2011 Block Island Shark Fest

[zyg56]

Fished the 2011 Block Island Shark Fest on Sunday and Monday this week with the same crew as last year. Great weather and lots of sharks this year. Lots of Blue sharks that is. Only 4 fish qualified for weigh-in this year with a 314# Mako being the tourney winner. Only Thresher came in at 160 some pounds and the other two fish were makos in the 200's.

We headed over on Saturday for the captains meeting after Reel-up provided a fresh caught bluefish delivery and Capt. Bill joined us at the dock. The run over to Block was a real joy as it was the first time the boat left the dock this year after a long wait for some engine parts that needed to be sent over from Japan.






We headed out on Sunday and found more fresh bait and then turned the boat south looking for the one, right fish. As soon as we finished our power drag we had a fish at the drag bucket. Within the first minute of fishing we had a fish on. It turned out to be a just legal mako that we tagged and released. The rest of the day provided everyone with almost constant work with blue sharks at every stop. Everybody was busy chumming, leadering, de-hooking, tagging and replacing hooks and wire. We released over twenty bluedogs, one of which was just short of the tourney qualifying minimum.







We headed back out the next morning and found the bluefish co-operative and put some more live bait in the well. One pass provided Eric with his personal best striped bass. We took some pictures of it before splashed it.






With fresh bait we headed back out to another spot Capt. Bill picked. We had great water, saw bait and one of the larger pods of porpoises I've seen in awhile. It took a bit longer this time but we had a hit from a freight train within a minutes of setting in. The fish was on for a few a minute or so but the hook never hit home. The live bluefish had the unmistakable marks of a mako bite. We set it out again but that fish had moved on to the next dinning establishment.

We spent the rest of the day just like the first, battling big bluedogs with Bill guiding guys around the boat on more than a few of the bigger ones.






Capt. Bill doing his shark dance!




We had another one that was just shy of the 107" mark that we measured.

Thanks to all the crew and to Capt. Bill Brown for all your efforts.

All in all it was a great tourney - small, friendly but competitive. Thanks to Kerry & Kyle at JB Tackle for keeping this one going.

No trophies this year, but Paul did bring along the beer!



Here's video from the trip...

[ChumSlickRick]

Tournament was great. Good weather and all. We did the same bluedog battle for both days. Only shot at anything worth while came Monday morning. Had a big thresher come flying into the slick and grabbed a salmon steak we had dangling on a 50. Of all things he grabbed our leftover salmon. Had him on for about 30 min, couple of jumps, leader and line wrapped around his tail, one big run and game over. Snapped him off. We will be back next year. Was on the blue Duffy "Yankee". Names Russ. I was the guy that fell off the dock at 4 am while untying.

[Fortunate One]

Capt Bill looked right at home in his element again.

Nice trip, too bad a money fish didn't show up. Looks like you had the water and the life around, just wasn't to be.

That was a nice bass and that one blue had a nice set of marks on him.

Better luck next year.