Team C Crazy wins Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series event in New Smyrna Beach

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – Team C Crazy, headed by Captain Carl Carder of Edgewater, Fla., caught a kingfish weighing 36 pounds, 8 ounces to win the Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series East Florida Division event in New Smyrna Beach. The top prize of $21,000 included a $9,000 Yamaha bonus.

Fishing with Bob Lail of Orlando, Fla., and Greg Samuel of Deland, Fla., Carder committed his entire day to fishing a couple hundred yards off the nearby Ponce Inlet jetties. Pretournament scouting told him that conditions would be ideal for an inlet bite, so he and his teammates launched with a solid game plan.

“The water (at the inlet) was 80 degrees, and we heard boats to the south reporting that the water temperature had dropped, so the thermocline was moving in,” Carder said. “We went diving on Wednesday for lobster season so we knew the water was cold offshore. We knew two days ago where we were going to fish.”

When the winning kingfish ate a live blue runner on an outrigger line at 12:30 p.m., Samuel worked the rod and Carder handled the gaff duty. The kingfish bite had been slow until the late morning saw an incoming tide invigorate the area with clean water. Other species kept the team busy prior to their kingfish action.

“We had been catching barracudas, jacks and cobia,” Carder said. “But when this fish hit, we knew it was a king. We saw the strike and it looked like a pretty good fish.”

Rounding out the top five teams were Team Bottom Line captained by Reid Macy of Fort Pierce, Fla. (34 pounds, 11 ounces, $2,640); Team Young Guns captained by Harvey Way Jr. of Bunnell, Fla. (31 pounds, $1,760, plus $1,320 Yamaha bonus and $1,320 Hydra-Sports bonus); Team The Hard Way captained by C. Todd Korker of Jupiter, Fla. (28 pounds $1,100, plus $990 Hydra-Sports bonus); and Team Reel Wild captained by John Wildes of Waycross, Ga. (28 pounds, $1,100).

FLW Kingfish Series qualifying tournaments are one-day events. The field competes Saturday, and the winning team is determined based on the heaviest kingfish. The next FLW Kingfish Series event will be held August 5 at Charleston, S.C.

The FLW Kingfish Series consists of five divisions – East Florida, West Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina-Georgia and Gulf Coast. Each division is comprised of three events with a $100,000 purse for each event. The top 100 teams – 20 from each division after three qualifying events – will qualify for the three-day, no-entry-fee $300,000 Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series Championship to be held in Orange Beach, Ala., Oct. 26-28. The championship winner will take home as much as $75,000.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series, as well as the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Stratos Owners’ Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series. These circuits offer combined purses exceeding $36.9 million through 241 events in 2006.

For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, browse FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000.

Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as title sponsor of the FLW Tour in 1997 and today is the world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.