MINING MY BIDNESS SCALES A 61.30 IN JENSEN BEACH!
Wins 2nd Leg of Yamaha Professional Kingfish Tour

by Jack Holmes

Jensen Beach, Florida - We continue to tout Key West, Fourchon, and the Outer Banks of the Carolinas as the areas to scale big kings. Now we have to add Jensen Beach around the first of May to that list. Chuck Permenter, Patrick Bellamy, Kent Taylor and Todd Sanders, fishing the Mining My Bidness, put the steel to a 61.30 two hours into the second leg of the Yamaha Professional Kingfish Tour and went on to collect the $40,000 first place prize.

“We went south, deployed our bait, and within minutes we had a small king hook up,” said Taylor. “We had a blackfin hook up and we caught a couple of others. We were really busy. Then three reels went off at the same time and everyone grabbed a rod while Chuck hit the throttles and got us in position to get the fish.”

With Taylor on the rod the big king dumped the reel twice before the team even got a good look at the fish, the biggest the team has ever caught. “After she was in the bag we fished for a while longer, finally opting to come to the scale early,” added Permenter who gaffed the fish.

But it was only day one and if the team wanted to win the event they knew they had to have a decent fish on day two. They went back to the same area and captured a 38.32 giving them a two-fish aggregate of 99.62 pounds. Eventually it would prove to be ten pounds better than second place and sealed their victory. It was almost three pounds better than the winning aggregate in Key West.

“We're taking her home for everyone in the fishing club to see. We don't see fish quite this big back in Little River,” added Permenter. “We'll parade her around for a couple of days then see about getting her mounted.”

Mining My Bidness moves into second place in the Pro standings with a four-fish aggregate of 163.57. That's an average of 40.89 pounds per fish.

This is Donzi's second win in as many tournaments. It appears the fishing team is working well this season.

David Howard of Jacksonville, Florida certainly has to be proud of his two sons, Adam and Cory. They are the team of the Hooked for Reel, and they proved once again that they are not in the Tour to mess around. They earned second in the final event in Little River last season, tenth in season opener in Key West, and with an 89.97 two-fish aggregate, they just earned second again. But better yet, after the first two events they hold the Tour's number one position with a 165.59 four-fish aggregate.

“We were one of the only boats to run north both days so we were kind of on our own,” explained David who was beach fishing on the Mercury powered Fountain. Their first day's fish only topped the scales at 31.78, average for the day, but not enough to even get them on the leaderboard. “We went right back to the same area on day two and about eleven o'clock she hit a double rigged pogy on the surface.”

“The strike was enormous,” said fourteen-year-old Cory. “It was like a stick of dynamite blew up. We thought at first she was a big Cobia. Dad ran the boat and my brother cleared the lines. We had one hook in the mouth and another in her eye so I knew I could get her to the boat.” He won!

The scale topped out at 58.19 pounds, the second biggest king of the event and Cory had the Top Junior Angler honors. Imagine having a 58-pounder to your credit at just fourteen.

Jack Penny and his ProMarineUSA.com / Penny Wise team could only find a 25.57 on day one. It was a typical fish for the 75 teams fishing the event but most knew that the bite was early due to the clear skies and a big, full moon. Tomorrow would be different!
 
“We had lines in the water by 7:15 after the tournament turned us loose at 6:45,” said Penny. “We put out the oldest, most disgusting ribbonfish we had and at 7:40 I grabbed the rod, the reel was smoking.” By 8:15 the team of Rusty Miller, Mike Penny, Jeff Silverthorne and Stanley Asensio were doing the bow dance on Penny's Yamaha powered Contender. They had just bagged the event’s third largest king, a 53.37. “All I knew was she was five inches longer than Chuck's king caught the day before,” said Penny. “We were excited but we decided to keep fishing instead of coming to the dock.” The team used 16-pound test on their reels and Asensio brought a 38-pounder to the boat before Penny bettered it with the 53-pounder. This week’s efforts moved the ProMarine sponsored Penny Wise up to sixth in the overall Pro standings. Penny was the event’s Top Senior Angler.

J. Alan Holden's Hold’n On earned fourth with a 75.41 two-fish aggregate. The team of Jeff Lee, Shane Holden and Patrick Bryant, fishing a Yamaha powered Wellcraft, caught one of those average kings on Friday, a 26.23. “This was a great weekend for a tournament,” said Holden referring to the fact it was warm and seas were three feet or less. “We ran south to Lake Worth, ran back north to Fort Pierce and fished out as far as 15 miles and caught 20-plus fish on day one. We lost a really big fish and were kind of disappointed but on day two we decided to fish just 14 miles south of the inlet, one and a half miles off the beach.”

It was the team's first line in the water that got smacked. Bryant picked up the rod and within ten minutes she was in the boat. It would be the event’s fourth largest king, a 49.18. “This was a great weekend for a tournament,” agreed Lee. “We caught dolphin, bonito, amberjack, and a 60-pound sailfish while pre-fishing.” This team from Holden Beach, North Carolina, now sits in 19th place overall, but with a 12-pounder in that aggregate, they really have a super chance of being on top or next to the top after Fourchon, the next stop on the Pro Tour. Count on this being the team’s best year ever!

The Jacksonville, Florida team Final Strike enjoyed the limelight when they won the Angler of the Year title in '05, but realized that to stay at the top with the quality of the teams chasing them, they needed to work hard and have a little bit of luck. After having only one fish in Key West, the team went to work this weekend and it paid off.

Terry and Chris Johnson, Clyde Keen and David Reddick fished north of Cape Canaveral both days and came away with a two-fish aggregate of 71.86, good for fifth place. “We had a 33-pounder on day one which Clyde caught,” said Terry Johnson. “On day two we didn't find much off Canaveral and came back to Fort Pierce early afternoon. We needed a good fish and were rewarded at 2 o'clock.” The team went to the scales with a 38-pounder.

“We're going to Fourchon a week early,” said Johnson, knowing that if they can scale two good kings there, they will once again be in the hunt for the title.

Mark Maus got onto the leaderboard this weekend with a nice 69.85 aggregate. The Mercury powered Donzi team is named Team Simrad for their sponsor Simrad electronics, and they scaled a 37.93 on day one and backed it up with a 31.92. Mark is now in ninth overall with 133.72 points.

Jacksonville's Trivial Pursuit with Clay Phillips and Ronnie Worsham picked up seventh place money this weekend thanks to their 32.89 and 35.98. This team is having their best start in the past couple of years, now in 12th with 130.55 points. If you look at the standings you know that after Fourchon they could be in the driver’s seat. The talent says they can do it!

Eighth place went to the other ProMarineUSA.com team, Hannon's Cannon, with 67.42 points. This gave Kevin Hannon, Shannon Armstrong, Steve Rowley and Ricky Cook a small paycheck but better yet, fourth in the overall Yamaha Pro Tour standings. Hannon has to be regarded as one of Florida's best. His team will do well in Fourchon, but as the events move north on the Atlantic coast it will be a great test of their overall ability. They can do it but must remain focused.

Ninth place went to Bill Butler and Rick Ryan fishing the Crawgator. The Yamaha powered team caught day one's second place fish, a 46.22, but could only back it up with a 21.10 on Saturday. This is not like this team. It still kept them in 10th however, and with Upper Gulf waters next on the Pro schedule, Crawgator will move up closer to the top before heading east.

Rounding out the top ten was Terry Grantham's My Three Sons with a 67.02 aggregate.

Last years Angler of the Year team, Bandit, was 11th and remains in the top five of the standings.

Tammy's Torture II, with Jimmy Garza, Jr. at the helm, picked up 12th with 66.27 points. What a great start for this team, now sitting in 12th in the overall standings. Look out if this team bags a big smoker in Fourchon!

Conrad Lau's Koolau earned 13th while our Key West winner, Dan Upton on the Team Donzi boat, rounded out the top 14.

The Top Lady Angler of the tournament was Sharon Kamp on the Lured Away.

A special thank you goes to the staff and management of the AA Marine in Jensen Beach for all their help. It was one of the best facilities we've ever been in and a host of tournament participants want us to return here next year. It will be done!