Lunasea Takes Top SKA Honors At Big Dog & Fat KDW Shootout!

By Jack Holmes
Managing Partner

Palm Beach, Florida- Ninety-five boats showed up to fish Big Dog & Fat Cat KDW tournament produced by Bill Wummer. You couldn't ask for a better day on the water or a better event held at the famous Sailfish Marina.  It was a true kingfish, dolphin, and wahoo event with a snapper category thrown in for the bottom fishermen. Plus you could weigh up to five kings with both a big fish category plus the aggregate. A lot of members told me how much fun it was; a change in the usual format.  It was also the final event of the year for Division 10.

A boat called Sword A Broke won the event and the top prize of $10,000 with a 40.8 pound king.

Rich Sujat, Lorenzo Guarinello, plus Eric and Paul Neidorf weighed four kings but it was their 38.70 that gave them first place for the SKA boats and second in the kingfish category for the tournament. They caught a total of four kings that weighed 96.2 pounds. The Lunasea team fish a Yamaha powered Contender and have to be ranked as one of the best in Florida. They would like to thank their sponsors - Contender, Yamaha and Real X Trailers for their support.

Penny-Less ended up the Division 10 season with a fifth place finish. "We fished between 105 and 110 feet of water and caught our 35.40 at 9:30 in the morning," said Alex Burgess, team captain.

Penny-Less weighed just before the throng of teams tried to get up to the dock. Their big fish went 35.40 but they had a nice stringer of four more kings which earned them top honors in the king aggregate division. They weighed a five-fish aggregate of 144.30 which was second to a non-member team.

The Hookin N Bookin Team, fishing a Yamaha powered Sea Hunt, earned ninth place overall in Big Fish but was also the top small boat. The Rowe family, Robert, Ryan, and Kristy, also picked up second place for Kristy in the Lady category but she was number one in SKA.

"We were in 92 feet of water at 6:45 in the morning when our 31.20 ate a goggle eye off the outrigger. Kristy fought the fish and brought her to the boat. She was great," said Ryan.

Earning seventh place was Leon Wilcox and Michael Stokes who scaled a 33.60 from their Evinrude powered Yellowfin named Native Premonitions.

Rounding out your top ten was the Young Guns team who fish a Mercury powered Fountain. Hunter Irvine is their junior angler and I know you've seen his name here in Angler magazine many times. Well, you just read it again because he took the junior angler honors plus the Mercury Scholarship money. The team of Hunter's dad Lance, Doug Perez, Joe Hector, Carl Torreson, and Houston Smith, also had a five fish stringer that totaled 98.60 pounds. The biggest went 30.50. Congratulations, Hunter!

What's nice about fishing in this area is you just have to go out the inlet, turn left or right and you can start fishing. Most of the fish were in 90 to 120 feet of water so you don't have to go out far and with a no check out, this was a very simple event to fish and you didn't have to burn a lot of fuel.

On the grounds of Sailfish Marina they had an art fair going on at the same time. It was really a great setup to showcase our sport.

Congrats go out to Bill Wummer and his team and to Jamie Bunn who helped out a lot.

Open Class