The day started slow for us, we worked the same zones as day one.  The morning was choppy with some tailers showing, we seen a few singles but they all sunk out before we can get on them.  A few feeders mid-day without bites, this year with the 2 tournaments together, it's actually a lot of fun and makes you think of strategy.  Knowing that our chances of winning the ABC release catagory is almost history with Good Karma, Chaser, and C-Bandit all putting up nice release numbers.  We had to swing to the fences and hope for a boated fish.  Lines out at 3pm, we set up on a pod of tailers at a little over 1pm, Eric gets bit and we were on.  Originally, we thought of a quick release as the fish was gagging on the surface for a few minutes.  This fish was short and very fat, we weren't sure about taking it so took it easy and wanted to control the fish to take a measurement.  Not!  3pm came and gone, I grabbed the bill while on the step and ended up feeling like a rubber band when the boat moved forward.  Got stretched and had to let go, that visual got us the confirmation of getting the gaffs out.  Eric did a great job, but the fish pulled hard until 3:45pm, still kicking after 3 gaffs.  oh...at 3pm, the swim step falls off the brackets.  all that backing down in rough seas, the glass on the bracket just gave out. 

Our Viking BCE team boat Chaser had a great day with 4 fish, one boated.  Their fish weighed 169lbs, we knew we had a good shot at the daily as our fish was the same length at 89 inches, but had a nice girth.  As we made it to the scales/pier, Chaser just pulled out as we backed in to tie up.  Our fish weighed 196 lbs, good enough to take the daily and 3rd place overall.  More so than the win today, I had a great time with a fantastic Bandit team and felt like a proud papa with both BCE's at the scales today.  Very proud of these machines, they are doing what they are designed to do, catch fish at a very high level.

Congratulations to both team Bandit and Team Chaser for a superb Catalina tournament performances.  Chaser won both the Zane and the ABC and earned over 125k, Bandit got 2 dailies and 3rd in the Classic for also around 125k. 

GT