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  • About King Mackerel

Get Layed’s 48.73 Biggest at Gorenflo’s

Biloxi, Mississippi—Fred Watkins, Ken Jansen, Todd Gardner, Sherman (Butch) Smith, and our Top Lady Angler, Kayla Williamson, came to the scales at the Gorenflo's KMT in Biloxi, Mississippi, with a fish box full of kings. The Get Layed team, fishing a Small Boat Division Yamaha powered Contender, dug out a king that tipped the scales to 48.73. It was enough to win the event and push the team to the highest three fish aggregate in the whole Division. "We've worked hard this year and it's paying off," said Watkins after the team accepted their accolades for a great win.

"We caught fish all day long," said Watkins, who was fishing fifty-five miles southeast of Biloxi. "All these kings came within an hour. We had pre-fished this area and found nothing but sharks but everything looked good for big kings so we went back on Saturday. The forty-eight hit a hard tail on the surface."

Watkins and the team now lead the whole Division by nearly six and a half pounds with just one, one-day event left. That's really the story!

Donnie Jackson's Sea Cruiser team leads the Open Class with 131.95 points, but did not improve their position in this event.

Bennie Goldman did improve by scaling the fourth place 39.02. The Reelentless team, fishing a Yamaha powered Contender, has a 37.01 drop fish to Jackson's 39.58, now second in the Open Class. Goldman fishes with Bennie Goldman Jr., and Jeremy Goldman, and Pam Goldman.

Kwazar is in third in the Open Class with 125.98 points after scaling the second place 43.23 in Biloxi. Marcus Kennedy, Max Williams, Robert Young, and Brett Rutledge, fishing a Yamaha powered Yellowfin, went west one hundred fifteen miles and caught their fish at eleven o'clock. "We caught a lot of fish but all were in the mid-thirties."

That left Kwazar with a drop fish of 38.38. Certainly a small enough drop fish to still win the Division.

Papotanic scaled their second fish in the Division, a 41.51, which was third in the event. Jose Reyes, Bill Platt, Marc Bledsoe, and Mike Rizzuto, fishing the Yamaha powered Invincible, are in seventh overall with just two fish as does Ritchie Byrd on the Byrd Dog who also have two fish. Both can still win the Division. It would be really something to have a Texas team (Papotanic) win the Division but Byrd is a real veteran and will push hard to ensure that doesn't happen. Byrd didn't improve his team's standings at Gorenflo's.

Bert Baroco, Becky Land, and Adam Harrison caught a 38.09 to earn fifth overall. They fish the Fully Involved.  

Both Kevin Higginbotham on Fin-Atic and Neal Foster's Intense have still a good shot of at least winning the Open Class.

With Get Layed winning the event, that left Mark and Matt Sislak's Slack Time's 33.57 to win the Small Boat Division. They just have two fish on their side of the ledger but a nice fish at Orange Beach should give the duo the confidence to be a force in the Nationals this year in Biloxi in November. Their forty-pound king in Fourchon in June proves they know how to scale big kings. I am not counting them out.

Stephen Pardue, Team Envy Us, scaled a 31.53 to pick up second place in the Small Boat Class.

Danny Pitalo and Bobby Carter each put up $500 to make up two prizes in an Amberjack Division. Rob Lupola's Strike Two team picked up a 36.41 to win the species class and take home $600 while Hussein Zayed earned second place fishing his Z Pak with a 31.87.  

Fishing this year has been anything but spectacular. When we left Fourchon, the opening event of the Division, I was pumped, telling most that  fishing in the upper Gulf was going to be spectacular. Then, as the waters from up north kept flowing from the Mississippi River and its tributaries, it obviously moved the fish. Anglers have been perplexed as to where that place is. It's been mediocre at best all summer. The heat hasn't helped either; I'm sure it will improve before Nationals. Remember too, the oil spill has chased a lot of teams off the water, so we just don't have the numbers we've had in previous years fishing. With literally no pressure on the stocks after Orange Beach, Division 7's last event, the fish will start coming back in for the annual mullet run and we'll be waiting!    

Small Boat Division