Fishing captain dreamed of being King of the Beach for 25 years. He won in final minutes.
For 25 years, Captain Steve Papen had the dream of becoming the King of the Beach.
“I haven’t missed any of them,” the veteran offshore captain said. “We fish both the spring and the fall events, so that’s about 50 of them we’ve done.”
For Papen and the crew of Team Lagerhead, they were finally able to break to the top of the podium last year during the 28th annual Old Salt Spring King of the Beach Fishing Tournament.
It’s one of the largest tournaments around, in not only winnings, but participants.
In this years 29th annual spring event held last weekend, a total of 506 boats prepared themselves to find the biggest kingfish in hopes of taking home the crown and a big paycheck.
But for Papen and crew, the last day of April in 2022 was looking more like April Fool’s.
“We were fishing down south all morning, and had a decent game plan. Everything looked phenomenal and we trolled mackerel. But all we caught were six or seven sharks,” Papen explained, before changing plans at 11:30 in the morning.
“I told the boys we’re not fishing for second and said we’ve got to go to the hole. I knew there was a major feeding time at 12:30 and the outgoing tide would start then too.”
As bad weather set in, the crew kept fishing. A line of storms and lightning didn’t deter them from the goal as they trolled baits around Egmont Key. Nearly five hours after they started fishing the hole, and with only 48 minutes until check-in time, they got a bite.
“At 4:12, that fish aired out on our line. Dave Bayes grabbed the rod and he’s fighting it. I told him we’ve got about 6 minutes. If that fish isn’t in the boat in 6 minutes we ain’t going to make it. He fought it and I kept running and jammed on it to stay on top of it. We usually try to stay tight and keep a good angle but didn’t have time for that. The first shot we had at it Cory stuck it and threw it in the boat. I think before that fish even hit the deck I had us on plane heading for the weigh in.”
Heading back north to John’s Pass, Team Lagerhead got to the weigh in and ran up to check in with less than 5 minutes to spare.
“We knew we had a good fish, but weren’t sure it was enough to win. We thought it was 38 pounds or so. We had cell service all day and there was a lot of chatter of a few boats having 40 pound fish, so thought at the time we’d end up maybe third.”
When they weighed their fish, Team Lagerhead’s 38.87-pound would replace team Oceana Grace’s 37.09-pound kingfish atop the leaderboard.
“We had to wait and saw small fish after small fish. Then a few of the bigger ones came up but nothing over 40. There were 12 more bags left, mostly single engine boats deciding what division they wanted to enter in,” Papen said.
“The last big fish came up at 37.75 and I looked at our team and said, ‘Did we just win?’”
And win they did. Entering all possible side pots and options Team Lagerhead’s winnings came out to a total of $107,179. The repeat win was the first time anyone has gone back-to-back at the event.
The Ladies division was won by Amanda Blackall with a 22.78 pound kingfish, while the youth division was won by Caleb Pate with a 25.51-pounder.
Winning the Spanish Mackerel division was Sam Averett and a 5.28 pound Spanish mackerel.
