we accomplish it.  Wish us luck and come back for some pictures later on this week.  Next up for us is the Savannah stop in late August....stay tuned

There is a tropical depression in the Caribbean (TD 1) and the one thing no one on the Gulf Coast needs is yet another storm to come through.  'THE' FishDancer and I loaded up the Silverado and headed West.  It has been an interesting trip thus far.  It began with my cross country trip on Friday, heading back from California to meet up with Nancy and the boat and trailer somewhere near the Jacksonville airport.  Thanks to some logistical assistance from our 'mate emeritus', Terry Adkins and the good neighborly assistance from our new friends Art Carnes and Monica, at Super Saver Parking at the Jax airport, I was able to quickly hook up and get rolling toward Port Fourchon, despite my 2 hour delay from my EX-friends at Delta airlines.  Nancy and I decided to break the 730 mile trip into two segments and so we pulled into Tallahassee, Florida on Friday night for some needed sleep and after an early breakfast on Saturday morning, we pointed the headlights of the Silverado West on I-10 towards our final destination. 

The affects of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons are still readily apparent along the I-10 corridor.  The Escambia Bay bridge, ravaged in 2004 is still under repair and the maritime forests in the Bay St. Louis area still bear witness of the strength and wantonness of Katrina.  The section of I-10 that crosses Lake Ponchatrain is open but under repair -- for those heading over this weekend this portion of the intrastate will be closed from Sunday night until Monday morning to facilitate further repairs.  Coming off the Ponchatrain Bridge we prepared ourselves for the wonderful roads of Slidell and while I think its fair to say these roads haven't improved, neither Nancy nor I noticed it that much this trip.  Our eyes, and our hearts, were filled with the pictures of a 'ghost town' created by the floods.  Empty, closed malls, apartments, homes, businesses and damage to everything in sight and all of this is clearly visible from the highway, we can only imagine what it is like up close and personal.  One tip to those traveling, make sure to fuel up as you go through this area as this would not be a good place to be low on fuel, or anything else for that matter.  It is very sad to see.  We headed past New Orleans East, Kenner and turned to the South past Boutte, LaRose, Cut Off and made our turn from route 1 onto the Cote Blanche Connector.  Heading further south you can still see the affects of Katrina and Rita in these areas.  We stopped for fuel at the Kajun Sportsman and chatted with Anthony for a while.  His operation is in full swing, fuel, docks, restaurant - its all good.  We checked into the Port Fourchon Marina and the docks are in real rough shape, so if you are coming be prepared with extra lines and some patience.  Finally we headed to the camp we rented for the week, just down the road in Grand Isle.  All I can say is WOW!!!  It looks like a war zone with destroyed, partially destroyed and rebuilding camps.  There is debris all over, much work going on and again it is a sad sight, we can only imagine the emotional toll of these two storms.  So it is with something of heavy hearts that we prepare to fish this coming week.  We can only pray that TD 1 goes somewhere else, these folks do not need to go yet another round with mother nature.  In the meantime, wish us luck we understand that several 50s were weighed well to the west this week and if the weather holds guess where we will be next Friday and Saturday?  Stay tuned.....

One of the most enjoyable things about fishing in a tournament is to expose the new and uninitiated to the joys and rigors of tournament angling.  Nancy and I decided to enjoy the St. Mary's King Mackerel Classic with some newfound friends from Peachtree City, Brett and his son Joey.  It seems that they have had a chance to fish from a 21 foot boat in the Gulf but were having some difficulties figuring out the puzzle of where fish were hiding and how to target them.  So when we offered the chance for them to join us this weekend at the St. Mary's event, they took the leap of faith and said yes.  We met at the Amelia Island Yacht Basin at 5:30am and began to load up the equipment shortly thereafter.  Our plan was to checkout, turn North for bait and then head off some 30 miles S/SE to our chosen spot. Although we expected some fish to be caught at the usual spots to the North and due East, we decided to stay a tad closer with our new tournament anglers.  We tracked down some TINY pogies off of Cumberland and turned directly into the SE well and SW wind to head to our spots.  About 6 miles into the run Nancy and I decided to stay closer to make the day more enjoyable for our guests.  So we pulled up at a nearshore reef and put out the lines.  We fished for a while with no action and described everyone's steps in the kingfish mambo. Shortly thereafter we hooked up on one of my 'secret weapon' rigs and Joey took the rod and reel.  Once the lines were cleared I was up in the bow with the teenager who seemed to be hooked up to another.  Coaching him in the techniques required to bring this fish boatside was fun and Joes did well learning, soon we had a kin about 15 pounds at the side of the FishDancer.  I tailed the fish and we all agreed to release the fish to grow larger. Next up was Brett and we did a mambo duet on the bow as he fought a decent fish.  Unfortunately for us both it was a snaggletooth which we also took a picture of.  We all take so much for granted as many times we would have been mumbling about a small teenager and a cuda but Brett and Joey were very happy, each catching their first of the species.  We moved about 11am and headed out into deeper water and were rewarded with a nice gaffer dolphin for Brett, yet another first fish for him.  With the storms brewing and a bit of the Davy Jones' Flu on board we decided to head back in around 2pm.  Both of our new friends were pleased to be taking home a nice dolphin for dinner and had a good time, learned a few tricks and overall are better informed about the tournament game in general.

Nancy and I now turn our attention to the 3rd leg of the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour, Port Fourchon, LA.  Our plan is to head over to LA next Friday/Saturday and do some scouting for bait/fish during the week.  We are looking forward to scaling 3 quality Delta king mackerel and have targeted 105-120 points for our objective during this event.  Ultimately for us to stay in the chase for LAOY and AOY we need to return to Fernandina with a 5 fish average of between 37 and 40 pounds.  We know we can do it....much to do and little time left to do it in, wish us luck and stay tuned.....  

The doctrine is "A LEAP OF FAITH". If nothing else, competing along the SKA Professional Kingfish Trail is clearly a leap of faith.  Despite the best of technology and l