Outdoors: Wait pays off as Barnes crew finally wins king mackerel tournament

This fish was simply meant to be caught.

Brett Barnes and crew aboard Hot Rod didn’t land their 41.85-pound king mackerel in textbook fashion last Saturday, but the end result at the weigh-in at Ocean Isle Fishing Center still left them as champions of the Fall Brawl King Classic.

Barnes, of Wilmington, N.C., was fishing aboard his 25-foot Contender on a live-bottom area in the vicinity of the Ocean Crest Pier on Oak Island, N.C. Also on the trip were his 25-year-old son Alan Barnes and his wife, Sierra.

Capt. Brant McMullan of Ocean Isle Fishing Center noted that leading up to the Southern Kingfish Association-sanctioned tournament, the near-shore live bottom area, located in depths of about 12 to 30 feet, had been holding large kings.

“For whatever reason it has been holding fish,” McMullan said. “It’s (located) from inside of the pier up to a half-mile offshore of the pier. It’s very shallow. There were a few big ones there, but not a (large) number of fish. Many, many boats had no fish.

“There were numbers of 15-pound fish in 65 feet of water, but the winning fish were right there on the beach.”

The tournament attracted a field of 216 boats, with 171 fishing last Saturday, meaning the Barnes’ crew worked the live-bottom area amid a virtual armada of boats. They started their trip by cast-netting menhaden (pogies) near the Oak Island Lighthouse.

The Hot Rod crew had no success through the morning and well into the afternoon but finally got the bite they were looking for at 3:40 p.m. With Alan Barnes serving as the angler and Brett Barnes at the helm, their wacky adventure began.

“The fish made a strong run offshore, and we turned on it and started chasing the fish down,” Brett Barnes said.

Soon, Brett Barnes noticed his son, on the bow, pointing the rod tip toward the water and realized something was amiss.

He stopped the boat, trimmed up the engines and soon saw the problem.

“A fellow boater’s king rig had been trolled over the top of our line and pulled it into the motor,” Brett Barnes said. “The fish was 100 yards out in front of the boat and all of a sudden the line was under our boat on our lower unit.”

The challenge now was to get the line unwrapped from around the lower unit of the 150-horsepower four-stroke Yamaha.

“Alan put the reel in free spool and thumbed it as he worked it off the lower unit,” Brett Barnes said.

They cut the other boat’s rig free and continued chasing the king mackerel, which was still hooked up even though Alan Barnes had put the reel in free spool.

By now, however, the smoker king had run underneath another boat – Yellowfin Only – and that crew graciously reeled its lines in to allow Barnes to continue fighting the fish tangle-free.

Finally, the king was boatside and Brett Barnes grabbed a gaff to end the frantic fight. But there was another twist left in this crazy fish story.

“I grabbed a 12-foot gaff and gaffed it,” Brett Barnes recalled. “As I was pulling the fish over the gunwale, the top of the gaff hit the T-Top and the king bounced off the gaff and back into the water.”

Still, the fish remained hooked. Alan Barnes fought it a little bit longer and Brett Barnes gaffed it again, this time using an 8-foot gaff. Finally, the fight was over.

The father-son duo has been fishing king tournaments for about 16 years, and Brett Barnes was left amazed at the escapades required to boat the king.

“We were very fortunate to catch that fish,” he said. “We’ve been fishing a long, long time and it was the craziest fight we’ve had. It was pretty comical.”

The Barneses have been fishing the Fall Brawl since the days when Alan was a junior angler.

“Although we’ve had numerous top-three finishes, we have been aiming at winning this tournament for 16 years,” Brett Barnes said. “The Jolly Mon (King Classic) and the Fall Brawl are the first tournaments Al participated in as a youth angler. That is where he got his start.

“I really thank the McMullan family for promoting the king tournaments and getting youth and lady anglers and other family members to participate in their events.”

It was a close call between second and third place in the tournament. Chicken Eye, captained by Matthew Dupree of Willow Spring, N.C., took second with a 39.90-pounder, followed closely by Myrtle Beach’s Jeff Cunningham and his crew aboard Scale Bound, who finished third with a 39.85-pounder.

Sea-Esta, captained by Clay Hughes of Ocean Isle Beach, was fourth (38.00) followed by Boats Unlimited, captained by George Herring of Hampstead, N.C., in fifth (37.90).

A total of 19 fish topping the 30-pound mark were weighed in during the two days of fishing.

Up next on the SKA circuit is the SKA National Championship, which is no longer exclusively held in Biloxi, Miss. The 2015 event will be held next week, Oct. 23-25, in Morehead City, N.C.

SALTT Trail

The Student Angler League Tournament Trail kicked off its second season on Sept. 26 at the Carroll A. Campbell Marine Complex in Georgetown and anglers were faced with a flood tide that made fishing difficult.

The trail now features two separate divisions – for red drum and largemouth bass.

The high school bass division was won by Lauren Dyer and Chase Todd, both of Georgetown High School with a three-fish aggregate of 6.54 pounds. Todd took big fish honors with a 4.35-pounder. Bradley Thompkins and River Squires of Conway High School finished second. No anglers competed in the middle school bass division.

Maria Rabon of the Christian Academy of Myrtle Beach won the high school red drum division with one fish weighing 1.38 pounds and measuring 15.5 inches. The big fish honors went to Colin Newton of Waccamaw High School with a 38-inch red drum that was released after a photo op.

Ben Pardue and Charlie Holmes won the middle school red drum division with one fish weighing 4.07 pounds and measuring 21.5 inches. The duo also released a 26-inch red drum after a photo op.

All fish weighed in were released.

Six high schools (Conway, Carolina Forest, Waccamaw, Socastee, Georgetown and Stratford) and five middle schools (Conway, Ocean Bays, Rosemary, Forestbrook and Georgetown) competed in the tournament. Christian Academy and Scholars Academy also competed.

The next SALTT event is Nov. 7. All trail events are staged from the Campbell Complex on the Sampit River with a 7 a.m. launch and 3 p.m. weigh-in.

For more information, visit www.salttfishing.com.

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 8:17 PM with the headline "Outdoors: Wait pays off as Barnes crew finally wins king mackerel tournament."