BILOXI, Miss. – November 4 – While they juggled the positioning from their seedings at the start of the day, three fishing teams hailing from North Carolina gave their own rendition of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Chase at the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship as Team Hooligan surged from third place into the lead, bumping Team M&M’s/Wild Ride and Team Collins each down a spot to second and third places respectively.
Team “Hooligan” captained by Joe Winslow of Sunset Beach, N.C., caught a 36 pound, 7 ounce king mackerel to abscond with the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship trophies and a check for $112, 500. The championship tournament, presented by BP was the crowing jewel in the FLW Kingfish Tour and pitted the top 53 boats after the four-tournament series.
The Hooligan crew boated a 47 pound, 15 ounce king mackerel late in the day on Saturday to move into third place and earn their way into the top five shootout. Their winning two-fish aggregate weight totaled 84 pounds, 6 ounces.
Team Hooligan is the first team to earn a repeat win on the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and have fond memories of their first win at Southport in 2006, which also included a fish caught late in the day. In that first win, they were late to the scales, but the fish was heavy enough to seal the win even with the pounds deducted for the penalty for arriving late.
“We are all stunned. Where do you find the words for this,” said Winslow. “To compete and win at this level is an indescribable feeling. I’m truly blessed to have such great teammates. We are just thrilled to be here. We had no idea what to expect. We are never too confident, we are just hopeful. The fish from Saturday that got us here was a classic example of a blind hog finding an acorn. We had very little practice time and there are just too many big fish in this area. We just tried to stay optimistic and keep on the fish.”
Winslow and his crew – Alan Ambrose, Fred Coyne and Jared Floyd all of Sunset Beach, N.C., and Michael Kennedy of Semmes, Ala., – used a combination of hardtails (blue runners) and ribbonfish to find their fish near oil rigs about 60 to 70 miles offshore. Both of the fish that team “Hooligan” weighed in hit late in the day right before the team had to make the long run back the scales.
“We knew that the area in the east that we committed to had good fish in it and we knew that we were going to catch fish, Winslow said. “The big variable was how big are the fish going to be? We didn’t know if we were going to get lucky and catch the bigger fish and find a better class of fish.
“Later in the day our bait started looking a little shabby so we pulled up to a rig and jigged up a few fresh baits,” Winslow continued. “We noticed that the bait was holding really close to the rig. When that happens, it usually means that there is a predator in the area. We decided to put a few lines out and see what we could do. We made about three or four laps and got a bite. We stuck around for a little while longer, caught the one we weighed in, threw him in the bag and came on in. Fate shines on people for random reasons and today was our day.”
Team M&M’S/Wild Ride, captained by Randy Griffin of Hampstead, led the tournament the first two days, before slipping to the second spot on the final day. Griffin and crew boated the largest king of the tournament with their 51 pounder, but only found a 27 pounder on the final day. Their aggregate weight of 78 pounds, 1 ounce brought them a check for $41,500. This included $20,750 in tournament winnings plus bonuses of $10,375 each from Wellcraft and Yamaha.
Team Collins captained by Johnnie Sears of Fuquay-Varina, brought day two and day three kings to the scales that totaled 74 pounds and earned them third place. Their third place check for $24,900 included $12,450 in tournament winnings, plus bonuses of $6,225 each from Hydra-Sports and Yamaha.
Team Pro Marine USA.Com/Hannon’s Cannon, captained by Kevin Hannon of Seminole, Florida, finished in fourth place and Team Reelin, captained by Marc Pincus of Hilton Head, South Carolina, claimed the fifth spot.
The final day dawned bright and sunny, but the morning seas were fairly rough and limited the distance the teams could travel to locate their final day’s catch. The seas calmed as the day progressed and all of the five finalists caught fish, just not quite as large as they had hoped.
The FLW Kingfish Tour Championship was a three-day event. Fifty-three team qualified by finishing in the top 50 places overall after the 4 qualifying tournaments or finishing in the top 3 of any of the qualifying tournaments. All the boats fished Friday and Saturday, with the top five teams, based on the heaviest fish from Friday or Saturday, competing Sunday. Team Hooligan earned $75,000 in tournament winnings, plus a $37,500 bonus from Yamaha for a total award of $112,500.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit www.flwoutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.
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