44-lb. king nets $12K for Team Kingscape
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Courtesy Photo Big catch The Gulf Breeze-based boat Team Kingscape landed this 44-pound, nine ounce kingfish to win $12,000 at the recent FLW Tournament in Cocodrie, La. They are (not in order): Todd King, Chris Schulte, Trey Davis and Summer King.

Team Kingscape, headed by Todd King of Gulf Breeze, caught a kingfish weighing 44 pounds, 9 ounces July 28 to win the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Upper Gulf Division event in Cocodrie, La., and $12,000 cash.

King, along with teammates Summer King, Chris Schulte and Trey Davis., were fishing about 50 miles from the take-off site, slow-trolling live hard tails around the south timberlier block of oil rigs.

"We are really excited to win one of these," King said. "We have won other tournament before but this is great.

"Today didn't start off really good. We took off this morning in a storm and pretty much had to run the boat by radar because of the low visibility. We caught a number of fish early but our big one hit around 1 this afternoon. When we first caught this fish we thought it might get us in the top-10 but we weren't expecting to win."

King also added that the bait was abundant in the area and the water had a great green tint, in which they were looking for. The team rig hopped all day, fishing different blocks of offshore oil rigs. They had an initial plan to put them in the spot where they were when the 44-pounder was caught and that plan paid off.

Rounding out the top five teams were Team Catch 22 captained by Kevin Arnold of Houston, Texas (43 pounds, 5 ounces, $4,305); Team Intense captained by Neal Foster of Mobile, Ala. (41 pounds, 1 ounce, $2,870); Team Speckulator captained by George Simon III of Baton Rouge, La. (40 pounds, 1 ounce, $1,896) and Team Wild Ride/Team M&M's captained by Randy Griffin Jr. of Hampstead, N.C. (38 pounds, 7 ounces, $2,050).

The award for highest finishing woman went to Summer King of Gulf Breeze, who placed first with a 44- pound, 9-ounce kingfish as a member of Team Kingscape.

The award for the highest finishing angler 16 years-of-age and under was Andrew Montgomery of Mobile, Ala., who placed third with a king weighing 41 pounds, 1 ounce as a member of Team Intense.

FLW Kingfish Series qualifying tournaments are oneday events. Each team is allowed to weigh in one kingfish, and the winning team is determined by the heaviest fish.

The FLW Kingfish Series consists of five divisions - East Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina/Georgia, Gulf and Upper Gulf. Each division is comprised of three events with a $100,000 purse for each event. The top three teams from each tournament and the top 16 teams (who are not already qualified) from each division after all qualifiers are complete will advance to the three-day, $275,000 no-entry-fee Wal- Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship in Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 4-6, which will be featured in a one-hour episode of 'SFLW Outdoors' broadcast to 80 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) households in the United States and more than 429 million households in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The points champion from each division will also advance directly to the $500,000 noentry fee Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour Championship in Biloxi, Miss., Nov. 2-4, where they will compete against top FLW Kingfish Tour teams for a top award of $150,000.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Abu Garcia, Ranger Owners Tournament Championship Series, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series.

These circuits offer combined purses of nearly $43 million through 241 events in 2007.

Wal-Mart and many of America's largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 1997 and today is the world's leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information about Wal-Mart, visit Walmart.com.

For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, visit FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.