Team Purse Snatcher Wins Big at Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo
Husband and wife team Aaron and Melissa Wells, and Melissa’s father Bob Wyers, recently won the King Mackerel division of the 73rd Annual Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. The team caught the 60.92 LB fish in their brand new SKA 23’ class Fountain 23 Center Console. The first morning of the tournament, Friday, July 15th, they raced in their new Fountain 42 miles offshore straight to the spot they had pre-fished two weeks earlier. While pre-fishing they had landed a couple of 50+ pounders and thought it would be the place to start. As luck would have it, hurricane Dennis had made his way through the area and had changed the waters. When they arrived to the spot the water was green and there was a lot of sargasm grass. They went ahead and dropped their lines and caught two sharks and a small 10 LB king. They released the fish headed out and found blue water five miles to the west. They shot over to the first oil rig and saw bait fish balled up on the corner of the rig. The bait fish were being crashed on so they set up two lines — a top line set out long and a deep line on the down rigger. They made 1/2 of a pass around the rig when the fish hit the top line hard. The fish took almost all of the line on the first run. Aaron fought the fish for 20 minutes and got him close to the boat. Melissa was unable to gaff him because he was still too deep. The fish took off on another run down and under the boat, but Aaron was able to bring him back. Melissa gaffed him this time and all three team members worked to get the fish on the boat. Melissa said “When he hit the deck we all knew he was at least in the upper 50’s.” It was only 9:40 in the morning, they raced back to the scales and were the first in the tournament to weigh in. Knowing that a kingfish over 60 LBs was rare they took it easy for the rest of the tournament watching closely to make sure no one was able to top it.