November 20, 2009

This past week I was invited to be an angler in the Sailfish Cup Fishing Tournament, on board the "Reel Tight", a beautiful 80ft Merrit sportfisherman. My good friend and captain, Eddie Herbert, asked me to fish and help out during the tournament. I was joined by his awesome crew of Joe, Eric, and Fly, who were also anglers. The chief of the operation was owner Jimmy Lambert, who is also and excellent angler and a very likable host. On the first day after not seeing a fish all morning, we made a move to the north off Miami Beach and hooked six sailfish and managed to pull four fish our of our asses. We regrouped and afer about a half an hour we hooked a quad and caught all four fish, which put us in the lead with eight fish. We won the "daily" for the day and got ready for the second day of fishing, (after a few cocktails of course!). Fishing was slower for the "Reel Tight" the second day, but we did catch three fish and managed to stay ahead of the pack to win the tournament with eleven fish. The boat took home nearly $ 200,000.00 in prize money as well as beautiful trophys. The tournament was well run and the banquet was great.

If we had not been fishing the tournament, and had just been out for a day of fishing, we would have had an excellent catch. We had large dolphin up to 20 pounds, as well as , king mackerel, cero mackerel, and large hammerhead sharks. One boat even hooked a blue marlin during the tournament. Look for this hot fishing to continue through Thanksgiving week and beyond. This is just the beginning of the season and I expect to see good days ahead.