Contender 36 South Jersey shark & Scale Pictures

[johnseafood]

I know the crew of the big air which had the heaviest thresher for awhile. Thanks fr the coverage and the pictures as usual.

Captain kobey not to shabby on the pics

[Admin]

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[Admin]

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[Admin]

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[Admin]

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[Admin]

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[LuckyLady]

Originally Posted by Admin

Contender 36 South Jersey Shark

Well as you all can see I did not cover the SJ Shark Tournament this year. I fished it and had a great time as always.

6 Months have gone by since I fished and man oh man did I need this big time!

First I really want to thank Contender for helping me out with a boat since my boat is still in Florida getting work done. Contender gave us the honor of running the 36 walk around for this event and let me tell you WOW!

Mary (Lucky Lady), Dave Feast and myself geared up and rolled out the inlet at alittle after 7 am on Friday to find flat seas. We rolled this boat to the fishing grounds at around 42 knots and then around 50 plus knots for awhile as we needed to pass another boat. This thing eat up the seas and did not leave me feeling like a crippled old man after a day of fishing.

We fished our butts off day one and only produced 1 blue shark witch Lucky Lady battled to the side of the boat like a champ. The blue fish came and went and eat up the fresh mackerel like they were candy. I watch Dave counting the dollars as I put a fresh mackerel out and a blue fish took it in about 10 seconds. Reeled it back in and Lucky Lady handed me another. I just could see dave up front going 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 J During the course of the day we did have a big son of a bitch air out and smack the crap out of some blues back about 100 yards from the boat.

We knew we could roll south the next day but so many boats and so many smaller class fish we knew we needed a 300 lb mako so we went back up north hoping to get a big one to eat.

Day 2 we were blessed with a added crew member Capt Kobey so we rolled out at around 7 20 and made it to the fishing grounds with 45 minutes to search around. We set up and started to fish at 9 30 and had a killer drift the winds picked up and the seas kept building. I really was liking it as a fast drift and lots of wave action would help cover more ground and make our bait look nicer in the water.
We fished live blue fish most of the day and watch the other blue fish tear um up after time. As the day ended up we had no sharks for day 2 but had a sence of pride. We worked our butts off for 2 days and all we could say to each other is (we gave it our all)

The ride home was pretty sporty but we cut through it at around 32 knots with ease.
We did a total of 204 miles of running and a couple miles of moving around over the course of 2 days and our fuel burn was 227 gallons. This boat ran like a dream kept us dry and gave us a great platform to fish from.


Congrates to all the winners of this years event and we will be back next year.

PS Want to thank a couple people as most of you know I was really under the weather last week and did not have a lot of steam left in me.

Chuck Richardson called me from http://tournamentcable.com and asked if he could help me get ready since I was not feeling well. When I got to hinches there was a care package of rigs ready to roll! Chuck you’re a stand up guy and I thank you for the help as I needed it.

Chuck and Mary from Off The Hook Bait and Tackle for helping me load up and get geared. http://hinchmarina.com


Contender Boats http://contender.sportfishermen.com For helping us out when we were in a jam and really wanted to be apart of this event that we have fished for so many years. Very very cool to allow us access to this fine fishing boat.


To everyone who helped our crew get to fish I thank you from the bottom of my heart last week was a tough week and without your help I would have been home weeping J

Till next time

Capt John Eppehimer

John,

Let me 1st start off by Thanking you for letting me be part of this trip and was glad to be part of it! I wish I could of got down there earlier on Thursday to help out, but we had a last minute purchase on the 31 Fisharound on Tuesday that had to be ready with full electronics on Thursday for the Shark tournament. My morning phone call to the office turned in to "We got problems and we need you here" so I had to go, sorry!

I also would like to Thank every one that helped out Capt. Brian Rice, Chuck and Mary @ Hinches, Kobey, Dave, Tournament Cable, Contender Boats and anyone else I may have forgot!

The blue was fun and a start but as we said it was a GO BIG trip and we did every thing possible to put out names up on the board! All and all it was a great trip with some great people and get'em next time.

223 boats and 4 qualifying mako's.

Congrats to all!

Thanks guys!

Mary

[clt_capt]

Admin,
Great report and great coverage - Really glad you were able to get out and fish some!

[DEEP DEFIANCE]

TO John and sportfisherman.com Thanks for taking the time posting the pics and keeping us informed! It really means A lot to all of us guys and girls.

keep up the good work!

[striper101]

John,
Thanks for taking the time to post the coverage of the tourney! All great shots except for the two mug shots of Clean Sweep!