Posted on August 4th, 2019
Sooooooooo……today was interesting. A little after lunchtime today I was doing some stuff around the house and had to go outside and I noticed it was a little darker than it should have been. I looked to the west sky and thought…….”that doesn’t look good.” At that point the wind blew up from every direction, some BIG raindrops hit the driveway…..and I was out……I mean in….the house. Fast forward two minutes and it was absolutely pouring down rain, lightning was cracking with immediate thunder and the wind was whipping wildly all around the house. It was one of the more wicked thunderstorms that I’ve seen in a while. We saw a little more rain and a few rumbles of thunder over the next four hours or so and then it was absolutely beautiful again and the evening ended very, very nicely. Unfortunately the rain and storms put a major damper on registration for this week’s White Marlin Open for a few hours so this afternoon it was very, very busy at Harbor Island. White Marlin Open tournament directors patiently got through the chaos and in the end they found that they had signed up 403 boats and would have a record $6.1 Million purse. This truly is the largest, richest fishing tournament in the world and I’m happy and proud to be a part of it. I can’t wait to start bringing it to you live with Dave Messick and the Hooked on OC crew starting tomorrow at around 3 PM at www.whitemarlinopen.com. It’s going to be an awesome week!! Congratulations to the Motsko Family and thanks to Jeff Rowan for the pic! Good luck to all of the teams fishing this year’s event!
Thanks to the storms and the WMO prep day it was a very lightly fished day today for sure. Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star reported that it was a beautiful start to the day…..the ride home? Different story.
Had a light rail on a gorgeous Sunday. Fished for sea bass – caught same.
Encountered the most severe wind shear of my career on the way home. Cover that separately in another post.
Calm as you’d like though as we drifted & anchored all day over a variety of reef bottoms with mixed success.
Sure ended up OK. High man was a very skilled angler, Vincent Fick of WOC, with 10 fat keepers. He’d have had a dern good shot at the pool but didn’t play. That’s 3 times in just a week that someone would have swept the money but didn’t play.. We’ll likely see that in grand scale this coming week in WMO calcuttas..
As it was Stephen Giovannetti and Mike Belice of Indian PA had to split a light pool – bragging rights at least!
Also pictured (everyone’s pictured!) are Mike Patrick & Nick Molyneux of Harford County –
Lou Powers of Forest Hill MD –
Tom Jenks of Parksburg WV –
Carla Kotsifakis of WOC – Mike Giovannetti, & Vince Belice of Indian PA .
Uh Oh..Doing this 40 years now. Experienced one heck of a windshear in this scoundrel. Knew it was coming. Took this video just before it hit. In the Beaufort Wind Force Scale “Force 12” is described thusly: **The air is filled with foam and spray; sea is completely white with driving spray; visibility very seriously affected..**Yeah, like that. This was, beyond doubt, the highest gusts I’ve ever been in. The ocean had already turned to smoke – where so much water is being made airborn that you cannot separate where the sea begins – when a gust struck with so much additional force that my boat, a heavy-hulled rig if ever there was, was blown sideways. I was unable to turn back into the wind for nearly a minute it seemed. Have been in several 60 to 70 knot events. Was estimating 70 given the sea smoke as these gusts hit. I think the wind that blew my rig sideways was about 120 knots.. Glad it was a short lived wind shear event… No injuries or incidents that I’ve heard on Channel 16 yet.
Posted by Monty Hawkins on Sunday, August 4, 2019
Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported the same, putting some fish in the boat and then holding on for the ride home. Captain Chris got a couple of good pics of what a few minutes difference in weather can make.
Captain Wayne Blanks of Bayside Guide Service had some great fishing for mackerel on Little Gull this morning and then fished the back bay where he had good action on croakers and a keeper flounder in the East Channel.
Randy Swain, Jr., Randy Swain, Sr., Rick Kramer and Bill Davidson had some good flounder fishing over ocean structure today with a bunch of keepers up to five pounds.
