Nantucket Big Game Battle-Team Reel Estate-Welker Canyon

[Fishypantsmagoo]

Well, it is now yesterday's news regarding the EPIC bite that occurred over the weekend in Welker Canyon.

Last week was a busy one, Sunday to Weds was spent Block Island, fishing the Tri State Shoot out aboard Castafari followed by Thursday to Saturday running the Reel Estate for The Big Game Battle.

Thursday was a bit of run around day jumping from one vessel to another, but by 230pm we were locked, loaded, and underway to Nantucket. The team consisted of owner Kevin White, his boys Neil and Nick, Kevin Glynn (innovator), and myself.

We departed the Nantucket Boat Basin Friday morning at 2 am, rounded Great Point and made a course for Welker Canyon. The ride was beautiful-flat calm, big full moon spotlight leading us southbound....at one it felt like October, as the water temnps were 52*!!

We arrived north of the canyon at 0800 and deployed out spread. Dauntless and the Happy Jack were visible a few miles away working the top of the canyon. It was not long before the clips started popping and 2 nice Yellowfin were beating inside the fishbox. As we trolled towards the canyon the water temp steadily rose until we were in balmy 78* bluewater. Unfortunately, with higher water temps came lots of scattered weed and so we turned back towards the flats and pounded the Yellowfin in 72-75* water.

Nearing the end of the fishing time for the first day of the tourney, the left long rigger went down. Fish made a decent run, staying high, but overall not fighting all too hard...what is it??? wahoo, whitey, foul hooked tuna....not until is was boatside did we see it was a whitey( or now after reviewing photographs we believe it was a longbilled spearfish)....nonetheless marlin release to end Day 1.

TOTAL TALLY for DAY 1: 13/16 yellowfin, 1/1 whitemarlin/spearfish

After high fives for the bill release, We began to switch gears and begin getting ready for the night bite. I steered Reel Estate towards the SW corner of Welker's and we deployed the spread- nothing crazy, 2 squids-one at 200 foot and another around 100 foot. All the squid are from Panapesca- hands down the best quality squid when swordfishing as they are Illex Squid, the exact species that reside in the canyons.

We all chowed down on some food and determined the nightime shift schedule. At about 345 I was awoken from my slumber on the salon couch to Neil White banging the window and screaming the words we all love to hear "WE'RE TIGHT!!!"

Everyone foggy eyed and running around....line cleared....engines fired up....hydroglow pulled....

Fish dsiplays stereotypical sword tactics....quick to the surface then good run....back to surface....yadda yadda....about 20 min later I see the light come up followed by a nice shadow...Glynn readies the iron....fish rolling on side and coming right to boat then.....POP HOOK PULLS!!!! easy 150# sword just cranks away from being POONed...heartbreaker.

We regroup and Kevin gets the spread back out and it is not long before the 100 foot bait goes off....then it stops, so Kev brings it up to check the bait and a small 40-50# sword follows it up to the boat. So close that I yell "stick em!". The little bugger was free swiming right next to the boat!

With the sun cresting the horizon, we get the morning spead ready for Tourney Time Day 2. Glynn gets a sexy eyeball spread going behind the boat and we work our way back to the top of the canyon...as we approach it I can Tommy Mitchell and the Happy Jack tight to a nice Blue girl. Sounder is filling up with bait....witching hour for eyeballs!

Left long Bar, starts getting big boils on it....EYEBALLS! wait no, BLUE MARLIN...nice blue is all horny over the 13" OI shell squid bar...boil, boil, boil...dorsal and big tail lobe coming hard from behind...fish fades out and BOOM depth charge goes off and the 70 is singing! After a hard run the fish comes unglued. DAMN IT.

We fish the bigeye spread a little longer before swapping in our mixed species daytime spread. We pick away at some Yellows but nothing like the non stop action the day before and start hearing and seeing everyone around hooking up bigeye...radio sounds a bit like this "doubled up"...."we're tight, BIG FISH"...."tripled!"...everyone is going off, EXCEPT US!!

Finally, the left short Money Maker goes down and right away we know its a good fish, long steady run, but staying high-Marlin? Wahoo? finally the fight settles in and the fish starts dogging it out deep, can only be one thing EYEBALL, here is our shot. Neil White on the road doing work, give take give take, finally more line is going on then goign off and fish is slowly giving in...40 min. Pop hook pulls...day is not going good-pulled hooks on swords, Blue marlin, and Bigeye.

About one hour to go before our own self imposed lines out to make it back to the island in time to present score sheet.

Everyone staring back at spread and out of now where a wahoo clears 5 feet in the air and piles on the shotgun...TIGHT!!! smoking run, follow by another smoking run. 15 min pass and color come us...BIG HOO. The boys in the pit begin the well choreographed dance called END GAME....leader up....fish brought boatside...Gaff sunk solid in the head...fish brought through door- HOLY SH@T big hoo about 70#.

Spread quickly redeployed and we begin working our way in the direction of home. I leave the bridge to get a close look at the nice wahoo, and pop short rigger goes down , nothing-WHITEY is here...real the MM in and pop he whacks the flat line, I grab it free spool, and here he is classic whitey behavior slashing at bait like zoro, rod tip down, free spool........he's on it.....6 second count and BAM we're tight, I hand it off to the owner.

From the bridge Nick White, who has taken the wheel yells "we have two!!". While setting up on the one in tight, the shotgun when off....Nick come backs and I return to the wheel...to see a beautiful sight...two whiteys dancing behind us. Kevin White gets his to the boat first, Glynn grabs the leader, picture taken for tourney, CAUGHT FISH!

Attention now turned to the second one, she comes in easy at this point, very tired but still kicking a bit. Leader, picture, hook removed and we revive her for 15 min until she is kicking and beating on KG...release, swimming away healthy.

2/2 on whites in the bottom of the 9th....will it be enough to place? Time will tell.

TOTAL TOURNEY TALLY 21/24 Yellowfin, 3 whites(1 spearfish maybe) 1 70 # wahoo

We pack it up and head for the barn, moral is scorching hot! Back at the barn we watch as the scoreboard fills in...finally we are told that it is official Reel Estate has taken 2nd Place ( second time in 3 years we have in place 2nd in the tourney)

Final Standings:
1st Capt. Tommy Mitchel and Team Happy Jack 2200 pts
2nd Reel Estate 2100pts
3rd Capt Damon Sacco and Team Castafari 2050 pts

Awesome Fishing, Awesome Tourney, Awesome group of guys on the water!!!

NOTE: Kevin Glynn and I have talked about pulling dredges up here for a few years and finally did on this trip and we had the success that we expected...80% of all bites came on the dredge side....we ran a double dredge consisting of Offshore Innovations 36" and 24" dredges, OI dredge weight and holografish

[Parapapam]

I expected nothing less when the two leprechauns get together in the canyons. Excellent work team!!

Mike

[keithj]

Pig wahoo!

[amarshall]

talk about flat *** calm.

[jbg108]

Nice work! What a trip. I've spent alot of time out there and have never caught a Wahoo. Just curious, no IGFA rules in the tourney? I've never fished the Big Game Battle so I don't know the rules? Hell of a trip.

[Innovator]

JBG108 it was an unbelievable trip in the top 3 Canyon trips I have ever had!!! No IGFA Rules (Poons could be used) lines in at 530Am and lines out 4 PM, you can stay overnight but what ever you catch in between lines in/out does not count for points. Pretty much everything is on the honor system, no real money on the line, so everybody was helping everybody, pretty cool to see. Nothing but good guys fishing the tourny and raise a ton of money for charity.

[jbg108]

It sounds like they studied the reasons why the NAC tourney failed and created a great replacement.

Congrats on the trip!