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A Kingfish Fishing We Go:
Last Thursday I had the pleasure of fishing with Capt. Ron
Gunter (winner of the 1994 Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament), on his
newly refurbished 1983, 25 foot long Sea Vee. Ron bought this boat
from the infamous Northeast Florida Tarpon fisherman, John Campbell. Now
anyone that knows or has been with John Campbell knows that he had just about,
worn this boat out and almost everything needed to be replaced. Ron
Gunter took on this project with his normal soft spoken, laid back
attitude.
Ron spent the better part of last summer and almost all of the
winter rebuilding his new (old) boat. Ron replaced almost everything in the
boat except the hull. He put a new, more powerful motor, transmission, fuel
tanks, electronics, wiring, pumps, auto pilot, and a sack full of new toys that
most boat owners would love to play with.
After he replaced almost everything, he had the boat painted
back to the original color. The main finishing touch was a vinyl
decal of a tarpon and the name "Reel Love" that Tim Murray of SignWorks made for
Ron's boat.
When I got out of my truck this morning and saw the finished
product. I thought he had bought a new boat. The name and decal from
SignWorks was the icing on the cake as far as the way it personalized the
boat.
After I was done inspecting the work that had been done,
we loaded up and headed for the boat ramp. After launching the boat we headed
straight for the jetties where we were able to use Sabiki gold hook rigs to jig
up about 5 dozen live Greenies. We found the bait, below the surface using
his new Sitex color recorder, sent down our gold hook rigs and caught bait,
for about 30 to 40 minutes. If you have never done this type of bait catching,
you might not want to, because it is sometimes so much fun that you
do not want to leave to catch the striking fish that you came
for.
After we had more than enough bait, we headed for one of the
inshore reefs about 10 miles out. On the way out Ron wanted to play with
one of his new toys, his auto pilot. Ron has this boat chocked full of all
of the latest devices to aide in the pursuit of his quarry and all of these
devices seemed to be right on target. After traveling for about 30 to 40
minutes an alarm went off with a sound that seemed to say "this is the
spot". Ron backed down on his new power plant, the boat came off of plane and
slowed to an idle. I knew what to do from here, get out of the way and let
Capt. Ron work his magic. After a couple of minutes he had all of the lines out
and we were fishing.
It wasn't long before the scream of line
peeling from the reel, sounded the first fish on. We all scrambled to
get the down riggers up and clear a few of the other lines. Tim Roush grabbed
the rod, one of my new Shakespeare 7' 9" Tiger Rods, and held on
as the fish peeled line off of the Tidewater 10 LA reel. After a minute or so
the fish stopped running and Tim was able to get some line back on the
spool. By now, I was driving the boat and Capt. Ron was at the gaff. After
a few passes around the boat the fish surfaced and with one swift swipe of the
gaff Capt. Ron had him and in the box he went. A great start to a perfect
morning in the ocean, one 10 pound king in the boat and anticipation of many
more.
After we had our usual congratulatory actions, "high fives,
atta boys and were bad", you know the usual things that mature grown men do when
they think they have done something special. The only thing about landing this
fish, is, that it was not for any of us a special act, as we all have
caught many king fish. You know what they say, "some boys
never completely grow up". I guess the three of us fall into
this group.
We all knew what was to happen next as we pointed the
boat back to the reef, we got new baits out and got ready for our next
fish. It wasn't long before the sound of line screaming from the
reel was echoing through the boat. Back into action we all went, Ron,
clearing the line, Tim on the downriggers and me driving the boat and eating
some of Ron's beef jerky.
Ron likes to leave the rod with fish in the rod holder until
he has removed the other lines from the water and brought up the downriggers. He
says "by the time he has gotten everything else out of the water, the fish on,
has stopped with his first long run and is now ready for the angler to work
the rod".
This time it was Capt. Ron's turn to fight the fish as he has
done so many times before. Ron worked the fish like an old pro, motioning
with his hand which direction he wanted me to drive the boat as we chased down
this fish. Ron pumped and wound as the fish came closer to the boat. I was
at the helm, Ron was on the rod and Tim on the gaff as the fish passed the
boat heading for freedom as he tried to shake the hooks. Ron kept a cool head
and slowly worked the fish back within striking distance for the gaff as Tim
placed the gaff under the fish and made one upward movement, as another
king made his way in the box.
We were cooking with gas, we had been there less than an
hour and we already had two nice kings in the box.
We got our spread back out and back to the spot we headed. It
wasn't long before we had another and in the box he went. We did this
for another couple of hours before we had all of the kings that we needed.
Here it was 11:30 in the morning and we had all of the fish that we could stand
and we were heading back for the dock.
We stowed the tackle, all got a drink and a handful of
jerky and we were ready for the ride back.
Ron set his new directional machine for the inlet, turned on
the auto pilot and off we went, back to the dock. Usually the ride back,
from a day in the ocean is a chore to hold on and there is not much
conversation. On this day, we were all cutting up and still having fun.
See, we only fished about a half of a day and the ocean had not got all the
goodie out of us, so we still had energy left to have more fun. One other thing,
this boat rides so good that it doesn't take a lot of effort to hold on, so
at the end of the day you don't feel like you have been in an iron man
contest.
We arrived back at the dock about noon and we were
back at the house by about 1:00 with a cooler full of fish.
Ron Gunter is a seasoned offshore fisherman and takes charters
during the summer months, for Kingfish, Tarpon and Sharks. His boat can
take up to four customers and he can be reached in Jacksonville
at (904) 251-9550. If you are interested in having fun and catching some fish
give him a call to set up you next trip.
I was also real impressed with the design that SignWorks had
put on the side of Rons' boat. If you would like to personallize your boat, call
Tim at 730-3401.
Inshore Action:
The inshore creeks are slow and the river around the ocean is
almost as slow. The jetties are on fire with big reds, sharks, tarpon and jacks.
The best bait for these are live mullet, poggies or greenies.
The night time trout action is fired up around the brightly
lighted docks. I like the outgoing tide best for this night time fishing.
We have just now started to get the afternoon showers and this
will help to bring the river and creeks back to life. After about another week
of these showers, I suspect that the inshore daytime fishing will be back to
normal.
For charter fishing information you can call me at (904)
757-7550.
Don't forget to watch Fun Fishing. You can go to my website,
http://www.hammondfishing.com,
for information on the days and times that the show plays in your
area.
Good Fishing
Capt. Jin Hammond
(904) 757-7550
This report is brought to you by
 and 
Here is a picture of Capt. Ron Gunter with two of the many
Kingfish we caught this day.
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