We had Angelo on day 4 . We stared off trolling and stuck with it. The grounds looked great and the bait raced in and out on the ledge. We trolled through it all day and couldn’t believe we couldn’t get a bite. I slid down to the light and we finally caught a fish. We got a tag in a little guy that put us in second by 199 points. If the Ihu Nui tagged a fish they would go back to second by one point. That one point increased the drama for us. If we could catch another fish we would be better off going into the last day.It was a great tournament going into day 5 22 fish for the 5 boats in the 4 days of fishing.
TART Day 3
Posted on October 1st, 2011
We had pervious TART winner ———-with us. He caught 4 blues with us in the 2009 tournament in one day. The 4 tags help him win that tournament. We looked forward to the same kind of luck. After we had a hard time catching bait we switched over right away and hooked up a nice fish a half an hour after we changed over. The fish came up on the stinger and climbed all over the lure. it looked big back there. I turned around to show the fish the lures again and it bit in the turn. We turned and chased on it right away and caught up to it in good time. The fish was big enough to take and thoughts of the fish from yesterday crossed my mind. The fish looked the same as the one the day before. It was at least a 100 pounds bigger than the qualifying weight. We took the fish and were on the way back up the leader board. 2 nice fish in 2 days sure did wonders for our catch up. The weight of the fish shocked us once again. It weighed 400 pounds. We could believe it. If the fish weighted 402 we would have made up for the one pound from yesterday but we would be denied the go ahed tag. That one pound would have done wonders. What are the odds of having 2 fish in 2 days the same size. What helped us was we tagged a small blue late in the day that got us closer. We were one tag off of second due to the one pound we were missing from our 2 nice fish.
TART Day Two
Posted on October 1st, 2011
Today we had Donny on board and caught a bait in the morning!!!! Finally. It was a good bait and found a spot down the hatch. The circle found a spot in the corner and we were on.We took the fish that was bigger than the 300 qualifying weight. It was a nice sized fish that was long a thin. It weighed 399. This is a crazy weight in a tournament. The significance was that the fish was 1 point short of being worth 2 tags. If it was 2 pounds heavier it would have been like having 3 tags. The weight was bittersweet. Good to have caught the fish that put us back in the hunt but didn’t help us catch up to the leaders. We would have to bring it to catch the 2 leaders if we want to have a chance. The fish put Donny out in front as the tournament leader.
TART Day One
Posted on October 1st, 2011
Today we had Ken on board for day one. The day started off with a the Ihu Nui getting off to a fast start tagging one in the first 10 minutes. Before we could catch a bait the Humdinger tagged a fish right away. It was good to see the tournament off to a good start but we had our work cut out for us. We fished for bait the first day for 2 hours. During that time the Ihu Nui caught a second fish and the Humdinger tagged a second. When the Chiripa tagged 2 on a double we changed to lures and trolled lures due to our bait catching problem. We didn’t get any bites trolling. Frustrating for us but good to see the fish biting for the guys.
Steve Cireco Day One
Posted on September 30th, 2011
Steve Cireco Came back to fish with us again this year and his timing on the new moon couldn’t have been better. We started off with a fish that bit and took off getting us in the dacron right away. It was evident that something was wrong when it went down and we could see his tail beat. Unfortunately it came up dead in about 10 minutes. Brysen Ball got in to help Mat and I out is pictured here trying to revive him. It just didn’t make it. Sometimes in fishing a full season this happens. We have 2 or 3 sometimes not make it due to bad hook position. Great for Steve bad for his first fish of the trip.
Steve Cireco Day 3
Posted on September 30th, 2011
Today we had another bang up day with Steve. Our hook percentage went up this week. We really had a tough time for awhile but caught this nice fish along with 2 others. 3-4 today
Steve Cireco Day 4
Posted on September 30th, 2011
Steve was riding the wave of a great trip. It seemed the fish were sticking and we had it together the last week. The fish were aggressive and hooking up for not only us but our fellow bots that were out. we tagged 2 more on Steve’s last day here are some of the jump shots from the week. With reason Steve has the same days booked next year 7 blues in 4 days is good fishin’ anywhere.
Dr Wengler Does it Again
Posted on September 29th, 2011
Dr Wengler and his friends came to visit once again. Dr Mike was armed with his cameras and we got some great images together again. This fish was a wild one that jumped back at us and passed the boat as it exploded up the side. Again I had to drive and had to put my camera down. Another great trip. Hey Mike you forgot your new camera. And by the way mine is missing any idea what happen here?
Family Fun
Posted on September 29th, 2011
A Good friend of mine visited from Brazil. We met when I went to fish for him on his yacht in 2009. He visited here with his family in Aug. It was a great union of our two families and it seemed that even though our kids had just met it seemed they had known each other for a long time. We fished 3 days at a family pace leaving late in the morning and coming home in the early afternoon. We mixed some swimming into the middle of our fishing to keep it fun for the kids. We capped the trip off with a nice barbecue on our last night together. Good times.
