2008 Highlights

Taking a look at '08 fishing highlights

By Tommy Braswell (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Sunday, December 28, 2008



Non-fishermen don't get it. They belittle things like watching fishing shows on television. I can only imagine their reaction if they discover hard-core fishermen "watching" fishing on the Internet!
But a lot of Lowcountry fishermen were enthralled with web coverage of fishing events during 2008. Most notable was keeping track of the 50th annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, fished each June out of Morehead City, N.C. It's one of the richest billfish tournaments around and close enough geographically to attract a large crowd of South Carolina participants.

This year, the Charleston-based boat Artemis captured the top prize, winning $708,400 from a purse of $1.8 million with a 640-pound blue marlin. The boat is owned by John Darby and captained by Bucky Copleston.

Artemis was carrying on a proud tradition of Charleston-area boats in the tournament. A year earlier, BakBar out of Mount Pleasant, owned by Billy Barnwell and Neal Baker and captained by Tommy Lewis, carted home the top prize of $800,839 with a 613-pound marlin. Artemis' win was the fourth time in nine years a Charleston boat had won the Big Rock, illustrating that our offshore fishermen and fishing take second place to no one.
This year, the Governor's Cup Billfishing Series required that circle hooks be used when pulling natural or combination baits. But that didn't seem to have any effect on the number of fish that were caught and released. Toss around these numbers reported in 2008 to Amy Dukes of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources — 539 sailfish releases, 63 blue marlin releases, 26 while marlin releases and one spearfish release. Dukes said she knew of only a couple of billfish that were actually boated and brought to the docks in 2008, both of which died during the fight.
Here are some other numbers to contemplate. The Doughboy, out of Edisto and owned by Ben and Cynthia Dantzler, went 4 for 7 on blue marlin on May 1. And to further illustrate how the Palmetto State has become a hotbed for fall sailfishing, the boat Billfishin', captained by Michael Mattson out of the Charleston City Marina, set a new record with 20 sailfish releases in a three-hour period during a charter trip.

The top boat in the Governor's Cup was Cerveza, a 62-foot Paul Spencer custom sportfisherman owned by Tom Russell of Reston, Va., and captained by Butch Davis. Cerveza accumulated 4,275 release points with 21 sailfish releases and won two of the three Governor's Cup events the crew fished, the Charleston Harbor Marina Billfish Tournament and the Charleston MegaDock Billfish Tournament.
Other Governor's Cup winners in 2008 included Hoy Boys, Edisto Marina Invitational; Roulette, Georgetown Blue Marlin Tournament; and Daymaker, Bohicket Marina Invitational Billfish Tournament.

Daymaker, captained by Jay Weaver, also brought another level of excitement in the Governor's Cup when crew member Ryan Riggs weighed in a new state record dolphin on the opening day of the Bohicket tournament, a 77-pound, 8-ounce catch. The previous record was 74-6. Interestingly, Riggs' catch had sometime earlier engulfed a five-pound dolphin, whose tail was still visible in the record fish's mouth.

Riggs' state record was one of eight new records set in 2008.
Jimmy Widener of Hanahan upped the state record for sheepshead to 16 pounds, 6 ounces. Jason Edgerton of Mount Pleasant bumped the state record for white grunt to 5-0, only 37 days after the initial state record of 3-0 was set by Sean Murphy of Myrtle Beach. Brian Powell, fishing with Capt. David Yates of Mount Pleasant, broke a 13-day-old record with a 43-8 African pompano. The previous record was a 38-0 catch by Steve Bagnall of Vancouver, Wash., made aboard the Teaser II, captained by Mark Brown of Mount Pleasant. Lee Frederick of Murrells Inlet established a new record for amberjack with a 100-8 catch. The red grouper record was broken by Michael Jenkins of Little River with a 31-0 catch.

Sticking with saltwater catches, congratulations to the Loose Lucy fishing team headed by Mike and Susan Kaminsky of Charleston are well deserved. They won the FLW Kingfish Tour Championship and $56,250 in Biloxi, Miss., in November with a two-fish aggregate of 85 pounds. And a week later, they finished fifth overall in the Southern Kingfish Association Nationals, also fished in Biloxi.

The Reel Hooked fishing team out of Beaufort took the $25,000 top prize in the local Key West Boats Fishing for Miracles King Mackerel Tournament with a 38.32-pound catch. The tournament drew a respectable 231 entries in spite of high fuel prices.
Ray Sedgwick of Cross and Nick Gainey of Charleston both made waves in professional bass fishing.
Sedgwick, a three-time qualifier for the Bassmaster Classic and a regular on the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society Elite Series, finished second in March to Kevin Van Dam in the Elite Citrus Slam, earning $32,000.

In November 2007, Gainey finished as the top Northern Division Angler in the FLW Outdoors Stren Series Championship in Mobile, Ala. That performance earned him a shot at $1 million this past August in the Forrest Wood Cup Championship fished on Lake Murray. And while the million-dollar dream didn't pan out (Gainey finished 47th among 77 competitors), it still was an exciting adventure for Gainey and his friends.
Some of the biggest freshwater news from the past year was the Southeastern drought that wreaked havoc with the economy built around fishing on the Santee Cooper lakes.
Last December, the water levels on Lakes Marion and Moultrie were 10 feet below normal full stage. Boat docks were high and dry. Boat ramps were, for the most part, unusable. And hidden dangers such as large cypress stumps that had been covered for more than 60 years were uncovered, making boating a dangerous proposition. Presently, Lake Marion is about 2 1/2 feet below full stage while Lake Moultrie is just over 1 1/2 feet below full stage. And that's good news for everyone involved.