Kingfish Connection: You head one of the most successful event promotion companies in the Southeast, in Blue Water Promotions. When did you decide to start this venture and why?

Terry Adkins: We started Blue Water Promotions in 2001. We had been involved in many charity tournaments over the previous two decades. The size of those events and my personal involvement brought us to the conclusion it was time for this to move into a business operation in lieu of just a volunteer position that consumed almost half of my yearly work time.

Under your leadership, Blue Water Promotions has been incredibly successful in gaining sponsorship from some of the leaders in the industry. According to your website, your six tournaments have support from 31 different companies. Without giving away your secret, can you explain why Blue Water Promotions has been so successful in this aspect of event promotions, while others have struggled?

First, let me say that Blue Water Promotion does not have some kind of secret success recipe to gain sponsorship. I can state we work very hard to present our sponsors in the most productive manner we can at each event venue. I can also attest that we take a very professional approach to the way we conduct a tournament. Our sponsors regularly compliment us on the quality of our promotional material and the way we execute the events they sponsor.

Once the sponsorship ball started rolling, and you built relationships with certain companies, was it easier to gain support from other companies?

We spent three years forming a large number of sponsor relationships asking for nothing more than the opportunity to stand on stage and award their products while we gained members for a fishing advocacy organization. So, I guess you could say after we spent three years working for free it did get a little easier. It certainly gave us the networking contacts to take the ball and run once the tournament field opened to acquisitions and take over opportunities.

You’ve continued to add new events to your schedule of events, this year adding events in Ft. Pierce and New Smyrna. Will you continue to add tournaments to the Blue Water Promotions schedule in the future?

We do see continued growth in 2008. In the last few weeks we have been contacted by several tournaments asking us to consider taking over their events, this year! Some of these are of interest to us but we are extremely involved in a major promotion involving five of our tournaments. With that said we recognize the limited access nature of our business, so we might take the leap and add one more event this year.

Do you have any other plans this year? Are there any new prizes?

With this interview we are announcing our Yellowfin-Mercury-GMC 2007 Kingfish Classic Series. This series of five events will work together to reach a majority of the Atlantic King Mackerel competitive angling fleet. Through the resources of our great sponsors we have been able to secure top tier prizes that will rival any single King Mackerel event of comparable size. What makes this series so special is that we have the same level of prize structure at each of the five events. First place in each event is a 2007 GMC Sierra 1500 Crew Cab Truck valued at $30,000 and $20,000 CASH!

Because of the continued sponsorship support of Yellowfin, Mercury, Loadmaster and Raymarine we have also established a guaranteed $50,000 cash championship prize structure to cover the Series! To be eligible you must fish at least three out five events.

Along with all this we have a no catch required Grand Prize offered at each event. The Grand Prize is a 34 Yellowfin with triple Mercury 275 Verados on a Loadmaster Aluminum Trailer completely outfitted with Raymarine electronics valued at $265, 000!

As stated earlier, you’ve done well with the marketing of your events. As a whole, how do you think the sport of kingfishing should go about promoting itself to potential sponsors? Is there room for the sport to grow?

I think there is tremendous opportunity for this sport to grow in participation and popularity. As promoters we should continue to make our tournaments more accessible and more professional in their execution. If we do those things sponsorship will come.

Are there too many kingfish tournaments?

NO! There are not enough great Kingfish Tournaments. Blue Water Promotions is working hard everyday to build one more great event.

As a charter member of the SKA, you have certainly seen some changes in the sport. What do you feel has changed the sport the most since you have been involved?

Wow that's a tough one. I could probably list ten things that have contributed to the evolution of the sport we know today verses my starting point as SKA member #00007. If I had to say one element it would be technology. Of course that translates into motor, hull, electronics and angler communication technology including forums like Kingfish Connection.

There are now several professional promotions companies, such as Blue Water Promotions, that run king mackerel events. Do you see more tournaments being run by companies like yours, or do you think that most will continue to be organized by either clubs or marinas?

I think the trend towards more professional operations of Kingfish Tournaments will continue. I would hope that most of them, like ours, will partner with local non-profit charitible organizations in order to put something back in the hosting towns and communities.

Thanks for the opportunity to address your readers!