The Mellow Yellow Team is Top SKA Boat at Ancient City!

By Jack Holmes
Managing Partner

St. Augustine, Florida—The Mellow Yellow team of Steve and Ryland Lucie, Jimmy McIntire, and Andy Pettit caught a 40-pound king mackerel on day one of the Ancient City Gamefish Association's Kingfish Challenge, which ultimately earned second place. The team fishes a beautiful 32' Yamaha powered Intrepid.

"We were 65 miles from the tournament site in an area called the Elton Bottom," Steve explained. "The bite actually started between eight and nine and lasted until 10:30. We caught a 15, next a 25, then the big girl couldn't resist a goggle eye we had deployed. Andy did the honors and we really felt good after she was in the boat. This was one of our days we claimed for the Pro Tour."

The Elton Bottom has always been a hot spot over the years however, the last couple of years no one has done well fishing there. You can bet many will be there for the Greater Jacksonville event held the following week.

Toney and Greg Altieri caught a nice 34.20 to earn fifth place overall. It looks like the Nut Deep team is picking up where they left off last year, finishing in the money!

Free Spoolin' caught a 32.60 to capture seventh. "We fished Matanzas both days and caught kings, bonito, and sharks primarily in 50 feet of water," said Ray Green, team captain. "It was a lot of fun but we knew we wanted to get a return on our investment so we were fairly serious. We caught a 25 and an 18 before we nailed our 32 about 9:30. She ate a pogy on the surface and Mike did the honors. We had one king eat two baits and we had two anglers fighting the same fish. It was so much fun!"

Ray fishes with Mike Pepper and Sherlyn Kelly on a Mercury powered MidOcean.

Code Red's Bo Audesey, Tony Karwacki, Hugh Robinson, and Tristan Johnson fished the Suzuki powered Sea Quest to a tenth place finish. They ran the Small Boat Class boat to the north end of the Elton Bottom where they caught a 30.60 on the second day of the event.

"We couldn't buy a fish the first day," said Bo. I told him at the weigh-in dock he needed to go back home (meaning back to Georgia), and he did. It really paid off.

"She ate a ribbonfish down a little after nine," Bo added. "Our junior angler, Tristan, did a great job of getting her to the boat. That fish got us some great Pro points."

This is one of the best teams in the Small Boat Class fishing with us. Watch out for them at the Championship!

The Ancient City Gamefish Association has been doing this event for the past 17 years and the SKA has been side by side with them. It's a great organization that still continues to perform despite difficult economic pressures. They are certainly to be commended. 

Open Class