Tournament Report – Cape Lookout Shootout
Scaling the largest king mackerel ever weighed in an Atlantic tournament, Capt. Jodie Gay and the “Blue Water Candy” fishing team topped an impressive leaderboard in the Cape Lookout Shootout Series Championship with a 68.67 lb. fish that bested their nearest competition by over 10 lbs.
Gay fished the event with boat owner Scott Pelletier, Kent Raynor, and Timmy Parker aboard a 33’ Onslow Bay center console, and the anglers got a bit of a late start on the morning of the competition.
“We were probably the last boat to check out,” Gay explained.
Team Blue Water Candy–Scott Pelletier, Kent Raynor, Jodie Gay, and Timmy Parker with a 68.67 lb. king mackerel that earned them victory with an exclamation mark at the Cape Lookout Shootout Series Championship. The monster mackerel ate a menhaden under a pearl Blue Water Candy skirt off Hatteras Inlet.
After catching bait in the ocean near Beaufort Inlet, the anglers rounded Lookout Shoals and headed north, first deploying baits off Ocracoke. Without much action and hearing of a good bite off Hatteras Inlet, the crew made the call to head further north around 9:30 on the morning of the competition.
“They’d been catching a bunch of fish in the mid-20’s,” Gay continued. “We found some bait off to ourselves, and our first fish was in the mid-30’s. We thought the second might be a 40 pounder.”
Plenty of blackfin tuna were feeding alongside the kings and taking an interest in the “Blue Water Candy” crew’s baits as well. They’d added a fish in the mid-40’s to their haul by early afternoon, and were fighting another fish when they got a big strike on a bait remaining in the propwash.
“That was our only propwash bite all day. It looked like a tuna bite, but the hole was huge,” Gay reported. “I actually thought a yellowfin might have snuck in there with the blackfins.”
A menhaden under a pearl Blue Water Candy skirt fooled the big fish, and Pelletier grabbed the rod as it took a tremendous run. The anglers decided to break off the fish they’d been fighting and chase the obviously larger fish Pelletier was grappling with.
“I said this was the one we wanted,” Gay said. “They were going in opposite directions, so we popped the first fish off. It turned out to be the right decision.”
After the anglers ran the fish down, Raynor planted a gaff in its side and Gay joined him in bringing the big fish aboard.
“We swung him on deck and started the celebrations,” Gay continued. “That’s the biggest fish I’ve ever had in the boat, and I really had no idea it was 68 lbs. I’m not used to looking at 68 lb. king mackerels.”
With a 56 lb. fish on the leaderboard when they arrived at the scales later that afternoon, the “Blue Water Candy” crew were thrilled to see what theirs weighed.
“The fish was very wide. We had a fish that was two inches longer last year and only weighed 50 lbs.,” Gay said. “We were happy to see that 56 on the board and had no idea we were going to beat it that bad.”
The “Bug-N-A-Rug” crew landed the aforementioned 56.76 lb. fish to finish second, and “Bobcat” scaled a 53.68 lb. king to round out the top three in the event.
