Second-year tourney adds a new category (amberjack), as well as some new festivities, to pull teams from across the Gulf Coast into Carrabelle; 35.8-pound king takes first place.

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Much like tarpon to places like Boca Grande and Egmont Key, nobody is entirely sure what draws large amounts of anglers to the Big 4 Offshore tournament in Carrabelle.

It could be the catered banquet the week before the event. Or maybe it’s the captain’s meeting at C-Quarters Marina, which is always followed by a low country boil, complete with shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes on the docks.

The best guess is the main draw is the strong fishing just outside St. George Sound, though it could also be the down home cooking at local restaurants like the Funky Oyster Shack that keep them coming back.

Regardless of the reason, the Big 4 Offshore is drawing anglers and it’s doing so from as far away as Atlanta and Texas. The second annual edition of the tournament drew 51 boats (up 18 from the year before) and featured 198 anglers looking for the biggest kingfish, amberjack, Spanish mackerel and grouper.

Prizes were paid for the top four in each category with the kingfish – the tournament’s featured species – paying $5,000 for first place.

“Everybody I’ve talked to that runs tournaments say they are all down 20 to 30 percent from last year and we had an increase of 54 percent. In other words, we’re doing something right,” said tournament organizer Brian Hurley, noting they added a bikini contest in Tallahassee to this year’s festivities. “Last year was the first year and that tournament was successful. This year, everybody knew the program. We’re definitely on the map now. The buzz in Carrabelle is unbelievable.”

The buzz really kicked into high gear on the first day of the two-day tournament when boats started piling back into C-Quarters and the non-stop parade of big fish began making its way to the scales.

The hit of the first day was the 65.9-pound amberjack weighed in by Team Rezoned, a group in a 33-foot Contender, who ran 106 miles out of Carrabelle to fish one particular piece of bottom.

The run limited them to 58 minutes of actual fishing before they had to leave to make weigh-in on time but, besides the AJ, which paid $500 for first place, they also caught a 25.9-pound grouper, which won its category and paid out $2,500. Amberjack was a new category in this year’s tournament, replacing cobia.
“We were only fishing for less than an hour, but we were catching fish the whole time and just waiting for the big one to come up,” said Rezoned captain Brandon Poole.

A 7.6-pounder took the title in the Spanish mackerel category, earning Team Outbound $500.
The big winner of the day – and the tournament – turned out to be the Bluewater Predator team, which weighed in a 35.8-pound kingfish on the first day and then sweated it out as they waited for that weight to hold up on Day Two as well.

“Everybody kept telling me that we had it wrapped up but I wasn’t confident that someone else wasn’t going to bring anything bigger in the second day,” said team captain Michael Lodge. “Surely, there was someone else out there catching some nice ones also.”

The team of Lodge, Blake Jones, Dustin Hickox and Stuart Geriner traveled from Georgia and found themselves in the kings all weekend, including their pre-fish day on Friday when they thought they’d used up all their luck.

“We landed a king on Friday that probably would have weighed 40 pounds,” Lodge said. “I figured we had probably used all our luck up before the tournament even started. But I knew right then that was the area we wanted to fish the next day.”

On Day Two, Lodge and his team brought in a 32-plus pound kingfish that would have placed them second in the category.

By Mike Readling
Associate Editor, Florida Fishing Weekly

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