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Team Chunky Luv made it out today to compete in the tournament. Or, was it Team Chunky Spirit??
Aboard were me, HateCheese, Capt. Kevin of the holy Spear-It, and of course, Clay.
We'd all had plans that shifted several times, and Clay ended up without a team for the tourney. I got a call around 5:00 a.m. today, as did Kevin. Clay was feverishly trying to fill out a team. I'm glad everything came together and we put it all together.
We headed out to our farthest, deepest spots first... somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 to 36 miles out of Perdido Pass. Clay and Kevin brought some nice fish to the boat on the first dive... a great start to the day. One of Kevin's snapper on this dive weighed in at about 22.35... Nice! It's currently residing in 3rd place on the tourney board. Kev also got a nice red grouper that was 15 or 16 pounds. I believe it's on the board as well.
On the next dive, HateCheese and I rolled and dropped to nearly 130 ft. It was a little murky at depth and we never did see the reef. But we saw fish... LOTS OF FISH. Out of the cloud of red snapper, I found a nice one... no wait he's not nice, he's BIG. We played for a bit, I tried to position myself for a good shot, he tried to not give me a good shot. Finally, bam! I nailed him. Oh oh, I didn't kill him, he's pissed. And big.
As I start pulling him in, to finish the job, I see another LARGER snapper. I immediately started feeling "buyer's remorse" because I shot the "small" one. I'm yelling at Paul through my reg and pointing frantically at the other big snapper, all the while, still trying to kill and string my fish. Paul made a good shot but hit a harder area and didn't get good penetration I guess. He was trying to get the fish under control but it eventually managed to thrash itself free. Mine weighed in at 24.45 and is currently in 1st place. Paul's fish, had hewon the fight, would have beaten mine by at least a couple of pounds!
We hit another spot but didn't see anything even close to whatwe already had in the box so we didn't shoot. On the next dive, which turned out to be the last, I saw 3 huge fish. 2 snapper and 1 grouper. They were very skittish though and disappeared into the reef before I could get within shootingrange.We called the dive expecting to hit one more spot before runningin to make the weigh-in.
On the way to the next spot,The Luv Boat started experience some technical difficulties... starboard engine was not running well. We made the decision to head for home on one engine, and we barely made it to the scales on time... ok, maybe we had 10 minutes to spare, but when your top speed is about 13, that's pushing it! At least we had good seas on the ride back.
Here are acouple of pics from the day.
Group Photo
Sunset while racing in at a Blistering 13.6 miles per hour... on one engine.
Guess I should have brought my big cooler...
Aboard were me, HateCheese, Capt. Kevin of the holy Spear-It, and of course, Clay.
We'd all had plans that shifted several times, and Clay ended up without a team for the tourney. I got a call around 5:00 a.m. today, as did Kevin. Clay was feverishly trying to fill out a team. I'm glad everything came together and we put it all together.
We headed out to our farthest, deepest spots first... somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 to 36 miles out of Perdido Pass. Clay and Kevin brought some nice fish to the boat on the first dive... a great start to the day. One of Kevin's snapper on this dive weighed in at about 22.35... Nice! It's currently residing in 3rd place on the tourney board. Kev also got a nice red grouper that was 15 or 16 pounds. I believe it's on the board as well.
On the next dive, HateCheese and I rolled and dropped to nearly 130 ft. It was a little murky at depth and we never did see the reef. But we saw fish... LOTS OF FISH. Out of the cloud of red snapper, I found a nice one... no wait he's not nice, he's BIG. We played for a bit, I tried to position myself for a good shot, he tried to not give me a good shot. Finally, bam! I nailed him. Oh oh, I didn't kill him, he's pissed. And big.
As I start pulling him in, to finish the job, I see another LARGER snapper. I immediately started feeling "buyer's remorse" because I shot the "small" one. I'm yelling at Paul through my reg and pointing frantically at the other big snapper, all the while, still trying to kill and string my fish. Paul made a good shot but hit a harder area and didn't get good penetration I guess. He was trying to get the fish under control but it eventually managed to thrash itself free. Mine weighed in at 24.45 and is currently in 1st place. Paul's fish, had hewon the fight, would have beaten mine by at least a couple of pounds!
We hit another spot but didn't see anything even close to whatwe already had in the box so we didn't shoot. On the next dive, which turned out to be the last, I saw 3 huge fish. 2 snapper and 1 grouper. They were very skittish though and disappeared into the reef before I could get within shootingrange.We called the dive expecting to hit one more spot before runningin to make the weigh-in.
On the way to the next spot,The Luv Boat started experience some technical difficulties... starboard engine was not running well. We made the decision to head for home on one engine, and we barely made it to the scales on time... ok, maybe we had 10 minutes to spare, but when your top speed is about 13, that's pushing it! At least we had good seas on the ride back.
Here are acouple of pics from the day.
Group Photo
Sunset while racing in at a Blistering 13.6 miles per hour... on one engine.
Guess I should have brought my big cooler...