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When Blufftonian Jimmy McIntire told me he was heading to Venice, La., to participate in a king mackerel tournament, it got me thinking about all the years I fished in kingfish tournaments. A whole lot has changed since my days doing the tournament circuit but I still get that little nagging voice in my head saying, "Go, my son."

But usually, the little voice on the other side of my head slaps me silly and reminds me of how taxing these tournaments are on your body and your checkbook, and that's that.

Unlike my day, where you grabbed a couple dozen ballyhoo and paid entry fees that were around $250, today's kingfish tournament fishermen run half-million-dollar boats with up to three 300hp engines, pays $1,000 to $2,000 entry fees and twice that amount for gas. This, I will readily admit, is simply out of my league.

For example, Jimmy headed to Jacksonville to meet up with his surgeon friend, hitch up his tricked-out boat and drive all the way to Louisiana a week in advance of the tournament. Then they spent the days leading up to the tournament learning the waters, finding where to catch bait and spending at least two days offshore looking for areas to fish.

Just this preliminary fishing will wear you out, not to mention the cost of fuel, hotels and all the other things they do to get ready for the big day. During my tournaments days, we would get there a day or two before and Lady Luck was our guide from that point on. It was a whole lot simpler.

We never had GPS units to find our fishing spots, we used a compass, ruler and a chart. Also, most all the boats we fished topped out at maybe 35-40 mph, but boats today often run at 60 mph and higher! I know king tournament fishermen who will easily cover 300 miles in a day to catch a winning kingfish. It has just gotten too darn serious for me.

To further illustrate the difference between today and yesterday, here's a story about fishing in the Arthur Smith Kingfish Tournament in Little River in the 1970s. Fishing with my then-employer and friend, Vic Johnson (now deceased), owner of Island Events Magazine, plus locals Miles Altman and David Donnell, this was a dandy. The plan was for Miles and Vic to trailer his 24-foot Mako "The Gulf Screamer" to Little River while David and I rented an RV for all of us to stay in during the tournament.

The trip started out with a bang -- literally. The "Gulf Screamer" had a tower on it and as Vic and Miles made their way through a small town, they managed to forget about the tower until the local constable stopped them and pointed out the stoplight wrapped around the tower that they had been dragging for quite some time. That was just the beginning.

Finally arriving at Little River and meeting up with David and I, it wasn't two hours later that a front came through, dropping the temperature to near freezing, leaving the four us shivering in nothing but shorts, which was all we had. Being oh so smart and young, we decided that instead of purchasing more clothes, a couple of bottles of Courvoisier would be cheaper.

The next morning when I awoke, something was wrong. The sun was mighty bright for 6 a.m. Rolling over, I woke everyone else and when we looked at our watches we realized it was 10:30 a.m.! Still freezing, we grabbed our Courvoisier and off we went. Getting out to a spot we had picked on the chart, we immediately started catching kings, one up in the mid-30's, so we still had a chance if we made it to the weigh-in on time. The problem was that there were 600 boats fishing, one tiny inlet and 3 miles of a narrow river to navigate to get to the docks.

Throwing caution to the wind, Vic slammed down the throttle, trimmed up the engines and literally skipped over the sandbar leading into the inlet and then proceeded to go full tilt around, through and over 599 boats to get to the dock.

With a minute to spare, we hit the dock and Vic grabbed our two big kings and stepped off the boat -- and straight into the water in front of a huge crowd. He did manage to hold on to the fish and make it the scales, amid the laughter of all present.

So did we win? Heck no, we didn't even place! But I will say this, it was just the way it was back then. Today's kingfish tournaments may not be as much fun but one thing's for sure:They surely have to be a whole lot safer!