by Chris Rodenbaugh
After the Captain’s Meeting Thursday night everyone was watching the flag outside the casino. It told them the wind was picking up and fishing conditions for the first day of the 2008 SKA National Championship were taking a turn for the worse. Optimism reigned and most of the teams I spoke to planned to get up Friday morning and check actual conditions before making the decision whether to fish or wait until Saturday in hopes the seas would lay down. Nearly 100 boats checked out at 6:30 a.m. but within a half hour about 25 of those opted to take advantage of the revised weigh-in format allowing them to weigh two fish Saturday if they did not weigh today. The change was made in interest of safety allowing boats to poke their nose out there and still have the option to come back to port if the captain deemed conditions unsafe.
While no injuries were reported to SKA officials, there were several reports of damaged boats including groundings, broken T-tops and windshields, and ripped eisenglass.
Airborne
The weather had dominated conversations all day, but when the weigh-in ended at five o’clock the focus was on the Open Class leader, Airborne. The team, captained by Steve McMullen out of Gulf Breeze, Florida topped the Day 1 leaderboard with a 44.14 pound fish. They fish a 31 Cape Horn.
East Coast Sports
Three Class of 23 boats weighed fish on Friday. First to the dock was the East Coast Sports boat, a 23´ Onslow Bay captained by Randall Edens out of Hampstead, NC with a nice 43.62. That’s just about half a pound behind the Open Class leader and great start to a tough tournament. Then Quietus, a 23´ Yellowfin captained by David Rogers, Jr. came to the scale with a 29.61. These Class boats really know how to put ‘em on the board!
Get Snookerd
Later Get Snookerd came to the dock in their Contender 23T. I spoke to Kevin Weber who lamented his feet had been wet since they checked out that morning. They ran East about 80 miles and fished in up to 10- to 12-foot seas. They had a really good bite early on a bluefish, but missed it. Later their 20.63 hit a blue runner and she’s the one they brought to the scale. It was clear they were cold, tired, and beat up from the ride. Asked if anything could keep them from going out tomorrow Weber replied, “Nothing. No matter what we gotta get a second fish.” Get Snookerd’s captain is Chris Workman. Quinn and Jim Kurth round out the team.
The dilemma teams faced if they had a smaller fish on board was whether to go ahead and weigh it or to wait until Saturday counting on better conditions for a chance to put two larger fish on the board. Only time will tell.