# Late Tournament Rewind



## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

It’s been awhile since I posted a report and some of the details have become fuzzy with time. But here it goes:
I fished the Emerald Cost Classic with the boys on the Whoo Dat: Courtney as the Mate, Keith, Grant, Dom from American Custom Yachts, Capt. Chris Hood and my self. The High light / Low Light of the trip was a near 200lb tuna we lost on the wire. This was probably one of the coolest bites I’ve ever seen. The fish came up on the right short rigger, but missed the hook, he them switched over to the squid chain and proceed to try to tear the rigger down. Keith managed to get the teaser way from the fish as I pitched a rigged ballyhoo in front of Charlie, but instead of him pilling on the bait he faded off. I was just about to give up on the fish. When I saw his dark purple shadow remerge from beneath the prop wash only to have the big fellow swim off again, and then out no where he reappears coming from the outside, in and ka-Boom he swallows the my ballyhoo 15 feet off the transom. His mouth resembled a five gallon bucket, as he took off I eased the reel into gear and the circle hook found pay dirt. I was able to make pretty quick work of the fish thanks to Chris’s boat handling and the fact that the fish had been following the boat around at 8 knots for at least one minute. I have to think that all that swimming wore old Charlie out before I even hooked him. Well we get the fish on the leader and he’s come on up and we are just about to lay the steel to him, when all of a sudden the big bastard does a figure eight. He rolls to the outside then to the inside and back to the outside and our circle hook rolls right out of the corner of his mouth. This was a big fish his head was in front of the second rod holder and the tale was out past the transom. Needless to say we were heartbroken and we never really recovered from it for the remainder of the weekend. We ended up catching a mess of wahoo and dauphin but nothing big enough to put us on the board.
The following weekend I fished the Pensacola International with Shawn on the Breathe Reel Deep. We had a great crew for this trip including Jeff Choe from the forum. I was the designated angler for since there was $50,000.00 up for grabs for anyone who lands a Grand Slam. We fished the same line that pretty much the entire fleet was fishing. The first day we caught a white and I screwed one off on the pitch. There was a bit of redemption at least on my part. Towards the end of the day we found a really fishy piece of water and I caught 146 pound tuna (1st place) and another that came in at 110lbs. We fished for swords that night, and ended up catching a nice 58 inch fish. Unfortunately the tournament minimum was 60 inches. It ended up being the only sword brought in. The next day was ruff as hell, all we caught was a couple of wahoo and Dauphin.
The next weekend was the Blue Marlin Grand Championship at The Wharf and I was back on the Whoo Dat. We started off fishing the same line from the weekend before and then worked our way to the Marlin rig. Where we raised a nice fish on the long rigger only to have it peel off and start chasing Plumb Crazy’s live bait…Go figure. The decision was made (mainly by Keith the boat’s owner) to run to Nautilus and live bait the next day, the rest of the crew wanted to go back and fish the line. We were up early making bait and buy 6:00 we were fishing at about 6:30 we got bit. Then a few seconds later we got bit again on the second bait. By 6:31 we had a double on, we fought both fish long enough to demise that mine was noticeably bigger. We then made the tough decision to break the other fish off and concentrate on the one. A little after 7:00 Courtney grabbed the leader and a few minutes later Grant sticks her with the flyer me and Jeremy follow up with two more gaffs and we work the fish to the back of the boat and in the door. She tapped out at 106 ½ inches. It is now 7:30 on Friday morning and we have a good fish on deck needless to say spirits were running high which was then fueled by a couple miller lights. Well the scales didn’t open until 6:00 that evening. So we sobered up and decided to fish the line from the day before. Around noon word starts to trickle in that there maybe a few other boats that have also boated some solid fish. Little did we know that six other boats would catch fish larger than the 426 pounder we weighed in, I’ve never seen some many big fish brought to the scales. For a little while it felt like the eyes of the fishing world were focused on Orange Beach. It was truly a historic weekend in terms a big fish weighed in. We ended up going back to the Nautilus that evening and live baited all the next day. We had a decent fish come up and chase the short rigger, but never got the bait. This is by far the best tournament on the Gulf Coast. We had a great time and accomplished something rarely if ever seen in modern day tournament fishing. We got seventh place Blue marlin kill, no there’s not a prize for this feat, but I am thinking about getting us some T-shirts made. Congratulations to everyone who fished and Hats off to Done Deal for defending their triple crew title and holding off Breathe Reel Deep who got our Gulf Grand Slam one weekend to late but still ended up doing well for the weekend and the season.
The following week I took some customers out deep dropping on Friday and it was hard to even lose a bait. That’s what I get fishing on a full moon. The next day I took some kids from the Boys and Girls out trout fishing and had a blast. I them jumped on Breathe Reel Deep and went fun fishing. We had my boat partners step son and his buddy as our anglers. These young men kick some ass. By the time the dust settled they had cranked in six nice tuna, four dauphin, a wahoo and had shots at two nice blues.
Decided to take last weekend off kind ah… We went to Port St. Joe and hunted scallops it was a good time and of course I had to bring a rod.


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## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

Great season Angelo! Lets line up a trip soon. It's been too long


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

Dang Angelo you sure are a Fishin fool

I thought I had a problem :thumbsup:


Very impressive set of reports .


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## cbarnes91 (Sep 7, 2010)

You live the life!


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## cliff k (Oct 1, 2007)

now that is what I call a bluewater report. I just kept getting more jealous by the sentence


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Awesome report (s)! Thanks for posting, Tournaments and scalloping! Does not get any better. I grew up (some) in Panama City and scalloping was always a family tradition from St Joe Bay all the way over to Pt St Joe area. We really wanted to go this year but business has kept me tied up.

Thanks for posting your reports and details!

Robert


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## MrFish (Aug 21, 2009)

cliff k said:


> now that is what I call a bluewater report. I just kept getting more jealous by the sentence


Exactly what I was thinking! Awesome report! Keep it up!


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## RollTider (Jun 30, 2011)

Good stuff. Thanks for posting


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

Chris V said:


> Great season Angelo! Lets line up a trip soon. It's been too long


Chris, we will get a trip in this year. I might have to take a day off to make it happen.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

PELAGIC PIRATE said:


> Dang Angelo you sure are a Fishin fool
> 
> I thought I had a problem :thumbsup:
> 
> ...


Thanks Mike, I'm pretty sure we got bit by the same bug.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

MSViking said:


> Awesome report (s)! Thanks for posting, Tournaments and scalloping! Does not get any better. I grew up (some) in Panama City and scalloping was always a family tradition from St Joe Bay all the way over to Pt St Joe area. We really wanted to go this year but business has kept me tied up.
> 
> Thanks for posting your reports and details!
> 
> Robert


Thanks, Robert. The scalloping was ok, the water was stained up pretty bad due to all the rain. We still managed to get close to our limit. Which is more than I care to clean. Needless to say every meal this week will include some sort of scallop dish in it.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

cbarnes91 said:


> You live the life!


I've been lucky enough to meet and fish with some good fishermen and great guys.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

cliff k said:


> now that is what I call a bluewater report. I just kept getting more jealous by the sentence


Thanks man we've had some good trips this year.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

MrFish said:


> Exactly what I was thinking! Awesome report! Keep it up!


Thanks guys


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## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

Fish Eye said:


> Chris, we will get a trip in this year. I might have to take a day off to make it happen.


I might have to quit to make it happen, lol!


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## bquared (May 25, 2011)

Love the detail of the post. I was at the Wharf last year (work kept me from it this year) and love the boat the WhooDat. I remember the guy who had to come down and fix the stereo system because you gus blast the music! 

I lived at St. George Island, FL for four years and use to go the St. Joe all the time. Great place to have fun a swim for the scallops! Best four years of my life. P.S: Caught my first Blue Marlin about two weeks ago...addicted now!!! Do I need therapy?!?


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Fish Eye said:


> Which is more than I care to clean. .


Cool trick, which you may already know, but a shop vac is awesome at sucking the guts off the muscle. We would always cover them in ice causing them to open, then pop off 1/2 of shell, use shop vac to suck off guts, then spoon to carve out meat, easy peasy.

Robert


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## samoajoe (Dec 28, 2010)

Angelo you're making the rest of us look bad! Way to produce!


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

Fish Eye said:


> Thanks, Robert. The scalloping was ok, the water was stained up pretty bad due to all the rain. We still managed to get close to our limit. Which is more than I care to clean. Needless to say every meal this week will include some sort of scallop dish in it.[/
> 
> Thanks for the info Robert.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

Oh… I almost forgot that some were in this time frame I took my boss and thirteen of his friends out snapper fish. We made a quick limit of 5-10 pounders and headed in. The water looked so good that weekend that me and a buddy took my boat out that afternoon for an overnighter. We ended up catching one of the smallest sword fish I’ve ever seen. The little fella was maybe 10 lbs. The next day was a little rougher than NOAA projected; we still managed to get a limit of scamp and spent the rest of the day trolling which netted us one 20 pound dauphin. It was nice to just get out and fun fish with one other person. Those have always been my favorite trips.


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