Tournament Report – Sneads Ferry KMT
After a hiatus from the kingfish tournament scene, Chris Edens and the “Sarah Jo” fishing team came back with an exclamation point, scaling a 41.01 lb. king mackerel to secure first place and over $27,000 in the 2015 Sneads Ferry King Mackerel Tournament.
Fishing with Kyle Mitchell and Justin Shepperd aboard a 26’ Triton center console, the anglers also weren’t able to do any pre-fishing prior to the event, but they decided to rely on past results from the event to guide them in their search for a money-winning mackerel.
“We’ve fished this tournament a lot, and the winner has come from the 1700 Rock just about every year,” Edens said, referencing a popular spot east of Cape Lookout. “There’s too much history at the 1700, so I wanted to fish it from sunup to sundown.
The “Sarah Jo” fishing team–Chris Edens, Kyle Mitchell, and Justin Shepperd with the 41.01 lb. king mackerel that secured their victory in the 2015 Sneads Ferry Rotary Club King Mackerel Tournament. The big king fell for a ribbonfish on the downrigger at AR-285.
Veterans of fishing the Cape Lookout area, the anglers quickly caught bait near Town Creek Marina on the morning of the event, then headed to the east side of Lookout Shoals to get to their chosen spot.
“We were where we wanted to be at 7:30,” Edens explained.
However, after three hours of trolling, the anglers had only hooked a few sharks and a large false albacore, and Edens decided to modify the gameplan.
“The water didn’t look right—it was too blue,” he continued, “and it seems like I’ve never caught a big king where I’ve caught an albacore. Kyle had a gut feeling the big fish would be caught inshore, so we headed back to the Summerlin Reef.”
The anglers passed a number of tournament boats headed in the opposite direction as they made their way back to the Summerlin, just east of Lookout Shoals, but found no competition once they arrived.
“There were two bay boats flounder fishing when we got there, but nobody trolling,” Edens said.
They’d trolled the area for around 30 minutes and were considering another move when the captain found something to hold his attention on the sounder.
“We started marking better bait and then that fish bit,” Edens explained.
Their downrigger bait, a ribbonfish on a Blue Water Candy rig, drew the strike, and the anglers knew it was a decent fish on the first run.
“He ran off 150 yards at first and stopped,” Edens continued. “I was saying I thought it was a good fish when it really started getting out of there.”
The fish tore off another 200 yards of line, and the anglers took off in pursuit.
“We were just about on plane chasing that fish, and I could still see him taking a bit of line,” said the captain.
As the anglers got a bit closer to their adversary, they got their first look at it around three minutes into the fight.
“He came up on top and the fish was so dark and the head so wide I thought it was a cobia,” reported Edens.
The fish went down after the crew’s fleeting glimpse, and the anglers didn’t get another look until they got on top of the fish several minutes later. This time, Edens realized they had a rather large king mackerel.
“We were straight up and down, and I saw it and knew it was a king,” he said. “We have 30 feet of fluorocarbon on our rods, and we didn’t even have that on the reel. When I realized it was more than 30 feet down, I knew it was a good one.”
Their king came up after that, circling the boat several times before Mitchell reached out and snagged it with the gaff.
“All three of us helped that fish across the gunnel,” Edens said. “I helped Kyle on the gaff with my right hand, and Shep grabbed the tail. It hit the deck with a thud, and you probably could’ve heard us screaming a couple miles away.”
The “Sarah Jo” anglers immediately put the king into a fish bag, plugged the gaff hole, and iced it down and began their trek back to Sneads Ferry and the scales.
“We thought that fish was somewhere in the thirties,” Edens concluded. “When the scale read out 41, I was breathless.”
The “Sarah Jo” crew wished to thank sponsors Edward Jones Financial, Blue Water Candy, and Key Largo rods for their support.
Just behind the “Sarah Jo” anglers with a 40.50 lb. king mackerel were Kevin Norris and the “Reel Blessed” fishing team. Kevin Petty and the “C Ark” rounded out the top three with a 39.45 lb. king.
