First Place Loser...

[Deep C]

Thats what my old boss, Dale, used to call a second place finish... Thats how we finished at the Chub Cay tournament this last weekend... Would have reported sooner but a bad thunderstorm Friday night blew up the communications center in Chub... Had to wait til we got to Bimini a while ago to get a wi fi signal...
Any way... First class event as always. Delighted to fish it it finally after so many years of watching others do it while I was dealing with guests comming and going or no sponsors. Solid field of first class boats with even better crews.
Day one saw most of the fleet working the sails as that basically had been all that had been seen for over a week. We opted to try and knock off the big points by targeting blues. Hero or zero if thats what you want to call it . Day one saw the whole fleet with 7 sails and us barking at the moon with a box of smallish dolphin.
Day two was starting much the same with the fleet piled in the corner trying to pick what sails they could. Water had cleared up some and cooled down a degree and a half and our hopes ran high... Maybe an hour into the pull we lost our rigger halyards to the teaser line cutting through them. The teaser line in place meant we sort of an inside rigger at least and the right rigger itself was moved to shotgun slot... Five minutes into the new formation drag there she was!
The fish blasted the Canyongear custom hoo machine and bowed up straight away. The 30 screamed in protest as she bolted. 30? Yep... The Chub event is light tackle... another reason most weren't at that time giving the blues much effort.
Twenty minutes later Deep Deckhand had leader in hand on the still very hot fish...

That set the bar high now and forced the fleets hand as a blue was worth 8 sails as far as points go... We leaned on the fish to get the lure back and let her go having gone from dead last to the lead that quick...

One of the boats who had a couple sails under their belt switched to the blue hunt and scored knocking us back to second... It was there we would stay all the way to the end... We added top dolphin to the mix as a nice addition to the already good mood aboard Mirage...


1st- Ring Leader
2nd- Mirage
3rd- Man E War
Top Tuna- Jack Of Hearts
Top wahoo- Ring Leader
Top Dolphin- Mirage

[Agitated88]

Way to go Paul...

[Robja]

Nice work Deep.

[clt_capt]

Congrats team Mirage

[Deep C]

The bait was a good one and the fish deserve the credit for eating like they're supposed to.

[gottaflylee]

Congrats Deep, nice job getting it done.

I have 2 second place Redfish plaques on the wall of my office that I have to look at every day and they will stay there till I score that 1st place plaque...

[Deep C]

The trophies they had in this thing are the most unreal works of art I have ever see... Hand sculpted bronzes mounted on large chunks of opal and set on teak base... I always give the owners the trophies and only keep momentos of tournies I have won or placed when fishing solo but these ones are something special. Had to cost thousands to have made...

[teddyp]

The trophies they had in this thing are the most unreal works of art I have ever see... Hand sculpted bronzes mounted on large chunks of opal and set on teak base... I always give the owners the trophies and only keep momentos of tournies I have won or placed when fishing solo but these ones are something special. Had to cost thousands to have made...

Who made them?

[Deep C]

The name was mentioned but I didn't remember it... Hand done by some high end guy in Australia...
Dolphin one was real nice...

This one weighs a ton...


Even the give away stuff was nice... Custom wooden box with macadamia nuts and fancy chocolate with tourney logo wood burnt into it... Engraved pocket knives... Engraved travel mugs. Embroidered cooler, beach, and tote bags... Even the pedicure pampering type stuff was engraved or embroidered... First class all the way...

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Well done Deep.
Holwachagot