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Richard Boles, Richie Boles, and Jordan Robson pose with the 44.45 pound king mackerel that brought them the winning prize at the 2009 East Coast Got-Em-On Classic held at Carolina Beach. Not pictured are team members Doug Robson and Mark Ward.
According to team captain Richard Boles, any team would be thankful to make that kind of catch, and the Toes Up crew wanted to make sure a higher power knew it.
“The first thing we did when we got her in the boat was to have a prayer,” Boles explained. “We wanted to thank the Lord because without God all this is not possible.”
The 44.45 pound, 54 inch long king that the anglers hauled from South Carolina waters to the scales at the Carolina Beach Yacht Basin was the first fish weighed in. It held on to the top spot through the three-day event, earning them the first place position.
“We’d like to thank the Ocean Isle Fishing Center guys, too," Boles said. "We talked on Friday, and we knew they’d caught some fish close in. And, truth be told, we were headed out and happened to see some of them hooked up at a spot within sight of Myrtle Beach.”
The group fished on a Yamaha-powered 23T Contender.
The group got their first strike at 8:50 a.m. when a fish took live bait.
Richard Boles took the rod as the king ran, and according to Boles the big first run clued the anglers in that they’d hooked something special.
“We knew it was a big fish,” Boles said, “and we wanted to take our time with it, not hurry her or anything like that.”
Boles fought the mackerel for 35 to 45 minutes, countering four or five long runs before passing the rod off to Doug Robson.
“This was Doug’s first tournament after surgery,” Boles said. “We got a look at the fish and it was so big I didn’t want him to gaff it and hurt himself, so I gave him the rod. The fish saw the boat then and took off on another long run and fought us for another 20 minutes.”
When the team finally saw their fish again, Boles was ready with the gaff.
“I gaffed her,” he continued, “and then everybody helped get her in the boat. Then we tried to get her in the bag quick and get ice all around her.”
The lengthy battle was over at 9:55 a.m. While many teams would have begun heading to Carolina Beach to wait for the scales to open up, Boles said, the Toes Up anglers elected to keep fishing.
“Yeah, we kept fishing,” Boles said. “That was our first fish of the day, and it was Mark’s first trip offshore. We wanted him to catch some fish. We caught four or five more kings, then had lunch on the water, caught the 1 p.m. Sunset Beach Bridge opening, and made our way up to the scales.”
Mark Ward of Laurinburg was in charge of driving the boat when the prize winning king mackerel was caught, though he was able to catch more later in the day.
"This was not only my first tournament, it was my first experience fishing beyond the Intracoastal Waterway," Ward said. "It was great to be out there fishing with my good friends, and watching their expressions when their kids, Richie and Jordan, caught fish. I can't wait until my own daughter is old enough to do that as well."
Though they’d weighed the fish on the boat, Boles said the team was still a bit apprehensive to see what the official weight would be.
“We kind of had an idea where we were at because we’d put it on a Boga Grip, but we got pretty excited when we saw the official weight.”
The other competitors weighed in 86 more fish over the course of Saturday and Sunday’s fishing, but none came close to the Toes Up king mackerel. The group took first place by nearly six pounds.
The Toes Up fishing team is sponsored by Richard Boles Funeral Service and Scotland Motors.
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