Hook A Hoo Rodeo 2008
After posting a litany of victories and top-5 finishes on the king mackerel tournament circuit, Dean Spatholt’s “Fish Meister” fishing team has become a known and feared force well beyond their southeastern NC home waters. It turns out kingfishing isn’t all they’re good at, as Spatholt and teammate Dennis Watson proved by weighing in a 65.12 lb. wahoo to take home first place and over $15,000 in the first annual Martini’s Restaurant Hook a Hoo Rodeo, held April 6-13.
Although the “designate one fishing day out of the week” event was originally slated for the first week in April, the organizers moved it back one week due to high winds and rough seas. The wind kept blowing during the next week, but calmed enough to allow anglers offshore Wednesday through Friday of the competition week.
Along with 30 of the 41 competing boats in the event, the “Fish Meister” crew chose to head for the blue water on Thursday, April 10. Punching the throttles on their 36′ Yellowfin’s triple Yamaha 350 hp four strokes, Spatholt and Watson headed for the Blackjack Hole. Around 9:30, a few miles north of the Blackjack, the anglers got their first strike on a blue/white artificial trolling lure.
Watson was quick to the rod after the drag sounded a strike, and he began fighting the fish as Spatholt cleared the lines. The anglers shared in the combat duties, however, as he handed the rod off to Spatholt after fighting the fish for a few minutes. Spatholt continued the battle, and after only around 15 minutes had the fish near the big Yellowfin. Although their ‘hoo was almost boatside, the fight wasn’t over yet, as Watson discovered when he reached for the gaff.
“We only had a 4′ gaff,” he explained. “We thought we had an 8′ gaff with a bigger hook, but it must not have made it in the boat.”
Watson planted the little gaff in the wahoo’s back, but unsure he could drag the fish over the gunnels with the small hook, he summoned Spatholt’s assistance.
“I had that fish near the head, and Dean grabbed it by the tail, and we pulled it in,” Watson said.
“Then we both ran up to the bow and just started laughing while that fish went crazy in the back of the boat,” Spatholt explained.
Catching a mid-60’s wahoo before 10:00 took a little bit of pressure off Spatholt and Watson’s shoulders, but they continued trolling, getting several more short strikes but no hookups. With the big fish in the boat, they soon decided to revert to one of their secondary missions for the day-finding some good deepwater grouper numbers.
Having seen several likely-looking holes on the bottom machine while trolling, the anglers returned to check them out, and managed to add some hefty groupers to the whopper wahoo already in the fish box. Watson hooked up with the largest, landing a 30+ lb. gag on a butterfly jig, but Spatholt added red grouper around 12 and 20 lbs. to the box as well.
Reaching the scales after what could only be described as an incredible day of fishing, the “Fish Meister” anglers learned their wahoo was the largest of the day. The six boats fishing on Friday were only able to produce one fish, and Spatholt and Watson’s wahoo held on to the top spot on the leaderboard, earning them the guaranteed $10,000 first place prize money and $6,000 in the TWT.
Spatholt wished to express his gratitude to sponsors Yellowfin and Yamaha for their contributions to the team’s success.
Also fishing on Thursday, the crew of the “On the Weigh” weighed in the second place fish, a 60.38 lb. wahoo. Aboard the 54′ Hatteras for the tournament were Chuggy Vereen and Jay Baldwin (co-owners), Danny Juel (Capt.), David Chesney, Johnny Vereen, and Jesse Vereen. Jesse fought the fish and took home the event’s top Junior Angler prize.
The “On the Weigh” trolled the Atlantic for several hours on Thursday morning before they got a tandem strike just after noon. The crew was trolling along the break just east of the Winyah Scarp when they finally found the action, and it was a blue/black skirted ballyhoo on top that caught the attention of the second place fish.
“We fished all morning with no bites,” Juel said, “Just dragging and dragging. Then about 12:30 we got a double header-both good fish, but we lost one.”
Fortunately for the anglers, the second fish stayed hooked, and Jesse Vereen fought it as it alternately ran towards and away from the boat, throwing in plenty of head shakes to try and lose the hook. After around 20 minutes, though, Vereen had the big wahoo to the boat.
After celebrating putting the 60 pounder in the box, the “On the Weigh” crew trolled the area for a bit longer, then headed east as the water quality diminished at the spot they landed their first fish. Although they didn’t land a larger one, the wahoo held second place by a large margin, earning the team $3,000 and a Garmin Etrex handheld GPS for Jesse’s first place Junior Angler finish.
Third place in the tournament and $2,000 went to Capt. Ken Dodson, Andre Allen, and Randy Smith, fishing aboard the “Reel Relief,” for a 43.8 lb. wahoo. They hooked the third place fish and a smaller wahoo while high-speed trolling offshore of the 100/400.
The Hook a Hoo Rodeo also featured TWT prizes for the largest tuna and dolphin landed during the event. A 19.04 lb. dolphin earned $3,000 for Eric Jordan aboard the “Chasin’ Bugs,” and Jeff Drake, fishing aboard “The Law,” landed a 20.90 lb. blackfin tuna to pocket $3,000 as well.
The event’s top lady angler prize was split between “The Law” angler Michelle Evans, for the aforementioned blackfin tuna, and Makala Martini, who landed a 37 lb. wahoo aboard the “Dirty Martini.”
The idea for this event first came to organizers Jeff Martini and Ace Parker around a year ago.
“We were fishing together, and we’d been talking about doing a specifically wahoo tournament for a while because that’s what we really like to fish for,” Parker explained. “So we decided to go ahead and do it. Jeff’s son was burned as a child, and so we also decided to make the Shriners our beneficiary because of all the wonderful things they do for burned children.”
The Omar Shrine Temple, the event’s sole beneficiary, operates a network of hospitals across North America providing no-cost burn and orthopedic care to children under 18. The tournament’s goal was to generate $10,000 for the Shrine Temple, but as of the awards ceremony, they were over a thousand dollars short. Fortunately, the “Fish Meister” crew seems to be as generous as they are skilled at fishing, and they donated the difference.
Plans are already in the making for next year’s Hook a Hoo Rodeo, and the organizers anticipate the event will keep growing. Although, they may move the dates until the end of April to take advantage of the generally calmer weather. Martini and Parker wish to express their gratitude to all the event’s sponsors, as well as everyone who fished the tournament for making it not only possible, but a complete success.
