“Chasing Kingfish”
By Terry Lacoss
“Just after high noon a large kingfish took one of our long flat lined blue runners and took off on a long run,” Spencer Ross said. “Jeffery Crabtree took charge of the deeply bent kingfish rod and moved to the front of my Mercury powered kingfish boat, “Flossy”. I put my Mercury outboards in gear and began to chase that big kingfish down while maintaining a deep bend in Jeff’s kingfish rod. Twenty minutes later we sank our long kingfish gaff into a 48.9-pound kingfish and won 1st place honors in last weekend’s SKA sanctioned “Two Way” kingfish tournament.”
“Earlier that morning we checked out of Georgia’s Brunswick shipping channel and ran some 100-miles south to a deep-water kingfish live bottom. After jigging up a live well full of blue runners, we began slow trolling live boats both deep with our boats downriggers and on the surface too. King fishing was slow during the morning until that big king struck a long flat line live blue runner at “High Noon”. Fortunately, the seas were calm, making the 200-mile round trip kingfish pleasant. Especially when we were anticipating that we had the winning kingfish iced down in our kingfish bag”!
Making long distant runs today with modern day kingfish boats is made possible with twin and even quad outboards that can speed from 60-70 miles per hour on a slick calm ocean.
Today many kingfish boats are rigged with 200-300 hp outboards with the change to four stroke more efficient outboards has been dramatic as well during past kingfish seasons. A good rule of thumb is to multiply 10% times the horsepower of your outboard to get a close estimate on how many gallons your outboard will burn in one hour at wide open throttle. For example, 10 X 300 hp equals 30-gallons per hour at wide open throttle. Also keep in mind that this formula can differ from 10-20%. Or if you are running at 30-miles per hour, you are burning one gallon per mile. This will give you a close estimate on how many gallons of fuel you will burn when running and gunning for “Big Macks”
Several marine companies offer a variety of electronics that can accurately calculate the amount of fuel that your engine or engines are burning. FloScan instrument company offers a variety of fuel monitoring gauges, in both dial and digital readouts. Mercury Marine and Yamaha Outboards also offer fuel-monitoring gauges as well. More importantly, fuel-monitoring instruments will show boaters when their outboard or outboard motors are running at the most fuel-efficient rpms.
Fuel monitoring instruments will also tell boaters when their boat is burning more fuel than it normally burns due to fouled spark plugs, or even a clogged fuel filter. Here an increased fuel reading and increased rpms at the same speed, should wave a red flag in front of the operator that something is wrong with the boat’s outboard, or outboards. In many cases, costly repair bills can be avoided by fixing the problem before a major breakdown happens to your boat’s outboard engine.
I know in the past that I have been guilty of purchasing lower grade outboard motor oils, but soon learned that this could be a very costly mistake down the road. Make sure that you purchase the recommended outboard engine oil and your outboard engine will not only run better, but it will also burn less fuel, which is also a huge saving with the price of fuel today.
Team “Keep it Reel” came in second place with a 35.01-pound kingfish while Team Empire/Reel Drag took 3rd place honors with a 34.15-pound kingfish. “Reel Rebel” weighed in the largest kingfish in the “Small Boat” division with a 30.87-pound kingfish. Rex Johnson took “Single Engine” honors with a 14.01-pound kingfish.
The next Southern Kingfish Association “King Buster” tournament will be held from Jacksonville’s Marine Max Marina on June 22-23rd. For more information contact Don Dingman at (904) 509-0026 or captdonhtf@comcast.net.
The popular local “36th Annual Fernandina Beach Kingfish & Fishing Rodeo” will take place August 3-4th from the Fernandina Harbor Marina. Fishermen can compete in a variety of divisions including backwater and offshore species of game fish as well as “Largest Kingfish” Division. Also include “Lady Angler”, “Jr. Angler”, “Small Boat” “Single Engine” and several backwater and offshore species as well. The event is sanction by the Southern Kingfish Association. For more information please visit www.nsfafis
