Well folks, this year's first tournament on the SKA trail, and in Division 10, was the 2005 Hogs Breath and Murray Marine Kingfish Tournament to be held in Key West, Florida. And for team Spiced Rum II it wasn't our best showing. Nothing went as planned for us at all. It all started as soon as we pulled out of my driveway; the right rear trailer tire went flat! So we pulled over and changed that tire with our spare. Then we stopped down in Marathon to get a new tire, so that we could take the spare tire off. And that's when we got some more great news; the hubs on all four-trailer axles were shot! Hence, we had all those replaced with new hubs and continued on down to bottom and into Key West.

We checked into the marina and then put the boat in and began doing our inspections on all the equipment. In checking the live bait well, we found it to be leaking at the hose near the transom. So we had to go out and buy a new hose and all the clamps to replace that. The wind was beginning to pick up and it wasn't looking good for day one of fishing. And that night at the hotel it was blowing strong!!!!

I did manage to get in a little "hotel fishing" off the fourth floor balcony. I taped a five-dollar bill onto a snap swivel and dropped her down with a small weight onto the rear sidewalk patio entrance to the hotel. I set the drag on my reel and waited for the first sucker to come along. It wasn't long before Jack Penny's kid was strolling along the sidewalk and up to the bait. I jiggled the currency for the effect and I had him for sure. Pennywise reached down to pick up the five dollars off the ground and I pulled it away from him. The money was being pulled up away from him as the kid jumped to grab it and missed. We all laughed till we cried. I then let the money back down and he came back for the bait, this time taking me under the canopy of the entrance and getting away with the bait! Oh well….it was well worth the five dollars.

Day one of the 2005 Hog's Breath kingfish tournament was nothing but "UGLY!" The wind was absolutely howling as day one kicked off. We only did the twelve-mile run out to the Western Dry Rocks (which wasn't dry at all) and fished that area hard. The depth recorder and fish finder had both gone out on us, so we were basically fishing blind. In the midst of all those problems we did manage to pull a 22.53 lb. Kingfish in the middle of the holding on and rocking and rolling.

We got back to the hotel and it felt great to get a hot shower! My stepbrother Tony and I were both coming down with the flu. Day two was not going to pretty either, because we were in for some rain squalls.

Day two started off just as bad as day one. The depth recorder and fish finder still wasn't working, and the rain was moving in. The only good thing was, the wind was calming down as the day moved on. We fished closer today then yesterday, and basically went straight due east from the check out area.

We caught some kingfish all day long but couldn't get anything big. We did manage to put one about 25 pounds in the box near the end of the day. But as luck would have it, while running in, the plugs fouled up on both engines and we had to limp in on one motor. Needless to say, we never made it to the weigh in station. Then I came down with that flu and was sick for the rest of the week when I got home. I really think that someone must have put the mojo on us this trip!

Saturday, April 1, 2006 was definitely no April Fools Day for the Spiced Rum II fishing team. We set out to win once again the annual Newport Cove Fishing Tournament. The tournament is set up to challenge three local marinas in our area; North Palm Beach Marina, Old Port Cove Marina, and of course Newport Cove.

The Spiced Rum II fishing team has prevailed in this tournament for the past three years. This year we did it once again! We came in with a 35 lb. kingfish, along with a 25 lb. king to give us a total weight of 60 lbs., as well as having the biggest fish weighed in for the entire tournament. Thanks to the Spiced Rum II fishing team the trophy will once again remain on display at the Newport Cove Marina.

Many boats zeroed out on day one and did not weigh in a fish. Day two of this tournament was canceled due to the winds and seas increasing even more! So this adds to our total weight and brings the Spiced Rum II fishing team to up around 52.82 lbs. We will wait to fish the next leg of the 2006 SKA tournament season in Stuart, Florida in mid May.

We picked up our three dozen live bait and headed out for our secret king fishing hole. We hit our mark around 7 am and put out our baits and began slow trolling. We hadn't had our bait spread out more then one minute before we had two kingfish sky on the rigger baits.

The king bite was red hot for four hours. We must have caught and released twenty-five fish before 11 am. We already had a thirty pound king in our fish bag, but were looking for a bigger one. Just before noon we moved away from the fleet of boats that had moved near us, and we hooked a good one. After a good battle we gaffed the 41-pound kingfish and stowed her in the pre-iced fish bag. We had our big king, now we moved off to try and catch a wahoo and or dolphin.

We trolled for the next three hours zig zagging along the deep ledge but only raised a nice blue marlin. She came up on the left rigger, a pink and Blue Island Lure, took a slash at it but missed it, then disappeared. We had no other knockdowns the rest of the day.

At 3:30 we called it a day and headed in for the weigh in. At the dock, our kingfish tipped the scale at 41.07 pounds and put us in first place. We ended up winning first place king, top fishing team, and first place Calcutta. Our total winning was $7,500 cash. Another great fishing tournament and win for the Spiced Rum II crew.