Summer time and the living is easy and July anglers in South Florida waters feasted on schools of mahi mahi, the ubiquitous kingfish and the usual summer fare found in the area.
Swordfishing was a little off but bottom action, groupers and snappers, was productive and yellowtail were harvested in the nearby Bahamas. As the seventh month wanes into history the crayfish season begins with the two day mini season which will see more boats on the water than D day.
Highlights of the month - a shark with a taste for frog legs - local guru captures a giant blue marlin , John Travolta clone wins a swordfish tournament and Wound Up captures the July 4th World marlin challenge . Read below!
Super diver, tournament mate and captain John “Frog” Cooper, was diving in the Bimini area with some neophytes when he was bitten in the back of the leg by a rogue shark. Cooper though wounded didn’t panic kept his head in the game and returned to the boat. He was air lifted to Miami’s Jackson Hospital where super Cooper was stabilized, treated and walked out the door in about five days ready to return to the deep. During his stay in the hospital, Froggie became an icon on Channel Seven News with his boyish charm and his tale of a close call with the grim reaper. Cooper’s legion of fans and friends are happy that he is back in action.
Crook and Crook’s fishing professor Elias Rodriquez journeyed to Gomera in the Canary Islands for some big game fishing in the last week of June. Elias went out on a memorable June 30th outing aboard the 46 foot Bertram, Hedonist, our guru Elias was the angler fishing with Captain Jorge Santana and mates Ian Dickow and John Phillips.
In a fast and furious battle they hooked up with a giant blue and captured the beast in twenty minutes. The fish weighed in at 965 pounds. Alas if they had done this on the fourth of July they would have captured the Independence Day world marlin event. They were using 130 pound line and a Black Bart blue breakfast lure.
Elias brought back the bill and gave it to Crook and Crook’s manager Jack Agramonte who will fashion it into a primitive deer hunting device.
Wound Up won the July 4th World Cup Marlin Tournament with an 865 pound blue marlin caught in Bermuda. Wound Up became the first boat to capture the World Cup and the Bermuda Billfish Blast at the same time. Al Schaefer called our attention that this Wound Up was not Warren Sands’ sleek and successful Spencer fishing machine from South Florida skippered by the great John Dudas that is usually the favorite to win any tournament they enter. This was Captain James Robinson’s, a colorful Bermuda fisherman, Wound Up a 37 foot Duffy that accomplished this double slam which featured the boating of the 865 pound blue marlin.
Captain Luis Herrera recently won the Summer Slam Swordfish Tournament at Lighthouse Marina. Luis ran Patrick Weekly’s 33 Contender Weekly Rehab and used his colored natural squids called Disco Squids to catch the winning fish. Fishing with 50 pound stand up tackle the Weekly crew caught this 159 pound sword which they battled for an hour and 45 minutes. Captain Luis learned his trade back in the day mating for the great Captain Joe Criscuilo on the Second Chance. He fished all day and danced the night away, thus he became Disco Looie. He resembled John Travolta and had all his moves. It was said he was more Travolta than Travolta.
Local legal eagle and fly maven Rick Gunion teamed up with ice man Captain Bret Dudas of the fishing Dudas clan and captured a potential IGFA record 32.4 pound bull dolphin in the Bahamas. Gunion caught the mahi mahi on four tippet fly rod .This is the second huge dolphin the duo fought on a four pound tippet, they broke one off after a furious two hour battle off Miami. Brett’s brother John runs Warren Sands’ Wound Up and Rick‘s brother David is in the Bahamas searching for the fishing Voss brothers.
Cat Cay went green in the late unlamented blue fin tuna season many schools were sighted and baited but not one of the beasts was caught. Perennial champion Captain Bart Sherwood did not stay for the entire season and the Paleologos athelphos only fished part time which contributed to the greening of the season. If there was a tuna champion this year it would have to be Quinten Dieterle on the Cutting Edge who hooked up with a giant off Miami and after a brief four minute fight lost him on thirty pound test line.
Rumor has it this might be Captain Sherwood’s last tuna run. He has caught blue fins in all venues and like Alexander the Great has no more fields to conquer. The word is Captain Bart wants to quit while he is at the top of his craft and try his hand at a business career. Look for tuna Bart to become an entrepreneur.
Miamian Ed Nader who grows cigar tobacco in darkest Africa and his team recently finished second in he Cameroun Africa Fishing Tournament .The team was sponsored by Pernod Ricard and won the tag and release portion and finished second overall.
Captain Marcello Peres of Frank Godwin’s Sonny Boy and Sunset’s Marian Bader both suffered broken ankles recently, must have been a virus going around. The good news is that both are making speedy recoveries and should be back in action soon.
Jeff Wright sent us this picture of his precocious and attractive daughter with a trophy fish she caught off the dock. Dad and his pride and joy fish every week from the dock and the little lady never gets skunked.
That’s it for this month fans.
As usual I close with the quote of the month:
Two anglers recently struck up a conversation in the tackle department at Crook and Crook. One burly man allowed he was a commercial fisherman from Alaska. The other fellow said when he thinks of Alaska he pictures fresh water fishing. Elias, our guru, was rigging a lure within earshot, interjected, “I think of Palin”.
