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Jake The Snake joins the fishing circuit

Posted: Jun 5th 2006 By: mikeiles

Fort Pierce, FL ? Former professional wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts might be a newcomer to the sport of kingfishing, but he's certainly no stranger to showmanship. On Friday, Roberts was master of the ring after his team scaled the day's biggest kingfish in the FLW Kingfish Tour event.

Fishing with brother-in-law and team captain, James Schmelz, and son Dustin Roberts, aboard the boat Steve's Seafood, Roberts reeled in a 47-pound, 9-ounce kingfish. The fish was the best king weighed on the tournament's second day, and stands second overall, qualifying the crew for today's final day, five-boat shootout.

For Roberts, who performed for 32 years and still appears regularly at wrestling events, tournament kingfishing and professional wrestling have many similarities.
"It's all about the rush and the adrenaline," said Roberts, whose trademark move was taking a live python out of a cloth sack and draping it over his pinned opponents. "It's about the electricity ? it's like flipping on a switch ? and it's about doing what you're supposed to be doing and being in the right place at the right time."

Schmelz guided the team to that right place at the right time with the right bait ? a big blue runner. For the second consecutive day, a big kingfish was pulled out of the waters of the spot known as The Pines, a few miles north of Sebastian Inlet. On Thursday, Team Folgers/Offshore Authority led by Melbourne's David Kingery landed a 57-pound, 13-ounce "fish of a lifetime" near the same spot.

A field of 86 teams fished the first two days of the event for a chance to qualify among the top five. Those five teams will fish today adding their single big fish from Thursday or Friday to the one caught today for a two-fish aggregate weight.

If the winning team is fishing from a Hydra Sports, Wellcraft or Seaswirl make of boat powered by Yamaha or Evinrude outboards, they could win a check for $100,000.

The other three teams that made it into today's final round are: Lured Away/Bandit with Texan Bobby Schoenfeld and Port St. Lucie's Ron Mitchell, Triple Gobble led by South Carolina's Greg Weathers and fellow South Carolinians Bitta Sweet led by Jerry Tumbleston.

The leaders, Kingery, Randy Truitt of West Melbourne and Brett Taylor of Fellsmere essentially have a 10-pound head start over Steve's Seafood. But Kingery is anything but resting on laurels.

"I'm still pretty nervous," he said. "We plan to fish the same spot the same way as we did Thursday. But even with a 10-pound lead, there's a lot of pressure. In fifth place, you have noth- ing to lose, but I'll feel like I'm in a race looking in my rearview mirror all day seeing everybody who's looking to pass us."

Credit: Steve Gerweck & Gerweck.net