by Christopher Sprague, Contributing Writer
Hello Anglers,
The weather has not been great this last month, making it hard to get outside. Finally, the seas calmed down for the West Palm Beach Fishing Club KDW, which is a very family friendly tournament and one of our favorites. We went bait fishing the day before the tournament. The ocean was flat calm. We caught only a few blue runners and decided to go in & ice the boat down and get ready! The next day, we woke up at 3:30 and made our way to Riviera Beach Marina, loaded the boat, picked up some more live bait from Gary, and then left out of the Palm Beach Inlet. We ran to Juno/Jupiter where we saw clear water and a strong current. We watched the clock hit 6:30 & lines in!! Almost immediately, we heard the reel scream. Quickly, our crewmate Jason started reeling it in, while I tended the lines in the back. We saw the silver coming up and then my Dad gaffed it. It was a decent size kingfish, which we estimated to be 25 pounds.
We thought that the day was going to be full of excitement, with a lot of fish after that one… but it wasn’t. We had multiple kingfish around ten pounds, but then I finally got the chance to catch a big fish. We had a large blue runner way back. The line started peeling off quickly, I took the rod. We first saw the fish in 5 minutes at the boat. We realized that it was a big tuna. Every time the fish saw the boat, it took a long run down. I fought the fish for 45 minutes, finally getting the fish close enough to gaff. Jason gaffed it and got it in the boat. It was a nice blackfin tuna and we guessed it to be 30 pounds. After that, we tried for more fish and caught and released a few small kings. The kingfish ended up being 25 pounds, enough for 9thplace. There was no tuna category, but we weighed it and it was 27.7 pounds. A memory I will never forget! Tuna can put up a great fight!!
Tight Lines
Christopher Sprague