Pompano Beach, Florida – Despite the strong east wind and four- to six-foot seas, fishing was great for the 121 boats that participated in this year's edition of the Mercury/SeaVee Pompano Beach Saltwater Shootout, the kickoff event of the 2012 Pompano Beach Saltwater Circuit promoted by Bluewater Movements. To take home the Shootout's top prizes, teams may scale up to ten fish for points towards the overall tournament win. Teams can weigh up to four of each species— Kingfish, Dolphin, Blackfin Tuna, Cobia, or Wahoo. There are dozens of ways to cash a check in this event and SKA teams have always carried home more than their fair share of the cash.
Sarasota, Florida—Mark, Joshua, and Crockett Henderson came down from North Carolina to pick up their new 38' Intrepid from the factory in Clearwater for a shakedown run and to put some hours on the triple 350hp Yamahas sitting on the transom. Then they thought, what better way to determine how the new design was going to fish, than to christen her on the playing field of the NBOA Gulf Coast Open in Sarasota?
Sarasota, Florida—The Sarasota Sertoma Club's 18th Annual King Mackerel Tournament kicks off Florida's west coast Division 6. This has always been a fun event to fish, but this year was not what anyone considered fun. While people in the Midwest were playing "dodge the tornados", the forty-boat tournament fleet was fighting rough seas thanks to heavy winds that came from way south fueling the midwest weather.
"The weather took its toll on us and our equipment but we racked up a nice win, great points for the Division, plus super points for our first Pro event," said Matt Tarrance, captain of the team.
Palm Beach, Florida—The Greater Palm Beach 440, benefiting the Friends of 440, was scheduled to be a two-day event on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately Saturday was totally un-fishable due to east winds that made the inlets un-passable. Sunday saw seas come down to four to six feet but caution at the inlets was still the order of the day.
David Linsinbigler, Alex Burgess, plus Jim and Mike Wood topped the leaderboard in the Greater Palm Beach 440 scaling a great 48.02. This win also gave the team 1000 points in their quest to win Team of the Year honors in this year's Pro Tour. The team fish a Mercury powered Contender,
Naples, Florida—The season cranked up for Division 11 with Mambo's Spring Kingfish Shootout, a totally awesome event. Especially for Paul Michele, Ozzie and Christian Fischer, plus D.J. Wood who scaled the final fish of the day, a 46.58, and won the event fishing Team Awesome!/Navionics.
Unlike other years when you only had one choice at this time of year, to run south, temperatures in the 80s and 90s this year have the fish running to the north as fast as their little tails will propel them. The team knew this and ran their Small Boat Class Yamaha-powered Andros west/southwest of Naples. "We tried to run south but it was just too rough to make time running so we looked at some old numbers we found and used a couple of years ago and headed west," said Paul. "We fished a ledge in 65 feet of water about 38 miles from the scale. We had a great day and caught a lot of good fish."
Key West, Florida - The Bimini Twist team caught a 54.73 on the first day of the 16th Annual Key West Harbour King Mackerel Tournament and walked away with the event's $7,000 top prize. "We had a great day on the water, catching fish all day long," said Grant Johnson. "We fished the Atlantic side in 78 feet of water, basically near the Banana Bar, which was 37 miles from the channel. She ate a fresh blue runner about eleven-thirty. Jerry Stephenson grabbed the rod and the fight was on."
Grant went on to tell me that they never stopped for bait, catching them while still trolling.
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