Brett Bailey Tournament - What happened?

[Green Machine]

How was everyone's day? Obviously some tough fishing... I want to hear the reports.

We were fortunate to land a small male thresher (185). Broke off a much larger thresher earlier in the day and had two other thresher bites fishing offshore on the cold side of the water many guys were fishing. Did not see any makos or have any mako bites at all.

[tunatales01]

Didn't fish the tournament but, headed 55 miles south on our TunaTales out of Shark River and had beautiful blue water 64 deg. Went 8 for 8 on bluesharks. Beautiful drift, clewan blue water, 64 deg. and not one mako or threasher bite. Had draggers working around us. Couldn't believe no makos or threashers in the area. Anyway nice day out will try again next weekend.

[Green Machine]

Didn't fish the tournament but, headed 55 miles south on our TunaTales out of Shark River and had beautiful blue water 64 deg. Went 8 for 8 on bluesharks. Beautiful drift, clewan blue water, 64 deg. and not one mako or threasher bite. Had draggers working around us. Couldn't believe no makos or threashers in the area. Anyway nice day out will try again next weekend.

We were offshore and possibly a little south of where you were (I know where those draggers were) and I heard you calling another boat on the radio. We were in beautiful clean water as well on great structure but on the cold side of that water you were in - we were around 61 all day, rising as we drifted inshore. Also 8 blue sharks (huge ones yesterday - sucked) and plenty of choppers as well. We had a lot of threshers around and really blew it on one fish that wrapped up and severed the wind on. Guess I need to bump up to 500 lb.

One highlight of the day was an estimated 16 foot, massive white shark that swam under the boat and said hello before moving on.

[gman]

We were offshore and possibly a little south of where you were (I know where those draggers were) and I heard you calling another boat on the radio. We were in beautiful clean water as well on great structure but on the cold side of that water you were in - we were around 61 all day, rising as we drifted inshore. Also 8 blue sharks (huge ones yesterday - sucked) and plenty of choppers as well. We had a lot of threshers around and really blew it on one fish that wrapped up and severed the wind on. Guess I need to bump up to 500 lb.

One highlight of the day was an estimated 16 foot, massive white shark that swam under the boat and said hello before moving on.

Whats up? Glad to see you guys are as dialed in as ever especially on the threshers. Hope al is well

Glenn

[Deep C]

Great meeting you the other day... Our first stop was in ice water of 60.4 No life so we moved quick. I passed a second spot we wanted to work also cold and kept running on the way ther we had a spike up to 62.4 then it went back down. We shot back to the spike and a piece of ground in there that we have produced on before. Third bait going out got taken out of my hand before even getting our balloon on.
Keeper class mako came up top, did a quick run, barfed the bait back at us. We stayed and a few minutes later same bait started singing again. Thought it was him... Nope... Big bugger blue dog.
That would be the first of about ten singles then in early afternoon we found the mother load. A swarm! I lost count of how many we got . It was sick. A rat pup mako joined the game but no others in that swarm.
Moved a couple miles also in that warmish thread and started with a single blue fish. Then a single blue dog. A half hour lull then around quittin time was nuts again. Foul hooked a blue dog then about 100' from the boat saw a mess of all kinds of stuff with him. In that mess was anothe pup mako, a rat whiptail and tehn the blue dog pile from hell. The mako attacked the bigger blue on the leader. Then the whiptail got a shot in also on the leader. I guess that could be called a release, Then all hell broke loose as all kinds of critters crawled up in that poor blue and gutted him but good!
Oh well loads of action just not the right fish. That very first one could have played maybe but no slobs... Talked to lots of guys who fanned out and it seemed to be the same story for all of them, ice water and bluedogs. Some had bluefish and others didn't.
No qualifying makos and only one qualifying thresher for the fleet... Still had a great time, great competitors, great cause, and great bunch of guys on the boat as usual.

[Green Machine]

Whats up? Glad to see you guys are as dialed in as ever especially on the threshers. Hope al is well

Glenn

Glenn! What's up bro? We need to get out one of these days... let me know if you still have my number and let me know when you want to fish!

[Green Machine]

Deep, it was great to meet you and Colin at the captain's meeting. Sounds like you guys had a busy day! It's crazy that any 150+ mako would have won money. I thought for sure someone would catch a big one Sat. Someone brought a 106 to the scales (150 was the min in this tournament). I guess they figured if no one caught anything maybe they would get the money? No idea.

There were three total fish from what I understand in the whole fleet. It was funny, we didn't expect coming in with what I thought was a 200ish thresher we would have a shot at any of it. Then we are at the dock at 6PM, I've already processed the fish... and no more weigh ins (Save the 106 mako) plus the committee boats did not have any other fish called in. We started thinking holy crap... maybe we will steal something here. Headed back to the after party and learned someone got one over 2 and Benchmark got a thresher 360+ and took everything... so nice payday for them. I didn't hear of any other fish caught.

All in all it was a great time and a great cause and it is always fun to compete against that field with so many top notch fishermen involved.

Also Deep thank you for the tips and you shared.... looking forward to MM/MF. Will you be fishing at all up here in the meantime?

[Deep C]

Gonna run looking for bluefish for bait as that pile of eels the other day wore my supply down bad. Bait and tackle too. Barfed up about 30 rigs... and the were all good stuff.

Fishing shark next tuesday, wednesday, thursday, then friday bring the girl back down for the mania... Might fish shark up this end this weekend if it gets warm. If not we might go striper fishing... assuming of course we have filled our bait needs...