Friday, July 27, 2007:
What a day a difference makes – or something like that. The difference showed itself early on, as Reel Trouble, Capt. Billy D., brought in a major bluefin tuna. On hoist, it was easy to see the second day’s first serious weigh-in was on the tail of the event’s leader, yesterday’s 181.7 bft off Ocean 58 – a DNF (did not fish) boat today. Well, the electronic digital scale toyed with the top weight then settled an unbelievably close 181.5. Wow.
Since I know the captain I can bring up the fact that a goodly chunk of flesh was pulled out with the gaffing. Cap knew that and skillfully noted, “We might not have the fish if we didn’t get that gaff in.” Touché.
Of import is the very exacting way the weigh-in team faithfully checks each gill plate for any ice cubes trapped therein. The guys even poke their finger in gaff holes to remove any embedded cubes. Seems a bit much until you see the event’s largest tunas (to date) coming down to mere ounces apart.
HOT: But here I am talking tuna when the huge news is the first white marlin in the contest. Dragonfly brought in an 85.15 qualifying billfish – over 68 inches. I think I heard it was 70-some inches. The boat captain was Brian Lakefield and the fish-fighter was Alex Napolietto. This qualifying billfish instantly trumps all in the tuna of any size. Geez, might that be why it’s called a white marlin tournament? Damn straight. With the massive popularity of poker nowadays, you can relate any white marlin to a straight flush hand: even the lowest straight-flush outdoes every other hand except a higher straight flush. So where’s the better white marlin hand? It’s still swimming out there for the 31 boats going out for tomorrow’s final day. I know of a couple boats that take this first white marlin as incentive to hit the canyons and out do the Dragonfly.
Now back to tuna. First, a quick dollar note that the big calcutta splits earnings between the biggest tuna and biggest white marlin — for those in that red-dot calcutta (that’s the color of the dot on the board). Interestingly, neither Ocean 59 (fishing tomorrow) nor Reel Trouble are in the big calcutta. This throws the whole thing into a complexity that eludes me except it say it’ll all works out tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that Fish Trap (yesterday’s 169 pound bft) is plying big calcutta waters with the new white marlin heading into the final day. How the three smaller calcuttas pay out will be perfectly clear to me when the wining are announced at the tomorrow’s banquet. I’m pretty sure I’m not in the running unless there’s a random writer in the audience category. I did almost score a tuna today as the Business didn’t pull up to the docks but had their two bft wheelbarrowed in. Their fish sat there after weigh-in and I was eying the two tasty bft with bad intent. They soon came and hauled them off. Pity.
And there were also some real nice also-swam today. The average size of bft today was almost double that of yesterday, as many captains took the lead of yesterday’s successful bft catchers and made the turn southward. Jersey Cape banked a 101.1; Hang Tough tallied a 146.4; Anthracite offered a 138.8; Business hooked a 139.3; Outer Limits bested a 139.8; and Eureka docked a 159.1. (Again, I had to scratch down weight numbers while doing a ton of other stuff – like trying to understands what the difference is between various marlin types — so sorry if the number aren’t all right-on. By event’s end the exact poundage will be certified and published.)
Tomorrow will see an even split between those going canyon and those going closer-in and south. The weather will surely hold – making this year one of the finest skied WMITs in many years. By the by, the total boat number is now 113. Friday, July 27, 2007:What a day a difference makes – or something like that. The difference showed it elf early on, as Reel Trouble, Capt. Billy D., brought in a major bluefin tuna. On hoist, it was easy to see the second day’s first serious weigh-in was on the tail of the event’s leader, yesterday’s 181.7 bft off Ocean 58 – a DNF (did not fish) boat today. Well, the electronic digital scale toyed with the top weight then settled an unbelievably close 181.5. Wow.
Since I know the captain I can bring up the fact that a goodly chunk of flesh was pulled out with the gaffing. Cap knew that and skillfully noted, “We might not have the fish if we didn’t get that gaff in.” Touché.
Of import is the very exacting way the weigh-in team faithfully checks each gill plate for any ice cubes trapped therein. The guys even poke their finger in gaff holes to remove any embedded cubes. Seems a bit much until you see the event’s largest tunas (to date) coming down to mere ounces apart.
HOT: But here I am talking tuna when the huge news is the first white marlin in the contest. Dragonfly brought in an 85.15 qualifying billfish – over 68 inches. I think I heard it was 70-some inches. The boat captain was Brian Lakefield and the fish-fighter was Alex Napolietto. This qualifying billfish instantly trumps all in the tuna of any size. Geez, might that be why it’s called a white marlin tournament? Damn straight. With the massive popularity of poker nowadays, you can relate any white marlin to a straight flush hand: even the lowest straight-flush outdoes every other hand except a higher straight flush. So where’s the better white marlin hand? It’s still swimming out there for the 31 boats going out for tomorrow’s final day. I know of a couple boats that take this first white marlin as incentive to hit the canyons and out do the Dragonfly.
Now back to tuna. First, a quick dollar note that the big calcutta splits earnings between the biggest tuna and biggest white marlin — for those in that red-dot calcutta (that’s the color of the dot on the board). Interestingly, neither Ocean 59 (fishing tomorrow) nor Reel Trouble are in the big calcutta. This throws the whole thing into a complexity that eludes me except it say it’ll all works out tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that Fish Trap (yesterday’s 169 pound bft) is plying big calcutta waters with the new white marlin heading into the final day. How the three smaller calcuttas pay out will be perfectly clear to me when the wining are announced at the tomorrow’s banquet. I’m pretty sure I’m not in the running unless there’s a random writer in the audience category. I did almost score a tuna today as the Business didn’t pull up to the docks but had their two bft wheelbarrowed in. Their fish sat there after weigh-in and I was eying the two tasty bft with bad intent. They soon came and hauled them off. Pity.
And there were also some real nice also-swam today. The average size of bft today was almost double that of yesterday, as many captains took the lead of yesterday’s successful bft catchers and made the turn southward. Jersey Cape banked a 101.1; Hang Tough tallied a 146.4; Anthracite offered a 138.8; Business hooked a 139.3; Outer Limits bested a 139.8; and Eureka docked a 159.1. (Again, I had to scratch down weight numbers while doing a ton of other stuff – like trying to understands what the difference is between various marlin types — so sorry if the number aren’t all right-on. By event’s end the exact poundage will be certified and published.)
Tomorrow will see an even split between those going canyon and those going closer-in and south. The weather will surely hold – making this year one of the finest skied WMITs in many years. By the by, the total boat number is now 113.
