Jolly Mon King Mackerel Tournament
Mark Long, Regina Reep, and Elijah Sorensen scaled this 41.65 lb. king mackerel to handily top the 205 boat field in the 2013 Jolly Mon King Classic. Their money-winning mackerel bit a live menhaden 20 miles off Ocean Isle at the Jungle.
With the largest king mackerel ever caught on his boat in tow, Mark Long and the “Down Time” fishing team were one of the first to arrive at the scales at Ocean Isle Fishing Center on Saturday, June 15. Their 41.65 lb. king mackerel took over the lead, and it held the top spot through the rest of Saturday and Sunday’s weigh-ins, earning the crew the title of 2013 Jolly Mon King Classic Champions.
Long, fishing with Regina Reep and Elijah Sorensen on a 26’ Sea Hunt, hadn’t had time to do much pre-fishing for the event, but went in with a plan.
“I’d fished a couple weeks ago but been tied up with work since,” Long explained, “but we wanted to head to the Shark Hole after we got bait since it was so good last year.”
There, the anglers found the spot aptly named, as an abundance of sharks was all their trolling spread could muster.
“It was blowing east and we weren’t catching anything but sharks,” Long continued, “so we went to the Atlantic Ledge.”
They found some hungry dolphin at their new spot, but no kings by the time they decided to head to the Jungle, a live bottom spot around 20 miles off Ocean Isle.
“We caught a real big spanish mackerel right when we got there,” said Long.
Their next fish took a live menhaden under a pink skirt on the surface shortly after 1:00 PM, and at first it acted just like the spaniard.
“It bit slow, and I thought it was another spanish,” Long reported. “We fed line to the fish, and when we hooked up, we knew it was big. I use braid with a topshot of mono on my reels, and he went through the mono quick.”
Long and Reep immediately began clearing the remaining lines and downriggers in preparation of chasing the speedy fish.
“He had 300 yards of line out by the time we got the downriggers up,” Long explained.
The anglers chased the fish for the next quarter-hour, and when they caught up, the fish appeared tired.
“He was down about 25 feet,” Long continued. “I could see the tail and see it was a big fish, but they look a little smaller down there in the water.”
After a quick pass by the bow of the boat, the king rolled on its side on the surface and the crew worked it boatside.
“I took the gaff and pulled the safety tube off of it,” said Long, “and tried to gaff it across the tail so it didn’t bleed too much. The gaff didn’t hook him so I tried again, and that’s when I realized the hook was facing up and I was trying to put the rubber safety tube in the fish.”
A quick reorientation of the gaff solved the problem, and Long gaffed the fish in the tail and cradled its upper body with his hand to haul it aboard.
“We put that thing in the fish bag, iced it down, and it was time to hit the road.,” Long said.
The anglers made the run back to Ocean Isle, weighed their fish in, and settled in to watch the rest of Saturday’s weigh-in and see what the other boats brought in on Sunday.
“That’s a great feeling to pull in there, pull out that fish, and have the crowd cheering,” Long said. “We were a little worried about Sunday, but Regina was worse off than I was. Every time a boat would come in with a big fish in a fish bag, she’d go out to the parking lot while they weighed it in, and there were a bunch of cobia coming in.”
Despite the nervousness, the “Down Time” fish easily held the top of the leaderboard through the close of the weigh-in, besting the second place fish by over 6 lbs.
Larry Allen and the “Hot Rod/Team Woody” crew secured second place in the Jolly Mon with a 35.3 lb. fish, and “Aqualoco” rounded out the top three with a 33.3 lb. king.
More information and a full leaderboard for the event are available at www.oifc.com.
