>>read
more Mercury Trail stories<<
GLORY REVEALED SHINES IN BILOXI!
New Team Boat Drives into Winner’s Circle with a 45.88
By Jack Holmes
Biloxi, Mississippi—When Glenn McDonald stuck the 45.88-pound king on Jody Maples’ line and slid it over the Glory Revealed gunwale, Captain Bill Williams looked at his watch, said “gotta go” and pushed the throttles to the stop. “This is a brand new Contender,” Williams told me back at the weigh in. “It was four o’clock and we knew we had a good fish, but the scales were 60 miles away.” Williams went on to explain, “We caught her in 100 feet of water. She was on the surface going after the baits but missed three times, I guess we got lucky.” The team of Williams and Maples plus McDonald and Joe Stewart celebrated their first tournament win and the tournament’s $10,000 top prize.
It was an early bite for Steve McMullen’s Airborne. “It was nine o’clock when our 43.61 came in the boat,” said McMullen after a long, hot day on the water. “We had another one on at the same time, may have been bigger, but lost her.” She ate a hard tail on the surface. McMullen, Ryan Lefon, Shawn McMullen, Jimmy Madden, and Mike Hart spent the balance of the day running all over the upper Gulf looking for a bigger king. “I didn’t think she was big enough to win so we proceeded to rig hop, logging over 220 miles today,” added McMullen. It wasn’t the winner, but all agreed that second place, with fishing as tough as it was, had to be good enough. This was the third tournament in Division Seven this season so now the standings will have some definition to them. Many teams elected not to fish Fourchon and a few stayed home during the Rodeo and will now have to scramble to make the cut. I never will understand why teams skip the big fish event of the year in Louisiana. In this game you need to fish when you know the bruisers are in town. Since Fourchon fishing has been mediocre at best. With just one event left many teams are in trouble.
Trisha Ann and Kingpin were fishing the same water, about 50 miles from Biloxi. Kingpin’s Jeff Hall, Rob Barnes, Jase Graves, and Al Branton hooked up at 1:30 to a king who ate a short trolled blue runner right in front of Trisha Ann. “Jase picked up the rod and, after an easy fight, she was on ice in the fish bag,” said Hall.
A couple of minutes later Mike Wallace picked up the screaming reel. “She was burning it up,” he lamented. “After going through 25 sharks in the morning we knew this was a good fish.” Starnes King, the team Captain, and eventually the tournament’s Top Lady Angler, Heather Grahn, cleared lines and chased the king down. Later at the dock, the Kingpin’s fish weighed 42.26, which won the team Class of 23 honors and $3,000. Trisha Ann’s king tipped the scales .17 more. Their 42.43 took third place in the tournament. We’ve seen a lot of teams fish the same areas and hook up at the same time but this is unusual because of the slow fishing and lack of big kings this summer in the upper Gulf.
But wait, it happened again. This time to Lee Foxx on the Full Throttle and Mark Poche and his Deuces Wild team, both Class of 23 teams. They were 60 miles from the scale. “We found this area that had at least an acre of hard tails thrashing on the surface,” said Foxx. “We saw big kings skying on the baits, then a king skied on our bait but missed it. We turned around and she got it.” Steve Webb, Junior Angler Oliver Webb IV, and Jake Spencer got down to business and a few minutes later had her under control.
Meanwhile Mark had one sky on his hard tail but he hooked right up. Michael Silver, Danny Toscano, and Mark Teasley, swung into action and 15 minutes later she was in the boat. Foxx’s king went 41.05 which gave them second place Class of 23 while Deuces Wild’s 39.92 checked in third. Oliver Webb received the Top Junior honors.
Foxx later told me that his temp gauge was reading 87.7 while another captain said he found a spot that registered 88 degrees. That’s really hot! James Houseman’s 40.76 earned him, Don and John Housman, and Donnie Shear sixth place honors fishing his Yamaha powered Cape Horn, My Dinghy, while Matthew
Caldwell’s 40.20 put his mercury powered Yellowfin into seventh. With the cancellation of Legendary and Outcast, it was announced that SKA would put on another event for Division Seven. After three events, twentieth place three-fish aggregate is 95.15 in the Open Class while it will take 75 points to get into the top fifteen in the Class of 23 which is led by Cecil Capps’ Sea Hagg. Miss Lynda leads the Open Class with 137 points.
FINAL STANDINGS:
SKA / PALACE CASINO KMT
BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI
DIVISION 7.
|
| 1. |
GLORY REVEALED•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
45.88 |
| Contender/Yamaha
Bill Williams
Jody Maples
Glenn McDonald
Joe Stewart
|
| 2. |
AIRBORNE••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
43.61 |
| Cape Horn/Yamaha
Steve McMullen
Ryan Lefon
Shawn McMullen
Jimmy Madden
Mike Hart
|
| 3. |
TRISHA ANN ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
42.43 |
| Contender/Yamaha
Starnes King
Mike Wallace
Heather Grahn
|
| 4. |
Snap Swivel•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• | 42.41 |
| 5. |
TITLE WAVE III•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
41.40 |
| Cape Horn/Yamaha
Bryce Jones
Brent Sanders
Patrick Jones
Wayne Wheeler
|
| 6. |
MY DINGHY••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
40.76 |
| Cape Horn/Yamaha
James Housman
Don Housman
John Housman
Donnie Shear
|
| 7. |
XS RATED••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
40.20 |
| Yellowfin/Mercury
Matthew Caldwell
Chris Denton
Zack Lewis
Joe Allen
Kevin Higginbotham
|
CLASS OF 23: |
| 1. |
KINGPIN•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
42.26 |
| KenCraft/Yamaha
Jeff Hall
Rob Barnes
Jase Graves
Al Branton
|
| 2. |
FULL THROTTLE••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
41.05 |
| Sea Craft/Mercury
Lee Foxx
Steve Webb
Oliver Webb IV
Jake Spencer
|
| 3. |
DEUCES WILD•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• |
39.92 |
| Sea Quest/Suzuki
Mark Poche
Michael Silver
Danny Toscano
Mark Teasley
|
TOP LADY ANGLER |
|
Heather Grahm •••••••••••••••••••• |
TRISHA ANN |
TOP JUNIOR ANGLER |
|
Oliver Webb IV••••••••••••••••••••• |
FULL THROTTLE |
SKA / KAJUN SPORTSMAN TOP JUNIOR ANGLERS: |
| 1. |
Oliver Webb IV•••••••••••••••••••••• | FULL THROTTLE |
| 2. |
Daniel Haidt •••••••••••••••••••••••• | REEL PLANNING |
| 3. |
Ric Collier••••••••••••••••••••••••••• | INTENSE |
|
