And So It Begins: The 2026 Season Is Underway in Key West
The Key West Classic Kicks Offs the 2026 Sport Fishing Championship Season
The cockpit of the Viking 62 Lights Out provides a great view of the rest of the fleet during a high-spirited shotgun start.
What better way to start the 2026 season for the Sport Fishing Championship than to gather all 13 competing angling clubs in Key West, right where the waters of the Gulf and Atlantic meet, to go head to head to head in a battle royale format?
The Lights Out Boston team participated in the SFC Media Days prior to the season.
While The Catch Pro-Am Exhibition took place on the day prior to the real start of the season, that was for fun. These teams have been itching to get back in the ring and see how each of their 2026 edition matches up with the other teams out there. The action promises to be fast as each club has been working hard in the offseason to build a bulletproof program to make the most of every bite and rack up the points down the stretch.
Lights Out Boston leaves the Key West dock to get a jump on another great season.
Lights Out Boston AC set a practice program in the most efficient way they could. The team spent the offseason on the Viking 62 Lights Out, owned by Capt. Rob Carmichael and Jackie Hayes, fishing their way from Cabo San Lucas after the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs to the striped marlin-rich waters of Magdalena Bay, making their way down the coast to one of the richest billfisheries in the world in Quepos, Costa Rica, fishing out of Marina Pez Vela. Along the way they dialed in the entire program, getting better at capitalizing on multiple fish in the spread, and locking down the releases to optimize the scoring.
That’s not to say that every club hasn’t been building their own program to try to shift the odds in their favor. Clubs that range up and down the Atlantic Coast have experience in a wide variety of fisheries and know the ins and outs of the season. The Rhode Island Breakers and the Miami Sails may be new angling clubs to the Sport Fishing Championship, but they each bring a boat load of experience. Everyone is here to play and they’re here to win.