Canyon Runner Reports - Mid-Atlantic $500,000 Wrap-Up

[Canyon Runner]

Two-thirds of the Canyon Runner crew had an eventful week down at the Mid-Atlantic $500,000 while the other third lead by Capt. Mark DeBlasio kept the home fires burning back at Pt. Pleasant. Down in Cape May we split the crew up between two boats. Adam LaRosa, Brad Burgess, Billy Rowan and John Timken were fishing on Ken Avon’s Due Course and were targeting white marlin. Capt. Phil Dulanie with Mike Zajac and Capt. Mark DeCabia had Damian Romeo (who chartered the Canyon Runner for the week) out looking for big-eyes. Both boats found what they wanted and plenty of them just not ones big enough for the money.

On Monday only the Due Course fished and we headed to the Spencer in nice tight 6-8 footers with a 20-25 knot northeast breeze. At around 8am the wind picked up to over 30 knots and the seas up to 10 foot - it was looking to be virtually unfishable. When we set out the lines at 8:30am we could only get four baits out but with some luck on our side the wind let up and by 10am we had out our full pattern of two double Offshore Innovation dredges and two 9” Canyon Runner rainbow squid teaser bars (no hooks due to tournament rules) and 6 ballyhoo baits.

On the dredges we had Offshore Innovations Hologra artificial baits on the inside of the bars with mullet on the outside. The Hologra baits work unbelievable well and we had most of our whites come in on the dredges first they turn off to the squid teaser bars and pile on the naked ballyhoo trolled right between them. We trolled Penn International 16VS spooled with 30 pound Momoi and the combination was great.

We trolled this pattern all week with the ballyhoo rigged on 8/0 Eagle Claw 2004 ELFcircle hooks and 80 pound fluorocarbon with wind-on leaders. Half the baits were naked and half had moldcraft blue/white little hookers over top. We also trolled one horse ballyhoo with an Ilander deep down the middle. Day 1 was by far out best day seeing 4 whites and catching every one of them. The third white of the day was measured and came in at 63” so off she swam. Day 2 for us was Thursday and we went back to the Spencer and had the bait but only raised one white. We hooked her as well but immediately seeing it was small handed off the rod per tournament rules and lost her on the switch. That will be the last time we every switch anglers again as it cost us points!!! Also on that day we had what would have easily been the tournament winning big-eye come up and engulf 4 squid off the center chain of the teaser bar and scream off line at 40 pounds of drag before the bar was pulled out of its mouth since we were fishing them without hooks. We dropped back a pitch bait and reeled up on the deep bait with the horse but it never came up again.

Day 3 we set up between the Spencer and Wilmington on the 100 fathom line and by 10:30 had a white up in the pattern and hooked up and had her to the boat in three minutes (Ken Avon is not soft on the throttles and backs up with the best of them!!!). We billed this one and measured her as well. She came in at 64” and again off she swam. That was our last bite of the tournament. In total we saw only 6 whites but hooked them all jumping off one and releasing 5. Not bad for a bunch of tuna fisherman.

Speaking of tuna fisherman, the Canyon Runner with Phil, Mark and Mike fished her first day of the tournament on Wednesday and only saw a couple tuna and missed two whites. On Thursday they release a nice 80 pound yellowfin (that they will always regret releasing) and missed two whites. But on their last day their luck changed.

Fishing Penn International 80VSWs on both trolling rods and stand-up rods and Penn International 70VSWs all on stand-up rods with 130 pound Momoi they trolled all big lures (12” Mako Jets, Moldcraft Chuggers, and horse and select ballyhoo with Ilander lures) looking for that big big-eye or blue marlin as was the wish of Damien. The problem this week was we knew where the big-eyes were but could not get there until Friday due to the relentless northeast wind. But on Friday they got there and got ‘em.

They made it to the northeast corner of the Toms Canyon just after lines in and spent the next few hours watching other boats pick big-eyes all around them without a touch on the Canyon Runner. But at 11am the Northstar 6100i lit up with red marks all over the screen, Phil thought the recorder was malfunctioning until he look back into the pattern, what he saw was big-eyes explode on everything. Damien made short work of each fish hooked on the Penn 80VSWs fighting them out of the chair. Since they were not big fish he boated the first two in less than 5 minutes. They had two other shots during the day and in total boated 5 big-eyes. Unfortunately none of them were big enough for the money with the biggest only 139 pounds - but the combined weight put them in Third Place for most points. If they weighed that yellowfin from Thursday they would have placed second for points. Damien won a beautiful Guy Harvey print and is already signed up to fish the MA500 for next year. Congratulations Capt. Phil, Capt. Mark, Mike and particularly Damien Romeo!!!!!

Now back to chunking!!!!!

[Timken]

I had a great week fishing on the Due Course. I want to thank Adam, Kenny Avon, Brad Burgess, and Billy Rowan. Hopefully next year we will run over some larger whites.

[intruder]

Hey Adam,

Thats was a Great week of fishing for you guys. I liked hearing the news at the dock that Phil was on his way in with Big Eyes late friday!

[jbones11]

"Not bad for a bunch of tuna fisherman"
LMAO yeah ok...sure you are... 4 for 4 on the first day....Adam, you sound like a pool shark ??

Congrats on a real nice tourney ! Good seeing you guys again.

[POON MAN]

Nice work Adam and Crew

you guy's have the MOJO

[MDCanyonRunner]

Thanks guys. It was great to see everyone during the MA500. To bad the sun only came out twice all week!!