miami billfish tourney new record tuna

[fish eye]

Just got off the phone with my friend and he said a yft was weighed in at over 190lbs! A new tournament record. He said it was caught on 20lb test and the fight lasted about an hour and a half.He didn't have much luck.1 sail released another broke the hook couple of small dolphin, and weighed in a 12lb king.He said the seas were 4-6.

[robertov]

Here is the report from the tourney:

I apologize for not having posted earlier but 3 days of tournament fishing takes longer to recuperate from than it used to when I was younger. Anyway, here is how it went down. The Gold Coast Distributors / Gilligan’s Revenge team had a six man crew on Friday: Carlos Lopez-Gottardi (me) on the wheel, Carlos Martinez and Danny Diaz were on the right / north side while Alex Bienes and Robert Vich took on the left / south side, and, Jorge Luzarraga filled in on either side whenever a break was needed.
The day started off normal enough, we ran south on the inside from Checkpoint Charlie in Government Cut and went out through Caesar’s in no time (at nearly 60 MPH). Then, we worked out way out to 150 feet halfway between Pacific Light and Ocean Reef. It was a bumpy with light north current, about 1 knot. We had plenty of lively gogs, threads and a few small pilchards just in case. The kites were flying high and the bait was bridled and ready to go for the LINES IN call on the radio. We fired out the baits at 8 AM and the morning produced 3 sails. Not too bad, I believe we were tied for 3rd with a large number of other boats at mid-day. We saw too more sails early in the afternoon that ended up fighting for the right short. They managed to pop the bait off and chased it in the wrong direction away from our spread. We didn’t see another sail from that point forward but we still felt pretty good about our chances as we neared the end of day one since there were still two days of fishing to go.

Here is where it gets interesting. We have about 30 minutes till lines and out and decide to try a little deeper. I start bumping us out slowly, Carlos M is on the right / north side and Robert is now on left / south side. Both have gogs on the long and middle and a thread on the short. With 15 minutes left before lines out, in 185 feet of water, we notice that Robert’s middle is heading south. Robert picks up the rod, feeds the fish, pops the clip and comes tight. The rest of the team watches the remaining five baits to see if we can get more fish on.

At this point, I don’t think that fish knew he was hooked as the fight was fairly steady. Then, about two to three minutes into the fight I guess the fish figures out that something is wrong and his whole attitude changes. Line starts peeling off the reel at a ridiculous rate and the whole crew starts thinking about something other than sailfish. 10 minutes left before lines out so the call goes into the committee boat “9 hooked up.” It becomes pointless to keep the spread out, the last five baits are skipping and we are chasing the fish at 20 mph and still losing line. The crew clears the remaining lines and the kites come in as the chase is on. Robert has been at it for 20 minutes and by now the drag has been upped in order keep some line in the reel.

After about 45 minutes I get the first look at the fish from the tower at about 200 yards out. I can only see his back: very thick and it appears to be light gray. I know he is big and I start thinking yellow fin, sword or (don’t laugh) possibly a baby porpoise. It does not take long for us to realize that we only have 30 minutes to land the fish if we are to make it to the weigh station in time. Danny (tournament announcer) keeps calling us on the radio to see if we are still hooked up. Several tournament boats that were to our south start passing us. The crew starts getting a bit nervous and the call is made to get aggressive on the fish. The drag is locked down very, very tight and I begin maneuvering the boat hard so that he cannot sit there swimming comfortably at his own pace. We change directions on him frequently, go deeper, go shallower, etc. Robert is getting so down and dirty that all of us were amazed at how much flex was on the rod.

It’s not long before Robert starts overheating with all the pressure that is being put on this fish. You can’t blame the guy, he probably reeled in all 700 yards of line on the reel 10 times, he has somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 to 22 lbs of drag on the fish, the swordfish harness is at home in the garage and we don’t have a fighting chair. Carlos M. (not me, I’m driving) notices that Robert still has his bib on so he very gently and tenderly removes his clothing to cool Robert off. Carlos M did it so quickly and smoothly that I am certain that it was not his first time. Danny helps out by pouring ice water over Robert and the reel. Now Robert is ready to stick it to him, he lets us know that he wants to break the fishes will. We all decide that we are making check in no matter what, fish or no fish.

Robert fought the fish at 110% the last half an hour. We did not let the fish get comfortable by spinning on him whenever necessary and changing the direction in which we put pressure on him. I am on the tower and finally see color. I can’t believe it; this has to be the biggest fish I have ever seen in person other than a few blues in exotic locations. He does his death spiral and Alex leaders him perfectly. I thought for sure either the hook would straighten or that the leader would break. No way that you can budge a fish of this size without doing so. However, Alex puts on just enough pressure. Danny puts the four inch hook in him; again, the flying gaff that we use for swordfish is at home in the garage. It takes 3 people to drag him to the back of the boat. I come jumping off the tower and there are now 4 of us holding the beast. We start to haul him over the side and all of a sudden the gaff tears through Danny’s perfect head shot. It’s simply too much weight. I’m thinking, oh well, another fish story but Alex manages to leader him again. Unbelievable! This time all 6 of us are on him and this time he comes flying over the gunnel.

High fives erupt and Robert falls on the floor. Five of us look at Robert and begin to think about how happy we are that we were not on the rod when he hit. We throw the fish into the box after looking at him in awe for a few moments. Robert sprays the crew with any open beer bottle that he can find and I call in the fish on 82. It was so crazy that I still don’t know what I said on the radio. We only have about 50 minutes to make a thirty some mile run back to Miami Beach Marina in solid 4 to 6 footers. This was our first tournament in our new boat, a beautiful ’40 SeaHunter with triple 275 Verados. The SeaHunter ate up the waves and we cleared the jetty with less than 10 minutes to spare. We finally make it into the holding basin with less than 5 minutes to spare. I honestly believe that we would not have made the weigh in on any other boat, perfect timing on the purchase.

I can’t tell you how proud I am of our crew for working so hard together to catch this fish of a lifetime. Robert was absolutely incredible on the rod. Alex was perfect on the leader. Danny was perfect on the gaff shot. Carlos M was the perfect director of traffic, our motivator and the pants removal expert. Jorge made sure that the pit was clear helped in all aspects. I guess I drove OK.

In case you didn’t catch it before, the fish was caught in local waters and the bait was a gog. The catch was made with 20 lb. line, 50 lb. leader and a circle hook. Boy was I nervous about my biminis. Robert later told me that he could not stop thinking about the leaders that he had prepared that night while he was fighting the fish. I think that everyone was thinking about everything that could go wrong as the fight progressed. No doubt that luck was on our side, these fish usually take 3-5 times as long to land on 50 lb. or heavier tackle. It certainly helped that he never got out past 250 feet. Final weight was 194.5 lbs.

Not too much to report on days two or three. I think we had used up all of our luck for the tourney, month and year with this one. Yes, we have pics. I will get one of the crew to post them ASAP.

And here they are...

[quack quack]

Great catch way to go.Who was on 105.9 this morning?

[robertov]

Thanks. The person on the radio was Danny, he's the one which gaffed the fish.

[fish eye]

That one hell of a story.The fish gods were on your side WTG!

[P33JP3]

great report, great pics! WTG guys.