Back in the late eighties we were doing a lot of light tackle live bait fishing for Kings at the Charleston Jetties. When I think back one particular day sticks out in my mind. Dad, Andy and I had put our 17-foot Boston Whaler in the water at the James Island Yacht club just before daybreak. While we were putting in, a friend of ours was putting in by himself, not an unusual site as this guy fished alone out of his small center console almost 90 percent of the time. We followed each other out to Morris Island to catch some bait. He would idle up to the Menhaden, drop the boat in neutral and then run to the bow and throw the cast net.
The solo fisherman finished catching bait about the same time as we did as so we followed each other again, this time to the tip of the north jetties. We anchored our Whaler and set up some balloons to live bait while our friend decided to slow troll around us. Shortly after we arrived the crowd showed up, and when I say crowd, I mean we counted well over 100 boats within site by mid-morning. The day started off slow but the action really poured on by 10 am. We would hook up a King on our light tackle, one of us would take the rod while the other two went to work performing such duties as dropping the quick release anchor system, clearing the other lines, maneuvering the boat in between the others keeping the fish out of anchor lines in the crowd, and eventually standing by to gaff the fish for the angler. For us it was a three man team operation.
We had just finished landing a fish in the upper twenty pound range when our solo friend came by. He was slow trolling three light spinning outfits and just as he was passing us two of his lines went down at the same time. He casually dropped the boat in neutral, and lighted the drag on one reel; he then picked up the other and started fighting the fish. While he fought this fish he used his other hand to bring in the third rod that had not been struck. Once this rig was in he maneuvered the boat and fought the fish through the crowd