Winning phin was like 24 pounds. The crews got a pretty rough ride in. Not many fish were caught by the boats. Just a bad day on the water.
Days like that are what makes you humble and thankful for the good days. I’ve heard it before - “it’s called fishing, not catching.” The tournament guys couldn’t predict the weather 3 months out - the weatherman can’t even do it 12 hours out. So, y’all don’t blame the tournament committee. The guys that fished should be proud to be apart of the tournament and keep it all in their memory bank.
2004 22’ Century
Reel Cocky
Fun Lil tournament. Had a good time. Raised some $$ for a good cause even won a Lil. Would have won a lot more if we didn’t break off a 50-60lb phin at the boat. It was ruff and fishing was slow but that’s the way it goes. Will defiantly fish it again. Thanks Otay and Folly Chad. Yal did a good job on putting it on.
For most of us the ride out at 2:30 am was beautiful.The Stono inlet at high tide didn’t get less than 10’ deep. Running in the dark between 20-30kts we saw some of the meteor shower and an amazing moon rise before getting lines in around 5am, our crew even had to use the spotlight to get our first dolphin in the boat. Since the conditions early were pretty good, we pushed out deep around 7:30 and found warm water and a weed line that was trying to get organized, but it was painfully slow. We didn’t catch anything from 300-1400’ and pulled out every trick up our sleeve. Conditions started to deteriorate once the NE fan turned on and we decided to get back a little closer. It was a wet and sloppy ride, but we deployed again at the ledge and picked up a few more fish. A first for me was catching a few amberjacks trolling. We thought about trying to to troll in for a king but we were tired of 5 foot seas and picked up lines around 12:45. We were the first boat back and most everyone came in early right behind us. No one weighed a wahoo or king and those calcuttas that didn’t pay out went to save the light. Our first place dolphin calcutta winner made $100 donation to the cause as well. We had some drinks and BBQ after the awards ceremony and I believe everyone had a pretty good time, considering. I think for our first year we’d call this a success and look forward to doing it again next year. We will get some pics up soon. Until then, here are the results:
1st Place Dolphin 24.7 lbs Team Tacklegrab
2nd place Dolphin 21.8 lbs Team Dixie Hookers
3rd place Dolphin 21.0 lbs Team Catchum Up
1st place Tuna 16.5 lbs Team Half Wired
2nd place Tuna 7.8 lbs Team Peanut
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As a board member of Save The Light I would like to thank Chris and Chad for organizing this event and all the sponsors and tournament entrants. We are grateful and look forward to this becoming an annual event. Thank you all very much.
Carl Hitchcock
Save The Light
The Morris Island Lighthouse www.savethelight.org