ENC 1101-B3 & B4: Writing for Discovery

It was Saturday about 5:00 in the morning and everyone in the Miller house was already awake and getting ready for a big day. John and his son Adam with two of his friends would be fishing in one of their first kingfish tournaments ever and they were all very excited about it. John went downstairs to make sure everything they would need is ready to go while Adam and his mother where fixing the sandwiches for lunch. After they said all said goodbye John and Adam went down to the boat which already had all of the fishing equipment in it.

The tournament that they would be fishing in was the 11th annual Miller Lite Kingfish Classic and the 1st place price was a brand new 225 hp Mercury Optimax motor valued at $13,000 dollars plus another $10,000 in cash in prizes. It was a two day tournament and the biggest fish of the two days won.

When they got down to the boat all they had to do was move the bait that they caught the day before into the live well in the boat. After they did that they lowered the boat lift and took off. The first stop they had to make was to pick up their friends Steve and Chris that would be fishing with them for the two day tournament.

When Chris came aboard he said,” I hope all of you brought you rain gear because it might be a little rough out there.”
John replied,” Don’t worry we have all of it.”

After they picked up Steve and Chris it was 6:15 a.m. and they had about a 15 minute ride to the nearest check out point. When they got to the pass there was already 50 boats waiting for the tournament director to start the check out.

While sitting there waiting Adam says to everyone,” Look at that boat! That must have cost $180,000.” What Adam was pointing at was a brand new 36 foot center consul Yellowfin with three 250 hp Mercury’s on the back. Everybody just stood in awe for a little while.

At 6:45 the tournament check out began and all the boat drove by a dock showing their boat number. Once John’s boat check out they where off to a 45 minute riding out to a spot 20 miles due west of the pass. They had fished there before and caught a couple of nice fish so they were pretty confident with it.

The ride out there was not as bad as they all thought. They cruised at about 30 mph and only got wet a couple of time during the trip. And once they where about a quarter of a mile away from the spot they stopped and started getting all of the equipment out.

“Alright let’s go fishing and catch a big one today.”, Steve said.
“Yeah if we do we may not have to fish tomorrow.” , Adam replied.

After they cot all of the baits out and started trolling they all took their positions and started playing the waiting game. Because none of them knew when a fish would hit. The after about 30 minutes of trolling a fish it and everyone jumped up. Chris grabbed the rod and moved to the front of the boat. They started following the fish and once they got it to the boat they realized it was a small one. So they just cut the line and let it go.

For about the next five hours they only head 3 other fish all were getting smaller each time. Then about 12:30 john says, “If nothing else happens in the next 45 minutes I think we should try another spot. And everyone else agreed to the plan then started waiting for the next hit.

At 1:05 in the after noon they were checking all of the baits then all of the sudden a fish hit one of the bait. Adam then picked up the rod and said to every one that he thought it might be a small one because it did not take too much line. The second he said that the fish took off. In a pan of 15 second the fish ran of about 200 yard of line. When all the them saw what was happening they all started getting all of the equipment back it the boat.

Adam then moved to the front of the boat and they started following it. While this was happening Steve grabbed the gaff so he would be ready to gaff the fish when it got close. But every time it got close the fish would run off another 100 yards. Then about 30 minutes into the fight they had a chance to gaff it but Steve missed and the hooks almost came out of the fish. So another five minutes passed by before they had another chance and this time Steve did not miss.

When Steve pulled it into the boat everyone was real quite and just looked at the fish. Then everyone started yelling “Yes!” and “That’s a big Fish!” and they were all congratulating each other.

Once everyone settled down a little bit they got the scale out to weigh it. Since the boat was rocking a lot it was hard to get an accurate weight but it was some where in the mid 30’s.

After the weigh it the put it is the fish bag and got everything ready to head back to the weigh in. When they got there they had to wait 30 minutes before they could weigh in. Then when they where walking up to the scale Adam said to his mom “Watch this” then put the fish on the scale. The digital read out said 35.44 lbs. Which put them in 1st place but there was still another day of fishing and any of the 165 boat that were in the tournament could have caught a bigger fish.

So Adam, Steve, Chris, and John did not fish Sunday and watched 71 other fish be brought in on Sunday not knowing if that one would be the one to nock them out of 1st. And at the end of the day when they said that all the boats have weighed in they could not believe it. They had just one their first fishing tournament.