Tournament Report – Fall Brawl King Tournament
After a biteless day of trolling, luck smiled on Wilmington’s Brett Barnes and the “Hot Rod” crew in the 2015 Fall Brawl King Classic at the eleventh hour, and they capitalized, landing a 41.85 lb. king mackerel that rocketed the team to the top of the leaderboard in the event.
Barnes, fishing with his son Alan and daughter-in-law Sierra aboard a 25’ Contender, had done some pre-fishing prior to the tournament but didn’t find much he was excited about returning to on tournament day.
Brett and Alan Barnes, of the “Hot Rod” fishing team, with the 41.85 lb. king mackerel that earned them first place in the 2015 Fall Brawl King Classic. The big mackerel struck a naked menhaden on top near Ocean Crest Pier.
“We ended up fishing off Ocean Crest Pier since some good fish had been caught there the prior week,” Barnes explained.
After an easy time catching bait near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the family team began slow-trolling in the area just off the pier, a shallow live bottom that had been holding large kings for several weeks. They weren’t alone, as a large number of other boats had also decided that the spot offered them their best chance at a money-winning mackerel.
“We were fishing along with 75-100 other boats,” Barnes explained.
Noon came and went for the “Hot Rod” crew with nary a bite, but they decided to stick it out in the area as big fish didn’t seem to be biting anywhere else and they’d seen a bit of action.
“We saw some other fish being caught,” Barnes said.
Around 3:40 that afternoon, the anglers got their first strike of the day and the fish began running offshore as Alan Barnes plucked the rod from a holder. A naked menhaden trolled long fooled the king, and the anglers began chasing it down, but the battle parted from the typical script soon after the hookup.
With the fish still off the Contender’s bow, the anglers saw that their line was headed astern. Putting the boat in neutral and trimming up the motors, the anglers realized what was wrong.
“Another boat’s king rig had been trolled across our line and pulled it into our motor,” Barnes said. “The fish was out in front of the boat and our line was on our lower unit.”
Putting the reel in free-spool, the younger Barnes worked to untangle the line from their outboard. After cutting the other rig off and unsnarling their own line, the anglers realized they had another issue.
Their fish had run beneath another boat in the crowded fishing conditions. In an act of sportsmanship, the crew of the other vessel—the “Yellowfin Only”—brought in their lines to allow the “Hot Rod” anglers to get clear of their boat.
After the dual mishaps, the crew quickly closed on their fish and Brett Barnes reached out and planted a 12’ gaff in the big king. Again, things deviated from the plan, as the gaff bumped the T-Top and knocked the king off the big hook. The rig’s hooks held fast though, and Alan Barnes was once again fighting their fish.
After the anglers closed the gap again, Brett Barnes grabbed an 8’ gaff, sank it into the big mackerel, and hauled it aboard.
“We’ve been fishing a long time and that’s the craziest fight we’ve ever had,” Barnes relayed. “We were very lucky to catch that fish.”
Their luck held out at the scales, as none of the 215 other boats participating in the event were able to top the “Hot Rod” fish, and the Barnes trio found themselves in the winners’ circle for the first time in the event.
Matthew Dupree on the “Chicken Eye” scaled a 39.90 lb. king to finish just behind the “Hot Rod” and take second place in the event, and Jeff Cunninghum on the aptly-named “Scale Bound” weighed a 39.85 lb. king to round out the top three.
For more information and a full leaderboard on the “Fall Brawl” and all other Ocean Isle Fishing Center Tournaments, visit www.oifc.com.
