Barta fun

[Foul Hooked]

Just wanted to give my take on the tourney.

I absolutely love that area and that tournament. The folks that put on the tournament make sure that it's fun for everyone. Can't wait for next year and I'll be counting the days.

Day 1 - entire crew consisting of Brian's entire family and myself. We were the very last boat to leave our dock (around 6:10am) and steamed down toward fishy waters. Capt. Pete decided to head south on this day and we were very excited for the prospects as we saw a free jumper in the vicinity about 10 minutes prior to lines in. Lines in at 8:00am and we see our first fish about 8:30 - it's a white and it's lit up like Vegas. She grabs the left teaser and just won't let go. Emory grabs the pitch bait and prepares to drop on him. I look up on the bridge and Pete is literally playing tug of war with the fish as it won't let go of the teaser!! It's a long teaser and the first squid on the chain is up on the rigger and the white is interested in nothing but the teaser. It finally disappears under the boat and it's gone. No interest at all in the beautiful pitch bait we had rigged for him.

A coupe of hours go by and at 10:22, I catch a glimpse of a white one on the left short. I pick up the rod and throw it into free spool. Rather than count, I watch the spool and watch for the subtle speed change of the spool as I was taught down in Mexico. It speeds up just a notch – I wait a second then push the drag up and she’s tight! I hand the rod over to Jackie and 12 minutes later she has the very first billfish release. As we clear a couple of rods, we have another white one hit the bridge rod. It comes right for a few moments and comes loose. Oh well. Jackie is a fantastic angler and made quick work of the white marlin. We are now 1 for 3 and we do see another fish until 1pm or so. Another white one on the left teaser but it doesn't work out. 1 for 4 on the day. Nowhere near the numbers some of the other boats had, but we had a great day on the water.

Day 2: She’s blow’n pretty good. About 20 knots but we head out run wayyyy north where the bills were chomping the previous day. It’s pretty rough, but we make it up to the 930 around 7:55. We put lines in and work hard for the rest of the day. We pick up a couple of nice Mahi and Jackie lands a 36.88lb mahi which eventually wins first place Junior Angler Dolphin and 2nd place overall Dolphin. We fish hard the rest of the day, but don’t see our first billfish until 1:45pm and it’s lines out at 2:00pm. The blue marlin piles on the right mega softhead teaser. Emory takes the flat and I man the short as I saw it heading that way. It’s gone and doesn’t touch a bait. At 1:54 I see a dorsal mid spread halfway between the left and right shorts – I call it out, but nobody sees it. I start to second guess myself (you know what it's like after staring at the spread too long) then a moment later she appears on the left long. I drop to him but she won’t come tight. Lines out is called and I know she was still there taunting us. Oh well.

All in all – a great tournament. It was great seeing everyone. Spent time with Bill’s entire family, Glenn, Marty, Jane, Swancaller, Turkey Feeder, John’s Seafood, Shane & Wife, Admin John, Lou, Gottafly Lee, and several others. Even ran into DeepC on the way home. Even came back with an entire assortment of Old salty planers! Anyway, back to reality this week for me, work out the wazoo with a bunch of work travel.

[Crazy Eyes]

Nice recap. I did not make it to the event but was wearing my Thermz shirts proudly and comfortably around the area all of last week. I love them and will be ordering some more soon(wife won't let me wear the ones with blood stains out without hearing a little grief ).

[Baywolf]

Hreat report Rob. I'm sure all the kids had a great time. Sounds like most got to reel in a fish and there were lots of bills out there form them. I also got to put some faces to names this weekend.

[Admin]

Rob was great meeting you this last week. Sounded like the fishing went well. Now turn your site back on and get back to work