Left at 0500 for a leasurily ride out to the fishing ground...lines in at 0800 IAW tournament rules....trolled for a while with nothing and then I see a billfish (think it was a white) cross in front of my boat.....he comes screaming into the spread and nails the right short rigger, pulls drag for about 10 seconds and he's gone...strike 1
we then get attacked by a pack of Wahoo...they destroy one of my Tiki Bars, 3 of my G&H Sea witches and one comes tight on a Black Bart Pelagic Breakfast....get him in the boat....continue to troll in the rain with a missed Mahi (about 15 pounds) and pull lines in..
Get to the scales and Wahoo goes 28.2 pounds to lead the Wahoo division as well as level II and and Level 8 Calcutta....
day 2 saw Team Still Think'n in the lead for Offshore Wahoo, Level 2 and Level 8 calcutta's with a 28.2 pound wahoo...our goal today was to put a big gaffer in the boat and look for a Tuna, not just any Tuna but at least a 52 pound Tuna as Waterman put a 51 pound YFT on the boards......
We had to rerig almost everything from day 1 due to the Wahoo invasion and getting lazered....Me and my boys put our heads together and came up with an idea for a new circle hook rig, that we could troll with, be tournament legal and also hopefully get some of those short bites that tend to happen alot with Mahi and circles...so we came up with a very cool rig and put it to use on day 2.
We started out at the weather buoy for lines in to see if anything was home....while letting lines out we get a couple of Small mahi in the spread....one hooks up nicely on the new circle hook rig and the other eats a cedar plug in the wash while letting it out.....we get these in the boat at 0805 and we're feeling pretty good about our innovative rig.
decide there were no big Mahi around so started heading out to the deep, about 0830 a white comes in the spread and starts smacking our baits around, doesn't eat and leaves...that's cool.....not really looking for bills today.....so we troll out and deep...no more encounters so I decide to head south a bit, put out the high speed lures and bump her up to 13 knots.......nothing on the high speed troll so plan C....back to where we caught the Wahoo and missed a nice Mahi on Day 1....the "B" Tower on the 850 line in 19 fathoms.....
deploy the spread, first pass pow, pow, pow, pow three lines down hard, all hooked up solid and taking drag....pull the fish off the tower and start working these fish...hope for Tuna as we caught a blackfin on day 1 here that got ate by a shark or big wahoo...
Eric gets his fish up first and it's a pretty nice Amber jack, hooked perfectly in the corner of the mouth....we stick 1 for dinner and work the other three in for a release...My brother-in-law Ray wasn't happy with this decision, he love fish, as long as it comes out of the ocean !!!....anyways....we make a couple more passes on the tower and get lazered by a Wahoo again but no Mahi here....
come off the tower and start trolling back to the 50 fathom line kinda heading North towards home a bit.....around 2:26 a bill fish comes in on the Tiki Bar green machine and gets all tangeld up in it, comes off that and hits the right short, not tight...shotgun boon bird and G&H Sea Witch gets hammered and is tight....we're thinking White marlin but after about 2 seconds a nice size Cow Mahi shows herself......get her in the boat and we're sure it's not gonna beat Wired Up's 21 pounder but it will add to our Level II calcutta total bag weigh......get to the scales goes 16.3 pounds...not bad and will taste very good tonight....
lines in a 3 and heading home....beautiful ride back in and off to the Tournament party for another evening of fun and festivities with friends and family......
So Team Still Think'n, comprised of Florida Eric, Florida Mark, Saipan/south Carolina Ray and Virginia Beach Otter take home some money and just had a blast....fished Hard, partied hard and definately put away wet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!....
Sure thing...I actually going to do a video on it...easier to show than explain.....should have it up soon...fishing another tournament this week then we'll git-r-done.....bob
haha...the hole is where my Anchor normally goes...It causes problems sometimes when loading the boat on the trailer at Oregon Inlet and Teaches Lair so since I only troll...I took it off and have it on the boat in case we need it...Bob
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