Critter Control Team Wins Florida Fishing Tournament

Captain Sam Worden (left) and Captain Kevin Clark celebrate their big win.ISLAMORADA, Fla. — Captains Glen Miller of Islamorada, Fla., and Sam Worden and Kevin Clark of Traverse City, Mich., have been fishing together aboard the Wet Dream for almost a decade, and that teamwork finally paid off on Dec. 9, when the team won the $25,000 Islamorada Fishing Club’s Captain’s Cup.

With Worden just arriving last week from Michigan to start his winter fishing job in the Florida Keys, the team had no real chance to practice, but they picked right up where they left off from last spring when they finished 5th in the six-tournament Sailfish Pro Series.

The team caught nine sailfish in the one-day winner-take-all event, two fish ahead of the second-place finisher. Along with the cash prize, the team also won an entry into the 2011 IGFA World Offshore Championships in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in May. The team finished second in the cup last year, and came in third two years ago.

Last weekend the team also caught 12 sailfish in the first leg of three in the Florida Keys Gold Cup Championship, and are sitting only three fish behind the leader, The Reel McCoy. Just one week into the sailfish tournament season, the team has caught 21 of the 22 sailfish they have hooked up, an incredible hook-up to catch ratio.

“Every fish counts in a tournament, and that means the whole crew has to work together like a well-oiled machine,” said Clark. “We’ve been at this a long time, and had so many second- to fifth-place finishes, I can’t count them all…But today it finally all came together.”