Kingfish Connection: Heading into this big tournament in Fourchon, what was your strategy?  Did you decide to prefish much before hand?

Steve Hays: We headed over to Fourchon from St. Petersburg Thursday morning and didn’t prefish much at all.  Robert Snibbe from the Native fishing team (ranked #2 in the World) helped our team greatly with some intel for day one fishing.  My partner, Perry Warner, and I sat down the night before the event and eliminated some spots and made a strategy.  We wanted to bounce around a few rigs and try different depths.  This strategy worked on day one, because after a couple rigs we found exactly what we were looking for.

What were you looking for?

We were looking for the right water color.  That gin clear water isn’t generally what you look for when fishing for kingfish.  We found the right color water and great water temperature.   We also liked how we were catching upper-30 pounders and 40 pound kingfish.  I feel that where you are catching 40’s you have a great shot at a 50 pound kingfish.  Late in the day we came to this fifth rig and that’s when the day one smoker ate.

How was the strike?

Since we only fished two people for this event we decided to only fish two or three rods, all with blue runners on them.   The fish ate a blue runner on the surface.  Perry saw the fish sky behind the boat and knew it was a good fish.    This king mackerel made an incredible screaming run.  I had the reel in my hand and had to show Perry that the line was disappearing quickly.  We were probably down to about 40 yards of line.  After about thirty minutes on the rod, I subdued the fish and Perry gaffed it.

What was your strategy for day 2?  Did you fish the same area?

On day 2 we decided to switch up our strategy.  I don’t know what it was; it was more luck than anything, but Perry and I talked about it and spoke to Team Fountain and Robert Snibbe and learned there were fish West towards Texas.  We were thinking we had a good fish on day 1 and felt that if we went West we would have the best shot at another solid fish for the Angler of the Year race.  We just wanted a good points fish. 

We made the 112 mile run to West where we heard of great reports.  Looking back, I think we were really just lucky.  No one gave us a specific rig to fish, they just told us an area to fish.  We stopped at a rig because it looked good, and it really worked out for us.

At about noon the 57 pound kingfish ate.  I thought the first fish was a screamer; this one put the day 1 fish to shame.  This fish ate a runner in the prop wash and ran like a freight train.  Perry was on the rod while I tried to run the boat and film the action on our camcorder.  We got some incredible footage!

This fight also lasted for about thirty minutes.  When I stuck her with the gaff I could barely lift her in the boat!  When the fish hit the deck we packed up and headed for weigh in.