JACKSONVILLE - About nine miles off the coast of Jacksonville Beach, Derek "K-Man" Kurnitsky, legendary boys basketball coach for the Orange Park High Raiders, nearly pulled off the upset of the century, if not his athletic career.

"It was man vs. beast, and [the] beast won," said Kurnitsky, who battled for nearly 90 minutes with something very big and combative as a guest angler for the Jacksonville Greater Kingfish Tournament's annual Media Invitational Tournament held Wednesday, July 8. "I've never been on a fishing boat, but I was going in with a winning attitude."

As a guest to two-time Media Invite champion Randy Lefko, a well-known Clay Today sports editor, Kurnitsky nearly panicked after losing his supply of Dramamine pills for seasickness in Lefko's car.

"My wife packed my bag like I was going to summer camp with a big beach towel and extra underwear," said Kurnitsky, as other media invites started arriving for the pre-tournament sendoff. "Thank God, we got lucky and someone had extra Dramamine."

That someone happened to be Esther Byrd, a member of former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody's staff before Moody was nominated to serve as a U.S. Senator.

Byrd nabbed a third-place 12 pound-Kingfish.

As for Kurnitsky and Lefko, who were on board the Reel Hazardous battleship captained by Capt. Jeremy Thune and his dad, Chris, the journey started with a net-fish grab of porgies near Neptune Beach for bait. They then made a fast trip into the Atlantic Ocean, about nine miles east and about a mile away from a huge tanker that was headed to Jax Port.

Once landed, the Thunes baited up five lines. The game began with a double-team tag by Lefko and Kurnitsky of an estimated 40-pound Cobia that, with Lefko landing the Cobia and Thune applying the gaff hook. The first surprise of the day happened as a shark, the two guessed, attacked the Cobia and only left the couple with a fish head.

"Is that normal?" Kurnitsky asked.

"Shark are in the ocean so anything is possible," Thune said.

After that, the two decided to fish some more.

After a long spat of no fish, Kurnitsky grabbed a whistling rod and reel that had another big fish about 80 yards off the bow.

A few tugs of the reel and something big breached the surface of the ocean, flipped around and returned to the water.

"What the heck was that?," was Lefko's and Kurnitsky's reaction to seeing the reaction.

Thune, who was observing the action and reaction surmised a shark had taken the Kingfish off Kurnitsky's line, then got himself hooked on the same line.

"So we are bringing in a Kingfish inside a shark," Thune said.

With Kurnitsky getting the first round of battle against what Thune estimated was a 150-to-200-pound predator, Lefko took over after 20 minutes as Kurnitsky's back was not used to the up and down action of pulling, reeling, releasing and reeling more of the deep-sea action.

After four or five exchanges with Thune expertly piloting the boat to prevent the battle from ending prematurely under the boat, Kurnitsky's rod got about as close to getting an eyeball on the predator before the 25-pound test line finally snapped.

"We would have needed a bigger boat if that thing got on the boat," Kurnitsky said. "What a battle."

As for the day's fishing scores, three fish were measured in a sub-par fishing day with all three teams brining in less than 20 pounds.

As for the rest of the week, the Jacksonville Great Kingfish official tournament features a week's worth of fish battles that started Saturday with the Kickoff Beach Tournament, a Tuesday Youth Dock Tournament, a Wednesday Junior Angler Offshore Tournament with the end of the week featuring the main events: the Friday General Tournament and the Saturday Redfish Tournament, followed by the awards.

Prizes included a purse of $366,000, a $240,000 boat, a $16,500 150 HP Yamaha outboard motor, $2,000 crystal for the Lady Angler winner and a host of $1,000 prizes for the best Cobia and Mystery Weight Kingfish.

After the first-place boat was awarded, second place through 20th earned $10,000 to $525.

Jacksonville Marine Charities is the primary benefactor of the many charities involved in the Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament as well as a host of local business sponsors.