Fishing was tough. There is so much build up with this tournament that when it’s over, it kinda leaves you shell shocked. All the mental stuff, strategy, lack of sleep, worry, the what if’s………it sort of drains you. Still, I think I can speak for everybody that fished this thing when I say “If I only had one more day”.

The tournament was strange this year. Starting with hurricane Rick, then the bottom line tragedy. Thank God T.J. and his crew are safe, and thank God for Sammy who helped them. It just goes to show you, fisherman may be a rag tag bunch, but when it counts, they take care of each other, as it should be.

We felt pretty good, we were pretty confident that the storm would give the bank time to reload; the thing that worried us most was whether the swell would come down enough to let Ramiro catch the sardinas we needed to catch skippies. Well it did, he caught em’, and we got em’. The shotgun start made my toes tingle, it’s hard to explain the feeling when you have a thirty eight knot boat, two million on the line, and your whole strategy hinges on getting there first. The guys did an awesome job, truly a well oiled machine, every morning, one circle and the skippies came flying on, and we had a bait in the water fishing as we walked the skippies off the high spot, lift poling them as we went. The boat was incredible, the only problem was that the fish didn’t get the memo, they weren’t there. The bite was very pressure sensitive, we knew that, but one tack, and the only black we saw on the meter was gone. Still we stuck it out, knowing any fish caught there would win the tournament, the grade of those fish was that good, and I had 100% confidence that if one moved in, these guys could catch her. In the final analysis, maybe I should have given up early and went jig fishing. Oh well, you can’t be a Monday morning quarterback, that will drive you crazy.

In every fishing trip there is a lesson. This time, I think maybe Lady Luck pooped in our tuna tubes.

I am not going to complain, we had a blessed year, I thank everybody for the support, it was awesome. I look forward to some fun fishing in Mag with the Pacific Provider; I hear the blue marlin are really biting up there.

Good luck and good fishing.