09 - Summer Sword Slam Bonnie and Clyde report

[weekendbender]

First off thanks again to Drew for running another excellent tournament. At the captains meeting two things always seem to happen. Will usually wins a bunch of the raffles and I never do. Well things change. Will won his usual few items and I actually won one - the Global Fish mount of a dolphin, er make that a peanut dolphin. Still pretty stoked about that, our fish mount had now become our team mascot named EL O EL. And our lucky mascot delivered.



We fished hard and got out early to look for some dolphin and figure out our drift for the night. We promptly found a few slammers and around 7:30 we see a free jumper marlin. Threw the lines back up and trolled by her. She jumped on our port side then as we passed she jumped on our starboard side as if to let Cliff know his marlin Jinx would last yet another trip. Oh well we want swords anyway.

We heard the count down to the tourney start and do our deep drop to no avail. Move back to where we want to drift and Dax grabs a rod that was freight trained by something big. After a non stop full drag run of about 3 minutes we were trying to clear lines and chase whatever this biggun was and as the spool is getting low, the line snaps. Wish we had a chance to see it.

Reset and around midnight we have a slight drag pull. I grab the rod but the fish is not on. A swing and a miss. About 2 minutes later another slight drag pull on the same rod. I grab the rod and she's singing. The crew cleared the lines and we got her to the boat in about a half hour. Will and Cliff both stuck the gaff and Dax did a great job on the wire. All four of us had to drag this slightly green sword over the gunnel. We knew we had the biggest fish for a good hour and a half then we heard those dreaded words... "Committee boat Committee boat..." and we knew we had still had a chance but now had some major competition. Our fish came in at 67 1/2 LJFL but only 133lbs. A big congrats to Weekly Rehab on their winning fish, a 65 LJFL fish that weighed in at 157 +/- LBS.









It was a long night and Will got some rest on the ride back to PE... EL O EL.





Once again we had a blast and look forward to the next one.

[TTesterman]

nice fish also. you could have just accidentally on purpose knocked thier fish in the water...

[Disco Lady]

COÑO!!!!!!!! Great! job guys great meeting all of you at Drews Tournament. Hats of to Drew for another great tournament again preetty work brotha..............

DL,

Big Game Baits! Inc.

[fishxtreme]

Good report, nice fish and pics

[TOPPDAWG]

Good job guys !!!!!!!!! I know i wasn't seeing things.i posted in another column about seeing weekend bender. ----nice fish

[weekendbender]

The only thing I forgot to mention on our night was that the USCG scared the crap out of us. We had finished putting out all of the lines and we were all watching the jugs when Will points to port and says "they are going to ram us." Not something you want to hear on the darkside. A USCG boat came off plane and was about 20 feet away from us. I am glad we figured out it was the coast guard because Cliff and I were both about to jump on the throttles. With the sea anchor out and a full spread it would have been ugly. They were totally blacked out and close enough to tell us they were looking for a go fast boat with red, white and blue colors that "ran out of gas." I know they are doing their job but damn, light us up when you get close, don't freakin scare the bejesus out of us.

[WhItEoUt 23]

Way to go Ben it was a pleasure meeting you at the Captains meeting.

[Nick C]

Nice work guys!b