An emotional Taylor thanked everyone for a great season after accepting his check then asked the entire crowd there to celebrate the event to give a moment of silence for a young man who had fallen off his boat earlier in the day and died. He was not a tournament competitor. It was the first anyone had heard of this tragedy and the mood went very somber.

Taylor is a regular on the Pro Tour plus he won a National Championship in Fort Pierce, Florida in 1998. Hooks is a long time friend of Taylor and fished with him in the Fourchon leg of the Tour this year. He had told Taylor he would fish on day one in Little River, but wanted to fish the Rumble in the Jungle event on his own boat on Saturday. The forty-pound king quickly changed his mind.

This was the third year the Pro Tour ended its season at the Little River Sportfishing Club’s Rumble in the Jungle event. It was not the best year fishing the South Carolina / North Carolina waters. While bait was plentiful, the big fish many teams needed to win the title failed to materialize. Sea conditions were not the best and it poured rain just as the weigh-in started on day two. The scores certainly reflect those conditions.

Earning second place in the event was Mark Maus and Dowling Granberry on the Mercury powered Yellowfin named after their sponsor, Team Simrad.

Mark and Dowling weighed a nice 34.03 on day one and immediately moved from eighth place in the Pro Tour standings to third. At that point they were just 5.21 pounds out of the overall Tour lead, however they had a 34.50-drop fish, which meant they needed a 39.72-pound king on day two to capture the title. A near impossible task but they did scale a respectable 21.86, which gave them a 55.89 two fish aggregate and the event's second place prize of $11,000.

Third place went to Randall Edens’ East Coast Sports team fishing a Yamaha powered Onslow Bay. Randall, George Edens, Chris Gaddy, and Scott Wasilewski, scaled a 27.33 on day one and a 26.93 on day two for a 54.26 aggregate.

Good, solid fishing from this team earned them a nice $10,000 payday and they picked up fourth in the general tournament so this team now has money to return to Biloxi and defend the National Championship title they earned last year.

Don’t be surprised if they win the Championship again. This is a very tough, well-disciplined team, who never gives up.

George Edens was the event's Top Senior Angler.

Fourth place went to the Poes, Howard, Jessica, and Donna, plus Chris Cathey and Alex Todd fishing Kill-N-Me / Team Invincible.

Howard and the team bagged a 21.42 on day one and were mired with 25 other teams all sitting with identical size fish. A bigger king on day two was mandatory if they were to break out of the pack. They did it with a nice 31.51, which was the biggest king caught by a Pro team on day two. It also jumped them to second place in the Rumble in the Jungle tournament.

The Mercury powered Invincible team also collected Top Lady honors for Donna and Jessica, plus Alex Todd won Top Junior Angler honors. $6,000 was a nice payday for a weekend's fishing.

Rounding out the top five was Chuck Permenter’s team, Patrick Bellamy, Kent Taylor, and Todd Sanders. This is the same team who won their “Angler of the Year” title on this same stage in ’07.

Fishing Chuck’s Mercury powered Donzi named Mining My Bidness, they scaled a 28.37 on day one and backed it up with a 23.24 on day two. A good year for the team, even though they started the season after the Key West tournament.

The Mobile, Alabama team Kwazar, with Marcus Kennedy, Brian Bailey, and David Van Lent earned sixth place on the strength of a two fish aggregate of 45.77.

They were followed by Ed and Shawn Mecchella on the Yamaha powered Yellowfin, Fish Fever / Strike Zone Melbourne.

They caught an 18.77 on day one then added a 26.51 on day two for a 45.28 agg.

Eighth place fell to Randy Spainhour’s Steel Fishing team. With Joe Buie, Ethan Hedrick, and James Gunter, they scaled a 23.10 and a 21.66. A good solid performance for a team that seems to get better with every one they fish.

Ninth place went to Jim Dupree’s OBX Girl.

With Jim Dupree III and Dan Dupree they had a 24.75 on day one and backed it up with a 17.15 the second day.

Rounding out the top ten were Jeffery and Nancy Dunbar and Bob and Susan Woithe on the Fish Dancer, a Mercury powered Contender. They scaled a 20.49 and a 21.39 for 41.88 points.

This has been a very good season! See the related article on the Yamaha Professional kingfish Tour for the final rundown of the series.

See you at the Nationals!