I have got to tell you about my second super summer vacation. But first I will bring you up to date on the local scene.
We fished on the 17th with Jeff and Maylene. We really worn them out. We were catching bonito as fast as we put the lines out for over an hour. these 12 to 16 pound fish can wear out any arm on the sea. Mixed in were a few king mackerel. Will radio talk of some dolphin fish offshore, we headed out to find our fortune, leave the bonito and create a breeze. We killed two hours, wasted close to 50 gallons of fuel, cooled off and even caught 2 small dolphin and a barracuda on that ghost hunt. When we got back to 190 feet of water, we fired out the live bait and started to drift. Within a minute all three lines were off and running. Here go the bonito again I thought. NOT. All three lines were hooked up to dolphin from 8 to 12 pounds. When the spray settled we had 17 real nice dolphin in the box and had tagged and released two more. We caught a few more kings and the bonito did return to burn the arms. When two sails grabbed the surface baits and went airborne the cheers were heard all along the coast. One sail threw the hook, but the other took the last steam out of our anglers before a successful tag and release. This was one hot fishing trip. We had a total of 19 dolphin, 8 kings, 2 barracuda, at least 20 bonito and a sailfish.
That evening we had the honor of fishing with one of the all time top lady anglers of south Florida. Dixie Burns was hoping to introduce her son David to the mighty swordfish. We set out the lines around 8 PM and David had his 125 pound swordfish in the boat before midnight. The fish ate a rigged squid 120 feet down with a green Electralume and green mighty lite to attract the sword to the bait.
The weekend swordfish trips were blown away as a hurricane passed well to our south.
Our next trip was for snook on the 22nd. The fishing was hot. We used live herring and scored with 11 snook and a tarpon all released.
OK. So I said I had another super vacation. This time I went to St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. I went down to be an observer in the prestigious Virgin Island Blue Marlin Tournament to benefit the Boy Scouts of America. It was a week of terrific dinner parties with famous anglers and their famous marlin crews. And then of course there was the 5 days of fishing on the best of the best Atlantic blue marlin fishing yachts and their crew and anglers.
I fished aboard the Bandolera, a beautiful custom fishing machine from Puerto Rico, where we caught two blue marlin. I fished on the St Thomas based Kings Ransom and we caught the first blue marlin ever for a Philadelphia angler. Then it was the Trouble Maker, a Miami based 62 foot Bertram fishing machine. Add one more blue marlin catch to my tally.
No offense intended to any, but the next day was my best. I fished with some of the Men who helped lead the way to modern marlin fishing. We were with Jim Lambert on his 82 foot Merritt the Reel Tight. His guest were Stan, Pete DeBonis and Roy Merritt. The captain is the well known Eddie Herbert with his crew Eric Leech and the Fly. What a team. We saw how they got their reputation as they caught 4 out of 6 blue marlin that came our way that day.
Scott Kenny caught his first blue
My final day was spent aboard another beautiful Miami based mega fishing machine with another famous fishing team. This day was spent aboard the H T Hook. Again this team showed there super skills as 3 blue marlin rose behind the boat and all three were fought to successful release.
My total score, I rode along on 5 super fishing machines. We saw 20 blue marlin in the spread. And we caught and released 11 blue marlin with an average weight of 250 to 300 pounds.
The tournament set a new all time record for the 34 year running event. The tournament recorded a whopping 207 blue marlin releases. With a record one day score of 60 blue marlin.
Well back to the reel world. We went snook fishing last night. It was our last shot before the snook season opened at midnight. I guess our herring were a little too big because we missed several fish. We caught 3 big snook of over 35 inches each, and 2 snook around 30 inches. We also caught 5 good sized jack crevalle.
Remember there are a lot of new snook regulations. For now the important ones are that the limit is one snook per angler. No snook for guides or crew on a charter and the fish must measure between 28 and 32 inches from the tip of the lower jaw to the tip of the tail with the tail pitched together.
We still have a lot of swordfish dates open in the best swordfish month of the year, that being October. It is also time to start planning those winter sailfish and tarpon trips. Drop us an e-mail at captbouncer@bellsouth.net
Don't forget!!! Spike TV on September 3rd at 10 PM EDT. Rumor has it that we may have made the big time as minor stars of the Oak Bluff Monster Shark Tournament.
