Average Joe Teams Steal the Show at the Saltwater Slam.

NEWS ALERT: The Kay Dee Dubya is an optional entry (KDW) category that teams can enter in each PBSC tournament for $150 per boat. To win the prize money you have to catch a weighable kingfish, dolphin & wahoo in the tournament. If there is more than one team with the trio of fish, the winner will be decided by total combined weight. The prize money continues to roll over, much like the lottery, in each tournament until we have a winner. In 5 tournaments, no one has hit the KDW Jackpot yet, so the pot rolls over into the Saltwater Showdown and will certainly build with the registrations for the Showdown tournament. I easily expect it to exceed $30,000 at the Showdown. With only 75 boats in that tournament it will be interesting to see what happens in August! This has really become an exciting new addition to our series. It’s generating a lot of buzz and rightfully so.—from Tournament Director Jamie Bunn

POMPANO BEACH, FL --- The 14th Annual Mercury/SeaVee Pompano Beach Saltwater Slam followed the record breaking trend of the Saltwater Shootout back in May by setting some records of its own on June 13th. The Saltwater Slam, leg 2 of the Pompano Beach Saltwater Circuit, hosted 128 boats, 19 better than it fielded the previous year.

“That’s quite a testament to how much these teams really enjoy the events we work so hard to put on for them,” said Jamie Bunn, tournament director for the series.

There’s quite a few kingfish around, and close to shore as well. Another record came with the 54.65 pound kingfish caught aboard Bill Wummer’s Spiced Rum III. The team is shown here with their winning king. The fish eclipsed the previous record of 51.2 pounds set in the 2008 by the Kimbuktu team. The Shootout, back in May, also saw its kingfish record broken.

James Howell caught the winning king at the Slam on a flat line with less than an hour of fishing time left in the tournament. Spiced Rum earned top SKA honors in Division 8 of the sanctioned event with their fish and a paycheck for $8,695. The Get Sum team caught the second heaviest kingfish of the tournament, a 45.9 pounder, and earned the top spot in Division 10 of the SKA sanctioned Slam event. The Slam offered SKA teams the opportunity to compete within Division 8 and Division 10 inside the tournament.

The Slam tournament also offered an Average Joe division within the tournament, which was geared toward novice teams participating in the event. As it turned out, the results from many of these Average Joe teams were anything but average. Team Reel Line, (shown gathered before the SeaVee the Pompano Beach Circuit will raffle off in August), may forever be heralded as the Little Boat that Could in the Saltwater Slam. Fishing aboard his single engine 23’ Pro Line, captain Jason Miller and his two sons Chris (14) and Jarrod (13), Alex Benarroch and Luca Cagnaca became the first Average Joe team and the smallest boat ever to win a PBSC tournament in the history of the series.

Their strategy was simple – stick to what you know best. For Jason that was the area between Hillsboro Inlet and the Steeple off of Ft. Lauderdale. Miller never ventured more than a few miles from the inlet all day and he didn’t need to. They caught 4 Kings between 11 and 30 pounds and a 28 pound dolphin on a dead ballyhoo as well. With 107.8 pounds of fish they sealed their fate in the history of the Slam record books forever – top Average Joe team, top small boat, heaviest dolphin and top overall team for a total of $12,250 in prize money!