SKA Nationals
Capt. Brant McMullan with the 74.1 lb. king mackerel that smashed the SKA Nationals and Mississippi state records. The king fell for a live pogy on the downrigger while he was fishing in 250' of water with his father Rube and brother Barrett.
North Carolina anglers formed the backbone of the Southern Kingfish Association when it got its start in 1990, and, unsurprisingly, fishermen from the state have proven fierce competitors throughout the tournament trail’s 20 year history, regardless of whether the venue is the oil rigs of the northern Gulf Coast, the coral outcroppings west of the Florida Keys, or the familiar wrecks, ledges, and hard bottoms of the south Atlantic states.
NC teams again proved their dominance at the 2009 SKA Nationals, held November 13-14 in Biloxi, Mississippi, taking home not only the Open and Class of 23’ Titles, but the tournament and MS state records as well, with a 74.10 lb. king mackerel landed by the Ocean Isle Fishing Center crew during the competition.
The record-shattering (by 10 lbs.!) smoker fell to Ocean Isle Beach pros and veteran tournament organizers Barrett, Brant, and Rube McMullan, and crowns the family’s already impressive tournament resume.
Fittingly, the McMullans began their fishing day at an area 80 miles south of Biloxi known as the Horseshoe, not to be confused with the productive spot off Ocean Isle that’s produced many a tournament winner over the years. When they arrived, the McMullans, along with most of the other boats in the tournament, found an incredible king mackerel bite.
“We arrived and the dozen or so boats already there were all hooked up,” Brant McMullan said. “We each grabbed a bait, free-lined it back, and seconds later we were all hooked up, too.”
The bite didn’t slow for hours, and the anglers began a process of hooking up three fish, and upgrading what they’d already put in the box, releasing the “small” 25-35 lb. fish on their way to boxing up several over 40 lbs., including the 44 pounder that ended up as the sidekick to their Mississippi monster.
After running out of bait shortly after noon, the anglers ran inshore to jig up some more bait at an oil rig in 120’. After loading the Yellowfin’s livewells with a few dozen blue runners and other baits, they headed back out to look for a smoker that would best the 40+ lb. fish already on board.
“I really didn’t want to go back to the same spot,” McMullan continued. “I felt we needed to fish something different and out of the ordinary where we might find a big loner.”
As they changed course towards some offshore oil rigs, the anglers saw a good sign.
“Barrett said, ‘there’s the birds’,” McMullan explained. “We approached and soon discovered the activity was a huge school of pogies balled up so tight and swimming so fast that they were creating a whirlpool in the center of the school.”
After netting some of the pogies, the anglers deployed a spread, began trolling around the bait, and hooked up within a few minutes. They had action with fish from 15-40 lbs. before Barrett sent a pogy 40’ deep on the downrigger. The bait only stayed down for a few seconds before a fish popped it from the clip.
“Barrett grabbed the rod and wound tight to check whether the fish was there,” McMullan continued. “He felt weight and lightly set the hook, and the fish went absolutely supersonic, running fast, long, and deep.”
Capts. Jody Gay, Rick Croson, and Russell Weaver with the pair of king mackerel weighing 91.29 lbs. that earned them the title of 2009 SKA Class of 23' National Champions. They hooked the fish on live blue runners and bluefish at an undersea salt dome 80 miles south of Biloxi.
Since they’d hooked plenty of fish that acted huge but ultimately weren’t, the anglers didn’t think much of the run at first, but Brant turned the Yellowfin towards the king as he and Rube continued to fish. The run finally slowed with just 100 yards of line left on the reel, and Barrett began fighting it back to the boat.
“He wound and wound and wound,” McMullan said. “The fish never really made another run and never really went up and down too much either.”
As his brother worked the fish close to the boat, Brant finally got his first look at the largest king mackerel ever weighed in an SKA event.
“I peeked over the side and just saw a little white way down in the water—it didn’t really look like some magical fish at that point.”
The next time Brant looked over the side, the fish was staring at him, and he got a better idea of its size. When he finally planted the gaff off the bow of the center console, it took father and both sons to lift the fish aboard.
“We had a little bit of drama where the gaff point got hung on the rub rail, but we finally hoisted it in,” McMullan said.
With the monster lying on deck, the anglers stood in awe of its size for a moment before realizing they needed to make the 80 mile run back to the scales in time to weigh their fish in before the 5:30 deadline. At the weigh-in, the fish dwarfed everything else brought in, and the “Ocean Isle Fishing Center” crew made history.
“A lot of people have fished a lot of years for that fish,” McMullan said. “It was neat and really, really exciting, and we had a lot of local support there, which made it even more special.”
Topping the Class of 23’, Capt. Rick Croson and the “Blue Water Candy” fishing team, out of Wilmington, hauled in 46.74 and 44.54 lb. kings to crush the competition by almost 7 lbs.
With fellow captains Jody Gay and Russell Weaver aboard Croson’s Evinrude-powered Onslow Bay 23T, the anglers headed out on Friday to the same wild bite that the McMullans first fished, never leaving the area for the day.
“It was unbelievable,” Croson explained. “You could look around you and try and not be able to see another boat that wasn’t hooked up. We kept trying to put a deep bait on the downrigger, and it would either get eaten on the way down or they’d take it out of your hand while you were trying to put it in the clip.”
Drift-fishing, the “Blue Water Candy” crew developed a pattern crucial to landing the big fish that earned them the win.
“That spot was a huge salt dome,” Croson said. “It came up from 250’ to 220’ on one side, and we never even found the other side of it. There were fish feeding all over the place, but we realized we were catching the 15-25 lb. kings in the 220’ water and getting the larger fish deeper. All of our big fish came in about a 300 yard stretch at that 250’ drop off.”
Staying put on their lunker lane all day, the anglers hooked up again and again on blue runner and bluefish baits they’d jigged up at a rig inshore of the salt dome, battling fish after fish on their way to the two smokers that earned them the title of National Champions.
With many other North Carolina names appearing in the top 10 on both the Open and Class of 23’ leader boards, the 2009 SKA Nationals left little doubt that the Old North State is still number one when it comes to the live bait king mackerel fishing techniques that originated in our waters nearly 30 years ago.
While there’s no doubt that the sport will continue to evolve, there’s even less uncertainty that teams from NC will be leading the pack and topping KMT leader boards for years to come.
