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We decided to try Oak Bluffs this year so I chartered Dom at Coastal Charters and we went up there ready for battle. My son Anthony was competing in the junior angler division as well. During pre-fishing earlier in the week we had a monster thresher to the boat that we eventually lost but it was massive the fish was all over 9ft before the tail and thick as a house so we were able to locate the fish the week before with several large fish and a thresher but unfortunately mother nature wasnt on our side for day 1 of the tourney.
The whole tourney was amazing they really put on a good show up there,there were 296 boats in teh competition. I was amazed at the boats both big and small and the amount of money that gets invested in this tourney. We met a tremendous amount of skilled teams and are thankfull for the time we spent with everyone
Day 1 - Yes, we did make it out unlike most of the fleet but the forecast was more like 8-10's and we took a beating even in a 35 blackwatch express. We watched about 12 boats out of the 50 make u turns around us and return back to the docks and a 24 boca flipped but luckily everyone was ok. IT WAS an ODD DAY a early decision hampered us later on but here is the story.
Our shots...they came early, tooooo early. On our way out with a plan something changed all that in a New York minute...a large 350-400# class sunning Mako swimming casually right next to our boat as we cleared the vineyard and only 2 miles from the beach and totally unexpected. Perfect right?
Nope, it was only 6:15 and lines/chum in at 7am. Dom pulled the best manuvering I have ever seen as he shielded the shark from onlookers so we could keep it to ourselves. LMAO. Big and beautiful but unfortunately she only stayed with us for the next 30 minutes and disappeared at 6:45.
We then start running less than 5 minutes and Dom yells birds, then we see bluefish flying backwards in the air. Why you ask? threshers are pushing a pod of blues with tails flapping everywhere. We clear the deck, get lines in the water and have them come right through our slick but they had one thing in mind and it was live blues. We had a large one interested and we got a solid knockdown from a tail but it didnt stick.
***THIS ALL HAPPENNED within 2 miles of Gay Head right where everyone makes the turn**
A wise man once told me "you never leave fish to go get fish but we couldnt hook up so we tried to get out farther but we decided as team that no fish was worth risking Doms boat or our lives. Only 5 boats weighed fish so its still wide open the biggest being a huge thresher by Castofari, a big mako by Concrete Ideas and several other 300# class theshers.
Some images from Day 1
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