Outdoor column | ‘It looked like a stud missile.’ How a team caught the right kingfish
Before last weekend’s Old Salts 28th Annual Spring King of the Beach fishing tournament, captain Steve Papen had no problem motivating Team Laggerhead.
“The night before I took out all the second and third place trophies we’ve had in this tournament,” Papen said, “and sent the boys a video of it. We’ve had four second places and four third places and I knew it would add a little fuel to the fire.”
As a veteran of the King of the Beach, Papen also knew it would take a big fish to beat the more than 600 other teams who ventured off last Saturday morning in search of the biggest kingfish within the nearshore boundaries. Papen ran early southwest to nearly 100 feet of water to a spot he had never caught a kingfish before, but had a feeling it would produce a big one.
“It always looks so good it was hard not to have faith in it. We had been there 12 or 13 times in the last handful of years and I knew at some point it was going to pay off, there was always everything you look for in a spot to have the right fish. There was a lot of life and bait and felt right.”
Team Laggerhead deployed blue runners, slow trolling them behind the boat. Around 10:20 a.m. they had their first solid bite of the day, and a fish made an immediate run of 90-yards before turning around.
“It wasn’t a very long run to start, and the water was so calm and clear we saw it pretty quick. We could see it was a big one. Some of these fish make really long runs and build of the lactic acid and come in right after that. This was not one of those fish. It kept dogging and fighting just outside of range for us,” Papen recalled.
After 20 minutes of digging deep without another run the big kingfish was finally gaffed and swung into the boat. That’s when Papen realized it was the right fish.
“I’ve never gone crazy over putting a fish like that in the boat! ‘That one’s a stud! That’s a monster!’ I said. It had the length, it had the girth, the head, had everything you want in a big one. A lot of kingfish, you wish they were longer or fatter. This was long, tall and fat. It looked like a stud missile in the water.”
They measured it at 67 inches and put it immediately on ice. The previous weekend they lost a tournament by only .01-pounds so wanted to preserve the fish as best as possible. The teammates picked up and headed home early, something Papen said he has never done in more than 20 years of competitive kingfishing.
Back at the scales team Single Source Insurance weighed in ahead of Laggerhead. Their fish, 47.17 pounds, took the early lead, and no reports of other monster fish circulated through the weigh in line. Paper was confident his upcoming fish was bigger, and he was right.
The stud kingfish tipped the scales at 54.06 pounds. No fish behind them came close and Laggerhead’s anglers of Papen, Dave Bayes, Erik Danowski, Corey Alley and Taylor Danowski would claim the crown. By entering all the possible divisions their total winnings came to a grand total of $130,583.
“We have been dreaming about winning this tournament for a really long time,” Papen said. “If there was ever one to win, this was it.”
Single Source Insurance and captain Taylor Nifong would take home $54,851 for second, and behind them, team Long Shot with captain Doug Jognston shot would bring home $38,234.