By Scott Lenox

Port-A-Bella Wins 1st Place and $224,000 in 2023 HUK Big Fish Classic

Posted on July 31st, 2023

I just got back from the awards ceremony for the 10th Annual HUK Big Fish Classic and it was an awesome and exciting time! Tournament directors made a great decision to extend this year’s event to include a Sunday/Monday window and it was a true tournament saver. Almost all of the action took place this afternoon with lots of fish landing on the scales and lots of money being passed out just a short time ago. Congratulations to all of the winners and to tournament directors Brian Roberts, Stephen Lewis, John Lewis and Sean Welsh. It’s a real pleasure emceeing this event and an honor to be a part of it. Below are your top three Big Fish followed by results from the Big Fish website.

3rd Place Big Fish

Black Irish – 130 lb swordfish

2nd Place Big Fish

Real One – 171 Pound bigeye

1st Place Big Fish

Port-A-Bella – 228.5 Pound bigeye

Rick Royer caught this beautiful 92 pound Allison tuna fishing on board Fish On with Captain Andrew Dotterweich and mate Jake Emche.

Captain Victor Bunting and the crew of the Ocean Princess had a good bite today in the much calmer ocean with plenty of sea bass and flounder for happy anglers.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported fussy sea bass, but he still got some on hooks along with some nice flounder for some.

Today, Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had some flounder and sea bass between the rain drops.

Tied her loose at 6:30 this morning; ventured into clear sunny skies with next to no wind exactly as forecast..

Hello?

Yeah. No. That’s not how that played.

Dagone it.

Raining this morning. A bit windy.

Dang man. Wasn’t all that. Just wrong though.

After morning rains cleared the day became quite nice. Calm even.

Forecast did have rain at 5pm.

Sure nailed the afternoon’s prediction. Watched on my boat’s radar as storm clouds above us tracked south while smaller cells below us tracked north. No dodging that. Downpours from north and south combined to became a first class deluge at weigh-ins for the tournament across the bay. Hope some local talent did well.

Eleven hour trip scheduled; in between rain events we did a lot of flounder fishing. Nicked a few cbass too.

Not the best of catching, mind you, but I think everyone mustered dinner from the day. Sure hope so.

Had it been a cbass trip I believe I could have done something with it.

In fact, owing a lack of cleanish-green/mixed blue offshore water I’m rescheduling this Thurs & Fri’s mahi trips as sea bass trips – not fluke.

Those who were booked have already been called. Now sea bass August 3 & 4 with flounder possible ((and even mahi somewhat possible.. It’s more than old man Murphy can stand, you know? Cancel a mahi trip so they’re going to cause pain!)) Both trips depart 6:30 (so 6 if all are aboard) at $155.00….

Anna will have the reservation line manned at 8am. She’s a one person operation – not Hilton World Wide. She might be slammed in the morning (or probably not!) If she cannot pick up, leave her a message. She has a method to her madness..

Reservations at 443-235-5577 – The line closes at 8pm and reopens at 8am. She won’t take reservations for trips that are not announced.

If you want a spot call the reservation line at 443-235-5577.. Emailing me is no good – any info I give could well be wrong time you receive it – There are 5+ beautiful hours most days when I have no service. Once restored I do try to check email for questions; FB messenger too..

Very first drop today Dan landed a decent fluke – held all day to take the pool. Happens. He switched to sea bass when he had 3 fluke. Didn’t occur to me til we got in he might have thought we had a 3 fish limit..

Very last drop fellow next to him caught the second biggest..

Some pretty sea bass all in between. �Cheers

Monty