On Saturday, George Push chartered the NetKeeper for the Leonado Flukemaster Tournament. Hollywood Mike, John (aka one armed bandit for today), Richie and Eric The Mortgageman rounded out the tournament team crew.
I Gambled on the channels, a wreck and some rough stuff that I had not fished yet this season away from everyone else. Started slow with shorts and birds until we eventually got to the wreck and started drifting it and the neighboring bottom. On just about every drift for a 2 hour period, the guys boxed 1 or more keepers with a good number of shorts in the mix. At times we were doubled and even tripled up with Fluke on. Drift Conditions were perfect and repeatable. The only problem, the keepers were cookie cutter from 18" to 23".
By noon we were up to 16 keepers and the fish were still coming. With the numbers rising I decided to further gamble that there had to be some bigger fish in the mix and so stuck it out. As we lost the tide I went to some nearby rubble that yielded some shorts and some moments that got our hopes up. George hooked up with a monster that turned out to be a large silver eel and Richie hooked into a 4.5# (certified on Leonardo Tournament scale) Sea Bass. After giving snaggy bottom a go, we returned to pounding the wreck picking more keepers until it was time to pick up andrun for weigh-in. Left them biting. When all was said and done we only could muster for the scales a five fish total of17.70#.
Eric put on a bucktailing clinic working on almost a double limit, Mike & Richie also got their limits and George came close. John, broken arm and banged up put some keepers iin the box too. By days end the guys had landed 30 keepers for a 5 man limit. Great bunch of guys who kept the bucktails tipped with gulp and strip baits working all day long.
Thanks again guys, as usual it was a blast.
