Tournament Report – Sneads Ferry KMT
After a long, slow day of fishing, Clay Gallup and team “Keep it Reel,” with crew members Jared Floyd and Bruce Gallup, weighed in a 42.3 lb. king mackerel to take the win at the 2016 Sneads Ferry KMT. The crew received a check for close to $27,000 for their fish.
Going into the event, the team had a plan to fish Ocracoke in the morning, re-bait around lunch, and then hit 4 Mile Drum in the afternoon, and everything went according to plan.
“It was a waiting game,” said Gallup. “We arrived at 4 Mile Drum and saw some other boats we knew fishing the area. There was one bite all day, and it hit around 2:15.”
As the crew hooked the fish, a nearby boat called out to the team that it was a shark on. “It was a weird bite. We hooked her on a bluefish, and she swam straight to the boat. We got her to the boat in under three minutes, and it was over the rail and into the bag. We didn’t even have time to zip it up before we headed back to weigh-in.”
Clay Gallup, Jared Floyd, and Bruce Gallup with the winning fish in the 2016 Sneads Ferry KMT. The king mackerel weighed in at 42.3 lbs. to win the crew a check of almost $27,000.
It was a game of beat the clock for the team, with a slow day turning into a frantic run. “It all happened so fast,” explained Gallup, “that we didn’t really even look at the fish until we hit the no wake zone in Morehead City. I went to ice the fish, and we really got a good look at her. We knew we had an over 40 lb. fish, and that’s when we started telling our families we thought we would be in the top three at least.”
Hitting the weigh-in docks, the team opted to forgo the photo op and headed straight to the scales. “It all happened so fast, but then the place erupted when we took the fish out of the bag. We knew that we had a winner,” Gallup said with a laugh.
Allen Barnes, Brett Barnes, and Sierra Barnes, of Team Hot Rod, with their second place fish, weighing in at 38.42 lbs. Sierra Barnes was also awarded Lady Angler in the 2016 Sneads Ferry KMT.
Team “Hot Rod” came in second with a 38.42 lb. fish, and bringing in third with a 36.4 lb. fish was team “Smack Down.”
For more information on the Sneads Ferry KMT, visit their website at www.sfkmt.com.
