Tight lines: feature
Addiction
By Matt Winter
Photo provided by Jack Bracewell
Summerville husband-and-wife fishing fanatics sink their teeth into big-money mackerel tournaments.
Some married couples play cards . Some like to eat out. Others garden.
Jack and Eren Bracewell like to race full-throttle through the pre-dawn light in their 23-foot Contender. They like big baits, sharp hooks and planting a gaff in blazing fast, razor-toothed ocean predators worth thousands of dollars.
Above all, they like to compete.
“Once you catch a few good fish, you kinda get hooked,” Eren admitted as she steered their sleek center console during a recent king mackerel fishing trip off Georgetown. “Then when you place in your first tournament, you’re really hooked.”
And hooked they are.
Last year alone, the angling duo competed in more than a dozen king mackerel tournaments in South Carolina and throughout the Southeast. Though they fished some events with friends, most of the time they went solo, just the two of them, on Eren’s Addiction Too.
Accomplishing it all with just two people on board is a challenge. King mackerel fishing is a very specialized pursuit in which anglers deploy a number of live bait fish at various depths behind the boat. Anglers targeting kingfish generally slow-troll these live baits, usually menhaden, in nearshore areas from the beach out to waters about 60 feet deep.
This popular form of fishing has spawned an intense subculture of anglers who compete in a circuit of big-money tournaments. Depending on the event, fishing teams pay entry fees ranging from just a few dollars to quite a few hundred. Catching a “money fish” in one of the larger tournaments can bring cash awards of tens of thousands of dollars.
Photo by Matt Winter
The Post and Courier
Eren Bracewell - "Eren's Addicition Too"
Now in their fifth year as tournament anglers, the Bracewells’ growing experience and dedication to their sport have earned them a steady stream of accomplishments and hefty cash prizes.
Last year, they did well enough in so many tournaments that they placed first in the Southern Kingfish Association’s regional standings for 23-and-under boats, and Eren won lady angler of the year. In August 2007, they took second place in the Fishing For Miracles tournament out of Charleston. Their 35.93-pound fish helped them win a total of $22,680.
“Doing well in one tournament, that really doesn’t mean anything. You caught a fish,” Jack said. “I’m more proud of the consistency overall than I am of one tournament fish.”
Finding success in the tournament circuit has allowed Jack, a former Marine who works for a private railroad construction company, and Eren, an office manager at a doctor’s office, to reinvest in their angling “addiction.” Having already upgraded to their king-fishing-friendly Contender, the pair also recently bought electric downriggers and other specialized equipment. Tournament winnings also help cover travel, fuel and entry fees.
“The advantage to us fishing husband and wife, all by ourselves, is that though we have to put all the money up, we also get to keep all the money,” Eren said. “A lot of teams, there are several guys that are going in on it together, so they have to split up the winnings. When we win, we get to put it all into the same account.
“Then we just get to argue over what it goes toward!” she said, laughing.
Photo by Matt Winter
The Post and Courier
Jack Bracewell - "Eren's Addiction Too"
And though having a leg up in the Lady Angler categories is nice, neither Jack nor Eren put much stock in that advantage.
“We’re not fishing for the lady angler,” Jack said. “We’re fishing to win the tournament. “Most of them (lady angler awards) are like $500 or something like that. If you get it, it’s a nice little kick, a nice little bonus. But when you’re overall fishing for $25,000, $500 is kind of a moot point.” So far this year, Eren’s Addiction Too has taken first place in the Carolina Lady Anglers Charleston tournament and 14th overall in the Tailwalker
Offshore Challenge out of Georgetown. (They placed third in the aggregate weight subcategory.)
The Lady Anglers win was especially rewarding to the Bracewells, but not for any cash reward.
Proceeds from that particular tournament benefited breast cancer research, and the top award honored the memory of Katherine O’Neal, who passed away in 2007.
When the Bracewells first started getting into competitive king fishing about five years ago, they befriended Kevin and Katherine O’Neal, a like-minded husband-and-wife fishing team with the boat “In 2 Deep.”
“We met them at the first tournament we fished,” Eren said. “We just became friends and started fishing together, traveling to the SKA events.
“The guys would take the boats down and prefish the first day, and Katherine and I would come down and fish the tournament.”
This year, when the Bracewells learned that the Lady Anglers tournament had an award in Katherine’s honor, they knew they had to fish. “We ran out and caught a 28- pounder and got the plaque with her name on it,” Eren said. “So it was special to me.”
Division of labor
Over the years, the Bracewells have refined their techniques and fish with surprising efficiency, which is key with just two people on board.
During tournaments, Eren drives the boat while Jack handles most of the bait catching, rigging and deployment of lines. When a fish hits, Jack clears the other lines and then takes the wheel while Eren fights the fish.
It can be, both laughingly acknowledge, an exercise in “organized chaos.” When seen in action, it’s a complicated dance, the two switching places, alternately steering the boat and handing off rods and reels, all the while ribbing each other, giving orders and counter-orders, laughing and cutting up.
Of course, when big money is on the line and the fishing gets slow, things can get... intense.
“It can put a strain on the marriage sometimes,” Eren joked. “Then we just keep our mouths shut!”
“Yeah,” Jack said, a grin on his face as Eren cracked up. “Sometimes there’s a DMZ that runs right behind the leaning post. She keeps her eyes and mouth out of the back of the boat and I keep my eyes and mouth out of the front of the boat.”
But even slow fishing can’t rock the boat for long. Fact is, the two share an intensity and dedication that very few tournament teams can match. “You’ve got to find people who are just as dedicated to it as you are,”
Jack said. “We got the boat, we got all the tackle, we pay all the annual bills, and we have to take the time off of work.
“A lot of people don’t want to make that kind of commitment. Some people just simply can’t do it.” Besides, why mess with success? “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Jack said. “We’ve been doing it a long time, and we’ve been doing it fairly successfully, so we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing.”
TIPS FROM A WINNING TEAM
Every successful angling tournament team has its own way of doing things. Jack and Eren Bracewell of Eren’s Addiction Too are no different. Over the years, they’ve developed their fishing tactics with maximum efficiency in mind — a good move considering they typically fish with just two people on board.
THE BIGGER THE BAIT, THE BETTER THE FISH
The Bracewells know big, frisky baits are key to catching monster kings. Their methods for securing baits run the gamut, from typical cast-netting menhaden near the beaches to using Sabiki rigs for fresh bluerunners at channel buoys.
And like other hard-core tournament competitors, they’ll buy even bigger baits when they’re available, both live and dead. For instance, you’ll always find a big cache of ribbonfish on Eren’s Addiction Too.
The Bracewells typically run one of these ribbonfish off of each downrigger. Big live baits on three or four surface lines fill out the spread.
“A big bluerunner on the way-back, a bluefish swimming on one flat, double pogy on the other flat and a ribbon on each downrigger — I feel good like that,” Jack said.
“That’s how to fish.”
QUICK AND CLEAN
The Bracewells are big believers in keeping it simple. Since they know exactly what they’re fishing for and exactly how to do it, you won’t find a wide range of tackle and equipment on board.
Whatever equipment they do bring to a tournament is usually meant to maximizing the time they can spend with bait in the water:
◗ Their boat, a 23-foot Contender with twin 150-horsepower Yamaha outboards, gets them to their fishing spots in a hurry. The boat’s recessed storage systems help keep the decks clear of clutter.
◗ The Bracewells recently upgraded to electric downriggers, which help them quickly clear lines when a big smoker king hits. (Jack spools the downriggers with heavy monofilament, not wire, primarily to eliminate the humming noise wire can sometimes generate.)
◗ Their rod-and-reel combos of Shimano Toriums and Shakespeare Ugly Stiks are designed for high-speed retrieves.
◗ Jack typically constructs his leaders using multi-strand wire and figure-eight knots. Though many king mackerel anglers use single-strand wire with Haywire twists, Jack’s method allows him to quickly tie multiple-hook rigs used for ribbon fish and bigger baits.
WHERE THEY GO
Though the Bracewells will kingfish anywhere from right off the beach out to 90 feet of water, they are generally looking for clean, green water over live bottom in 40 to 60 feet. They don’t care to fish structures such
as artificial reefs, since those areas typically hold plenty of sharks, barracudas and amberjacks. These fish destroy baits and rigs during precious tournament time.
During tournaments, they’ll hit well-known spots and sometimes concentrate on tidelines. “But on a fun day, you won’t ever find us at Shady Grady or Table Top,” Jack said, referring to relatively wellknown kingfishing spots. “Sometimes we’ll be in the channel, but typically they’re places we’ve never been. You kind of find a new place, see what the bottom looks like, see if it’s holding bait, see if it’s holding fish.”
Finding such secret spots can lead to a big payday during a tournament, when getting away from the crowd can be important. And if you do happen to find your own private kingfish honey hole? Be careful.
“Unfortunately, you can’t share information with everybody,” Jack said. “Let’s say I share a little information with you. You’ve got two or three friends that you share information with, too. If I give you something,
will you turn your back on them? You’ll probably tell them a little bit.
“Then the next thing you know, you show up to one of those ‘Hero-or-Zero’ spots and there are 15 boats there.
“… It’s like the Liar’s Hole. You know the other name for it? It’s the Not-So-Secret-Hole. It was a secret hole then it turned into the Not-So-Secret Hole because everybody knew about it.”
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