Posted on August 18th, 2022
I just got back from an exciting first day of scales action at Bahia Marina for the start of the 2022 Poor Girls Open and the ladies did an outstanding job. There are 161 boats fishing this year’s event and the purse is an impressive $240,000+. 37 boats fished today and we saw about 1/3 of them hit the scales this evening. The first place billfish release boat didn’t show up for a picture, but they are going to be tough to beat with two blue marlin and two white marlin releases. Here’s who’s leading what after the first day of fishing.
Wahoo
1st Place Mikk’s In It Up 45.9 Pounds
Dolphin
3rd Place Playmate 11.2 Pounds
2nd Place Mojito 12.3 Pounds
1st Place Fish On 22.9 Pounds
Tuna
3rd Place On the Hunt 63.2 Pounds
2nd Place Rhonda’s Osprey 63.5 Pounds
1st Place Boss Hogg 72.4 Pounds
Billfish Release
3rd Place Obsession 2 White Marlin Releases
2nd Place Showtime 1 Blue Marlin / 1 White Marlin Release *No photo-crew did not show
1st Place Max Bet 2 Blue Marlin / 2 White Marlin Releases *No photo-crew did not show
Away from the tournament I got a crazy report from my buddy Irish who was fishing the Paradise Grille Flounder Tournament today. Irish was bottom fishing around the Jackspot with a “chicken rig” when his Gulp was crushed by a fish that did not swim like a flounder. The big fish didn’t swim like a flounder because it wasn’t. It was a 33″, 27.5 pound bluefin tuna!! Crazy, but that’s the luck of the Irish!
Bottom fishing was good for the ocean going party boat fleet today. Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported some good sea bass fishing and some bonus flounder.
Anglers on the Judith M out of Bahia Marina had a good day today with some keeper sized sea bass and some triggerfish.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star enjoyed some good fishing for his folks today as well with some nice knot head sea bass and some flounder.
A well-spaced swell to even 5’ greeted us today at the inlet. Wave period is everything when thinking about how ‘rough’ it is. Five footers with a five second interval might send us home, whereas five foot with a nine second period – nine second space between them – becomes a gentle seascape..
Grayson & Kyler from Baltimore made a block drop at one of my new locations today. Today makes three drops – marked sea bass already. I have no idea why other boats won’t improve their own fishery. Seems such a simple idea. Certainly works. All they’d have to do is take a GPS pic and report the location for OCRF charting. Block piles must be within Army Corps Reef Permit boundaries. Yes, all of the spots I’ve built with almost 38,000 blocks & over 500 pyramids are charted. No secret spots. Don’t need to be secret if we build a lot of them. Plenty for everyone. Will be working on that in grand fashion soon – adding to our reef footprint. I hope! Can never tell with reef construction until the bubbles settle.
Caught some nice sea bass today. Even double keepers at times.
Mahi? Well, let me tell you about the sea bass bite..
Or, in way of a visual analogy; we witnessed proof fish don’t always bite. I sometimes tell clients I’m marking sea bass, but they’re not biting (not today, thankfully.) With mahi we can have seemingly a hundred swarming – and no takers. We had two mahi bites today, both spit the hook, both were surrounded by dozens of others. If I’d ground it out I’m sure I could have put together a catch. I focused on cbass – the path of least resistance given their far better bite. Those green ones will bite better soon.
Long about noon we had el grande on. Creature from the deep took a mahi bait and left for parts unknown. We followed & followed
And followed
Yup, more following.
Finally I concluded it was a giant ray of some sort. A southern ray or even a barn door skate – I added time to clients’ day and the angler broke it off on purpose.
Ahhh.. We were big game fishing for a while though; dreaming big!
Was a nice day. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Cheers
Monty
