55 Pound Yellowfin Leads 2023 HUK Big Fish Classic

By Scott Lenox

Posted on July 30th, 2023

Day number 3 of 4 is in the books for the 10th Annual HUK Big Fish Classic and it was a pretty slow day at the scales. All but one of 60 boats is fishing the final window from lines in at 7 AM this morning until 3 PM tomorrow afternoon so tomorrow looks to be a very, very busy day. We had one boat come to the scales today with just two fish and one of them didn’t qualify so there is currently one fish on the leaderboard looking at A LOT of money. The crew of the Morning Glory had a non qualifying mahi and a 55 pound yellowfin tuna that is currently worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars. If I was a betting man I’d say that’s going to change tomorrow, but what won’t change is the $8,000 that Morning Glory won for the daily prize. Morning Glory is headed back out to fish tomorrow with the other 67 boats so tomorrow is still anyone’s ball game. Good luck to everyone fishing….I’ll see you at the scales tomorrow starting at 3 PM.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star put his folks on some flounder in rough seas today.

Yesterday and today both I thought I had clients’ boxes filled before I even left the dock – despite light sales indicating clients’ (correct!) doubts, I was sure there was a doable shot offshore with the weather.

Yeah, umm, Hello? Skipper?

Devil.

Did at least get their lines wet both days ..and then back in early with half off or more.

Today Ryan dropped blocks and, as happens surprisingly often, used his reef building karma to take today’s pool munney.. Four guys had two fluke apiece today, while Bernie would have sealed to deal yesterday had I given him a bit more time.

Have some spots open for tomorrow’s XXL flounder trip; same for Wednesday’s “catch what’s biting” 6:30 to 4 long sea bass/fluke trip. Looks as though we may have another barroom brawl with the weatherman come Thurs/Fri.

Man. Tough summer for wind – and haven’t had a tropical system yet.

With water temps at new world records to our south; risk of named storms must be magnified.

Oh man..

Would that we might get a nice shot of stable light easterly winds that push clean-green water into 20 fathoms. With mahi inshore and weatherman bored to tears? August would be Finest Kind..

Cheers,

Monty

The rockfish wer snapping the other night on the route 50 bridge and Shaun Flaherty and Morgan Mericle got into a couple of good ones. These two beauties measured 37″ and 38″ and were quickly released.