[gordy]

Fished Friday with an allstar crew. Dave Ackridge captained, I worked the pit and Daryll Nemeth, Casey Jones, Brian Hofhiemer and Wally were our anglers. Runnin close to the speed of sound on the contender we arrived at the 26 mile hill at 6:30. Milled around for a little while, marking very little and descided to keep moving up toward the crotch. Lots of life there with some nice scattered tuna marks, tons of sea turtles and bait. Had a swipe early on the spreader bar from a small mahi but wasn't looking for him so we pulled the bait away. He was presistant and managed to hit it 5 times leaving only the head, but never hooked up. Soon after, we get a big knock on the downrigger that cleaves the hoo but dosn't come tight. It wasn't till 9:30 that we had our first hookup that Brian made short order of..... 35lb yellow.



Not much more action in the area but lots of life. We descided late in the day to head up towrds the lumpy. There were sulfur lines everywhere and lots of flyers. Found a good bait mark and worked it, missing another small mahi. At 2:57 we get a solid knockdown and Casey jumps on the rod. Dave calls the hookup in to tournament control and the rest of us start clearing lines. Casey's fish is fighting weird, coming right up to the top so we are thinking its a bill. We thought we had cleared all the lines but forgot the left long....untill we heard that clip pop. Looking at the clock its 2:59 and Dave calls in the hookup.....Daryll goes to work on that one. get Caseys fish close to the boat and we realize its a large blacktip...bummer! Thinkin Darylls got one too, I work on Caseys shark release...untill I hear the guys scream hoo. Daryll's hoo comes to the steel and in the box, high fives all around. It was an awesome way to end the tourny.



Thinking we have a contender for the hoo category we are all juiced. Get to weigh in and the hoo goes 33.1lb to take the lead. The celebration was short lived though as Justin came in an hour later with a 44lber. Congrats to him and his crew.
All in all it was an awesome tourny and great fishin with the A team crew and top notch captain on one hell of a boat. Congrats to all that fished and placed....we will be back!

[skinnys-kid]

Nice job! Hearing more hoo's boated this week...good news!