Raleigh Saltwater Sportfishing Club KMT
Jamie Nelms and Alex Chandler, fishing aboard the "She Said Yes," hauled a 51.3 lb. king mackerel to the scales to earn first place and over $19,000 in the Raleigh Saltwater Sportfishing Club KMT. Their mega-smoker fell for a double pogy rig on the downrigger in the Beaufort shipping channel.
Squeezing by the second place boat by just .04 lbs., Jamie Nelms and Alex Chandler, aboard the 26’ Sailfish “She Said Yes,” hauled a huge 51.3 lb. king mackerel to the scales to take first place in the Raleigh Saltwater Sportfishing Club King Mackerel Tournament. Hailing from Mebane and Cary, NC, respectively, the anglers brought over $19,000 back to the middle of the state.
“Well, I’d caught a big one two weeks before in the shipping channel,” Nelms replied when asked how the crew decided where to fish. “And Alex pre-fished during the week and saw some nice fish caught, so we decided to sit there all day and wait for a big one.”
The anglers had plenty of action at first, landing sharks and several 3-6 lb. spanish mackerel, but they didn’t see a king mackerel until well after lunch.
“The bite turned on about 2:30,” Nelms said. “We doubled up right after that and landed a fish around 20. Pretty soon after we got the lines back out we hooked the big one.”
Their monster king inhaled a double pogy rig 25’ deep on the downrigger as the anglers were trolling near the third set of buoys off Beaufort Inlet in 45’ of water. As the king tore line from the reel, the anglers had an unpleasant surprise.
“We had somebody run over our other lines behind the boat,” Nelms continued. “We were so lucky he bit the down bait or he’d have gotten cut off. That’s just the way it goes fishing the shipping channel on a weekend.”
With a big fish running one way and the rest of their lines running into another boat’s prop, Nelms was forced to cut the remaining lines to try and chase their fish.
“I think we were actually able to get after the fish quicker than if I’d had to clear them,” he explained.
After making a 200+ yard initial run, the king came to surface around 10 minutes into the fight and the anglers saw they had a solid fish on.
“We saw he was a good fish,” Nelms said. “Then he took a couple more runs. We probably fought him for about 20 minutes before I said ‘we need to hurry up and get him in the boat. I’m going to have a heart attack if we don’t’.”
After they’d worked the king close enough, Nelms leaned out and planted the gaff, hauling it over the Sailfish’s gunwale.
“We started high-fiving then,” Nelms continued. “We both thought it was a 50. It was the biggest king either of us had ever caught and the first tournament I’d won.”
After packing up and heading for the scales, the anglers made a wise decision that likely secured their win.
“We debated taking the fish out of the bag and taking a picture, but we decided not to,” Nelms explained. “That fish probably would’ve lost enough fluid to knock us down to second if we had.”
Skip Conklin and the “Ocean Athlete,” from Morehead City, were right on Nelms and Chandler’s heels with a 51.26 lb. king, pocketing over $10,000.
Atlantic Beach’s Jimmy Butts, on the “Jimmy Mack,” weighed in a 43. 84 lb. king to capture third place and over $5,500. Fishing with Mike and John Davis aboard the 28’ Privateer center console, Butts decided to fish an area typically hot this time of year.
“We didn’t pre-fish,” Butts explained. “We just used our past history. We keep logbooks going back 10-12 years, and Drum Inlet has always been hot this time of year.”
Heading around the point of Cape Lookout for 4 Mile Rock off Drum Inlet, the “Jimmy Mack” crew didn’t wait long for their big bite.
“We got there, marked a good pod of bait, made a couple circles of it, and that’s when it happened,” Butts continued.
A naked pogy trolled in the middle of the spread fooled the 43 pounder, and Butts took the rod while the king ran.
“He made a pretty good run,” he said. “We got him to the top 1-2 times, and then he made a few more short runs before Mike gaffed him. We really didn’t think much of it until we put it in the boat. Only then did we realize how big it was.”
After continuing to follow the bait at 4 Mile Rock and landing a few fish in the 20’s, the anglers decided to troll towards the scales in order to weigh their fish as quickly as possible.
A 42.64 lb. king earned fourth place for Brandon Sewell, on the “Been Hot.” Tim Newton, aboard the “Deal King,” finished out the top five with a 34.42 lb. king.
This year’s Raleigh Saltwater Sportfishing Club KMT attracted 143 boats. More information and full results are available on the club’s website at www.rswsc.org.
