Onslow Bay Open KMT 2007
Junior Angler Zach Turnage not only accomplished a feat few anglers will when he caught a 44 lb. king mackerel last Saturday, he caught it during a tournament, a dream even fewer will realize. The 44.15 lb. king that Turnage reeled in during the seventh annual Onslow Bay Open King Mackerel Tournament, held September 21-23 out of Swansboro, earned his dad’s “Gotta Go” fishing team over $10,000 and put a feather in Zach’s angling cap that will last a lifetime.
Turnage fished the event with his father, Mike, and father/son teammates Donnie and Brett Parrott aboard the Turnage’s 31′ Yamaha-powered Contender “Gotta Go.” Like most of the boats fishing the tournament, the team correctly calculated that their best odds of catching a winning king would come while trolling on the east side of Lookout Shoals.
After fishing the morning at the East Rock and catching a few smaller kings, the “Gotta Go” crew decided to join the 15-20 boats trolling around the famously productive 1700 Rock. In the early afternoon, some storms developed inshore of the rock and many of the boats headed in.
“The boats were starting to thin out due to the storm, but we had radar, and we could tell what it was doing so we stayed,” Mike Turnage said.
Around 1:30, as the team was experiencing a lull in the action, something inhaled a silver Mylar-skirted pogy tolled short in the Contender’s propwash.
“None of us saw it hit,” Turnage explained. “It was that time of day when everything’s slow, and everyone’s just kind of laying around the boat.”
After striking the hapless pogy, the fish made a run off the Contender’s stern before changing directions.
“He took a run off the back, then turned around and ran off the bow. When he came around he was swimming kind of like an albacore, and I thought he might be, but when he ran to the bow, he just kept clicking on away.”
The run off the bow continued until the team decided to chase down the fish. Zach Turnage gained line as the crew followed their fish, and soon the battle was over.
“We just chased him down and gaffed him and that was it,” Turnage revealed. When the team caught up to their fish, Brett Parrott planted the gaff and swung it over the Contender’s gunnels.
With a mid-40’s king in the boat, the “Gotta Go” crew soon decided to head for the scales, located at Casper’s Dry Stack Marina. When the weigh-in came to a close, the fish held the lead by over 9 lbs.
Aside from the winning fish, the “Gotta Go” team landed five others on Saturday, with one weighing 27 lbs. and another around 20 lbs.
Instead of burning fishing time searching for bait Saturday morning, the “Gotta Go” anglers fished with pogies they’d penned up during the weeks prior to the event.
A 34.75 lb. king mackerel secured second place and nearly $8,000 for Sam Ballou’s “White Lightning” team, from Morehead City. The crew, made up of Ballou, Tim Hudson, and his son Brandon Hudson, fish aboard a 36′ Mercury-powered Yellowfin.
The team found their money-winning fish at the George Summerlin Reef, also on the east side, late in the event’s only fishing day.
“We didn’t get him to bite until 20 minutes to 4:00,” Ballou said. Tim Hudson took the rod when the king bit and held on for its initial run. With the weigh-in at Swansboro closing at 5:00, the anglers knew they’d have to boat the fish quickly, as Ballou explained.
“He ran a long way, but we just chased him down. We put him in the boat in under 10 minutes, and left for the weigh-in at 10 to 4:00.”
Ballou planted the gaff when the anglers closed in on the fish, then throttled up the boat’s four 275 hp Mercury Verados and pointed the bow towards the scales. The anglers made the long run in just 42 minutes, arriving in plenty of time to weigh their king.
In addition to the 34 lb. mackerel, the “White Lightning” anglers caught several smaller kings over the day, along with plenty of nuisance sharks. They caught their pogies at Harker’s Island Saturday morning.
The “White Lightning” fishing team is sponsored by S.F. Ballou Construction and Tim Hudson Painting.
Third place in the tournament went to the “Y-Not” fishing team, who weighed in a 32.43 lb. fish to take home nearly $3,000. Team Capt. Tony Pavone fished the tournament with Gene Smelik (who took the event’s top Senior Angler honors) and Dave Arnold aboard his 23′ Mercury-powered Key West.
The “Y-Not” anglers also found their king at the 1700 Rock, where it struck a naked pogy on the surface. The fish inhaled the bait, trolled in the middle position, around 9:00 Saturday morning, and Smelik grabbed the rod.
“He took about 250 yards on that first run,” Pavone recalled, “and he made three or four more runs between 100 and 150 yards.”
After striking the bait, the king went deep and stayed down throughout the fight. The long runs and deep fight led Pavone to worry that the team might have a wahoo; however, around 35 minutes into the fight, Pavone got a look at the fish and realized that they had a big king. When the fish finally surfaced 45 minutes after it took the bait, Pavone sank the gaff.
“That fish went absolutely crazy after I gaffed him,” he said. “I’ve never seen a king that spunky.”
After boating the 32 lb. king, the “Y-Not” anglers continued trolling until 12:30, when the brewing storm convinced them to head for Swansboro. The third place fish was their only king of the day.
Robert Newsome’s “Flat Broke” fishing team caught the 30.33 lb. fourth place king in the event. Newsome fished with his wife, Elizabeth, who earned the Top Lady Angler prize, and Curtis Deans aboard the team’s 26′ Grady-White.
The “Flat Broke” fish bit a naked pogy at 9:00 Saturday morning as the anglers trolled 30 Minute Rock.
“I was letting out the downrigger bait about 10′ behind the boat when I saw him hit,” Robert Newsome said. “I locked up the reel and he started pulling drag.”
Unlike most kings, Newsome’s fish never took a long run. Instead, he explained that it led him on a chase around the boat.
“He went under the boat a time or two, then dragged me up front. I went around the boat a couple times with him.”
By the time Newsome worked the fish to the boat, Deans was ready with the gaff and brought the fish aboard.
Newsome wished to express his gratitude to the team’s sponsors Smitty’s Marine, Morehead Marine, and Grady-White.
The “Deal King” captured the event’s fifth place fish at 29.01 lbs.
A 29.15 lb. king secured the top prize in the 23′ Class for the Rhonda Bee.
Aside from providing anglers with an exciting fishing tournament at a time of year when king mackerel are feeding heavily in the area, the seventh annual Onslow Bay Open continued its tradition of raising money for local children’s charities.
This year, the tournament’s beneficiaries were Camp E Ma Henwu, Camp Sunshine, Boys and Girls Home of NC, Children’s Flight for Hope, FOP Shop with a Cop, NC Special Olympics, and the Onslow County Christmas Cheer program.
