Kwazar’s 55.39 is Best at Orange Beach!

By Jack Holmes
Managing Partner

Orange Beach, Alabama—"This was a very good weekend for us," said an excited Marcus Kennedy as he worked to release his catch from the caverns of his Yellowfin. After he and his team of Max Williams, Robert Young, Jonathan Graham, and Todd Kercher held up their 55.39 for pictures, Marc went on to tell me of their extraordinary day fishing the Kajun Sportsman King Classic event in Orange Beach, Alabama.

"We made a 65-mile run in three-foot seas and went to work in 150 feet of water," Marcus began. "We caught the big king a little after noon. Jonathan Graham picked up the rod while we were fighting another king when she hit a hardtail on the surface. We had to be very careful as we had a lot of sharks in the area. As she got close I used all of the 12-foot gaff to stick her and bring her in the boat."

"Obviously we are elated with that fish, but it was really an exceptional day," Marc went on to tell me. "We had a blue marlin on that made two big jumps before spitting the hook, the team caught over 20kings, and we put a really nice wahoo into the boat. Now that the season is over we can concentrate on our hunting season and get ready for the Championship."

That was the third largest king we've seen in competition this year.

It doesn't end there. We had another king enter the 50-pound Club. The Papotanic team scaled a 50 they caught at 9:30. They, too, were out close to Kennedy. "Jack, it was the first bait in the water on a long line on the surface," explained Bill Platt, co-captain of the team. "Craig Price took command cranking the reel and working the big king. She was foul hooked and we ended up working a half hour, babying the fish all the way. I think all together we had ten fish; it was really a good day."

Both Kwazar and Papotanic fish the SKA Pro Tour. Papotanic is a Yamaha powered Invincible and is sponsored by Garmin.

The third largest king of the tournament was caught by Clint and Kristin Zavros on their Yamaha powered Yellowfin named Crisis. The popular husband and wife team caught their largest king of the season, a 43.13. "We caught over 25 kings but the 43 was our biggest," said Clint. "We had eight or nine over 40 or at least 40 pounds. It was an amazing day!"

The popular husband and wife team will miss the Championship because they work an unusual schedule for the oil companies overseas. "We work one month on, one month off," said Kristin. "It's tough because Clint goes to one country and I go to another, but the pay is great!"

She was the event's Top Lady Angler.

Neal Foster's Intense team earned fourth place with a 41.01. Neal, Mark Collier, Steve Hall, and Jason Hebert, fishing on a Yamaha powered Contender, are fishing the Pro Tour and certainly could have used a better fish but certainly didn't go backwards by catching this king.

Another Texas team, Runnin Late, with Chris Jacobs, Nicholas Garthwaite, Cody Hayes, and Terry Edwards scaled a 40.26 to earn fifth place. With Nick fishing this team, he's the one with experience in the fishery east of the Mississippi; the team has been coming on strong. They should be a contender at the Nationals.

The Shells, Joe Jr. and Senior plus Chris and Darrell Schofield, fished the Backlash, a Yamaha powered Cape Horn to a win in the Small Boat Class with a 39.91. This fish cemented a win of the Small Boat Division for the season. Congratulations!

Kaylee King was our top junior angler scaling a nice 35.23 fishing on her dad's boat, Kingscape. She also won the $500 Mercury Scholarship prize.  Hunter Cofield was second place with a 29.09 on the That's Right..

This has been an exceptionally good season for the Upper Gulf teams and the SKA management team salutes all the teams who fished with us. See you at the Nationals!

Open Class