Took an awesome crew of some of my oldest friends offshore looking for mercury missiles to try and send the Allison Oswald Tournament out with a bang. The Oswald tournament was the first tournament I ever fished with my dad years ago, so it holds a special place in my heart. Knowing that the wind was going to be light and the swells spread out, we planed or assault of the fish offshore.
W got out very early looking for bait and took way to long for us to get. Leaving the Lighthouse around 830 finally, we made like a bread truck and hauled buns to the Y-73 area only to be greeted with a few storms cracking lightning just a few miles away. Causing us to stay trolling a little bit inshore of where I wanted to be, I was a little skeptical of how we would do. Ten minutes of trolling produced a nice 25"spanish mackeral, which somehow magically turned into a baby king in the fishbox just a few hours later. Kept trolling and put a better king in the box, around 12 lbs, a fish we all know wasn’t a tourny winner. Kept trolling. Got a few more strikes, one stud bonita that required two reels and a hand lining session to get in was released to dissapoint someone else another day.
Without a strike over the next hour or so, we decided to bottom fish and look for some BSBs. Found them, but scattered and not like we have been the last few weeks. Bottom fishing was slow for us, but we managed a few decent fish. BSBs, a few beeliners, porgies, and no grouper, no triggers.
We were debating even going back in for the weigh in when we saw a huge pod of bait just off the stern. Picked up bottom lines and redeployed the spread. Hooked up to a quality fish at about 310. Got it in the boat at 330 and then proceeded to pick up rigs and secure rods and drop the hammer to the JIYC to weigh in the fish. We were about 40 miles offshore and I was a little concerned about getting back in in time. The sailfish didn’t let us down, we came in about 38 mph. Got in ahead of schedule. Weighed the fish in and then it was just
Yea, it was a well-run tournament and there were a lot of smiles and laughs yesterday…plus having 3/4 of Team 23BonzoRapTang on hand was pretty cool…
