Swordfest 07 -Deep Drop

[BC Cudjoe]

New member here -

My son Hunter assembled a crew for Swordfest 07 (Marathon-last weekend) that consisted of himself, our friend Captain Bill Welder, neighbor Alex, friend Danny and myself. We fished on Bill’s boat (Keyed Up) where he and Hunter have extremely good luck on the deep drop rods. There were two divisions in the tourney –Sword and Deep Drop which had categories for Tile, Grouper, Hand Crank (manual) and Most Unusual. We elected to fish the deep drop.

The captains meeting Friday night was at Sparky’s Landing –who did a nice job of free dinner snacks. Nice Calcutta bags were handed out with a reported $500 worth of merchandise inside, rules established and we headed back to the house to prepare.

Saturday morning started the 36 hour straight fishing marathon. We headed our early to find some real nasty thunderstorms everywhere around us on our spots. Luckily other than a few small showers and a scare or two with static electricity :eek3: , we came out unscathed. Wind was around 10 knots with seas 2-3 feet and calmed as the day progressed.

Our first drop by Hunter yielded a nice snowy and turned out to be the largest snowy of the day. Then we fished the next 12 hours on a solid grouper and tile fish bite on most the spots.

We fished till dark and headed to the house to unload and weigh our largest tile and grouper at Big Time Bait and Tackle.

First we unloaded the tile (grey) and turned out to be the largest of the day at 9.8 lbs. We knew this would be short lived and we needed a golden to be safe. Then it was time for Hunters snowy. A crowd was gathered at the scale and a rather large fellow was being congratulated with a 20.4 lb snowy and was at the top of the early leader board. The guys then pulled Hunters fish out of our cooler and put it on the scale -21 lbs. Needless to say the rather large fellow was not too happy about being ousted. When inquiries were made as to the angler for a tournament picture, Hunter nudged him and said excuse me I have to take a picture with my fish. I about fell over with laughter. He ended day one in first. But we knew we needed something bigger to get through day two. A quick dinner at Porky’s ensued and then we headed home to re-rig for day 2.

I awoke at 3am to a rather larger thunderstorm that lasted until about 7 in the morning. Bad lighting and five inches of rain hit the area from Marathon to KW. We felt bad about the guys out that were sword fishing that first night. A few boats later reported waterspouts. We got a slightly later start in day two due to the weather, but we were greeted to a gorgeous remainder of the day. Wind was around 15knts and seas started around 3-4 feet and increased slightly during the remainder of the day.

The afternoon bite turned hot. There was a manual crank division and we went basic -Penn 50, mono and our own rig. I dropped in 800 feet and ended up catching a small grey tile that put a serious hurting on me at that depth. Alex then drew short straw and was next to try for something bigger –


He too caught a small grey and we both decided to store the rig and swore we will never bring it out again.

After catching several more snowies in the 20lb class, we searched for the big one. We put Alex on the rod. Last drop of the day was our lucky drop. An absolute slob inhaled a bait and Alex hooked him and brought him up. What a pig -high fives all around –we figured this fish had a good chance to place. We then headed to the house to make weigh in at 6.

At Big Time, a 49.2 lb fish was on the top spot. It was gonna be close –we estimated 45 lbs. On the scale it went. 46.4 lbs - That snowy put us in second place – more high fives.

Dinner was at Castaways later that night. A nice auction was held during dinner and Cal Sutphin MC’d the event. Fish were donated for dinner (we threw in some tiles and snowies), so we had tiles, grouper, sword and mako. Our fish held up.

A nice plaque and a Shimano Tiagra 50 wide. Hmm, maybe the swordfish division next year. Needless to say, the kid is hooked on tournament fishing now. Though it was a very long weekend, it was a nice run small tournament that we will fish in again. I had a great time and thanks again to all of those involved. The crews at Big Time Bait and Tackle and Cudjoe Sales ran this thing and it was a lot of work and I’m sure will get bigger and better every year.

[quack quack]

Congrats on you and your crew.That would have been funny to watch your boy ask that guy to move.

[DIRTYFOOT2]

Congrats. That little fella will remember last weekend for a lifetime

[Shortfin]

Nice work

Great report

Congrat's to Hunter and his whole team !!!!

[Boboe]

Hellatious snowy! Wow!

[Disco Lady]

COÑO!!!!!!!! great catch!

[CAPTAIN RON]

Large Tiles In The Tournament. They Must Be Getting Bigger Down There. Your Son Should Be Proud

[WhItEoUt 23]

SWEEEEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pinder1]

nice trip

[BIGDADDY]

Very Nice....

[BanannaMan]

Great job to you and the crew. Definately a nice fish!! Congrats guys... looks like a good time indeed.

[Catch-All]

nice work in a tough tournament. I would KILL to get a snowy that big.

Catch-All
100 Fathom Fishing Club

[bajakian]

Mark

you dont have to kill, just come to BMC with us next weekend!!

[Catch-All]

Hey Richard - thanks for the offer but what the hell is "BMC" ?

I'm pretty much stuck here in The Shizzle. Three things: Taxes, four friends coming down from South Jersey to go fishing and a possible 100FFC meeting/party.

Hey, did you check out the location of the club's new & improved website? I KNOW you won't have any sign-up problems there. Uncle Buck and his graphic design firm did a hell of a great job for us.

Mark

[bajakian]

Mark- BMC = Blue Marlin Cove , West end Grand Bahama


Sorry you cant make it over with us.

I went to the site but there isnt much going on there yet, unless I am missing something.

[Catch-All]

RB - do you have the website for BMC? I have Bootle's but the idea of having a nearby alternative to go to is tempting.


I saw that you finally joined 100FFC. THe new site location is only two days old so it's going to take a while for old members to "re-join" and start posting and new members to find their way over there.

Don't forget, it's a fishing club with a website, it's not a high-volume online fishing site.

Catch-All

[bajakian]

Mark

Here it is- Blue marlin Cove-BMC to those in the know

Blue Marlin Cove, Bootle Bay, West End, Grand Bahamas