Fight-N-Lady report 6-17

[freebird2]

(written bt Brad Burton Mate)

With the Big Rock behind the Fight N Lady I finally have a chance to compile some pictures and do a quick write up of the past two weeks. After a busy week of preparing for the biggest Blue Marlin tournament on the east coast the events started Saturday morning as we left the slip with a boat full of ladies that thought that 5:00 only came once a day. With a lot of current where we were fishing things started out slowly but as the day wore on Capt. Shane found some better water. Around noon a nice mahi attacked the left teaser then switched to the flat line and began pulling drag off the Tiagra 80. With everything clear and our lady angler in the chair the battle began against what would turn out to be the winning mahi for the ladies tournament.

Saturday night brought on a great time at the Big Rock party that was paid for ten fold Sunday morning making me very glad I had completed all my rigging Saturday afternoon in preparation for the Monday's big show. With lines in at nine Monday morning spirits were high as we set the spread for that million dollar bite. Around 10:30 I see a bill swatting the left teaser, realizing it is a sail or white marlin I drop the circle hooked dink on a TLD 25 back in time for Shane to jerk the teaser away as I stuck the bait in front of his face. With a few seconds of drop back the circle hook found its mark and we were "hooked up" on our first white marlin of the tournament.

Tuesday brought more good fishing for us as we released another whitie and a sail for 450 points with two more days of fishing. Unfortunately that was the end of the billfish action for us last week as the drama that surrounded the 51st Big Rock went on with out the crew of the Fight N Lady.

As luck would have it our next charter was Sunday after the last day of the tournament and the marlin were chewing! After a dozen gaffer dolphin we worked out to the deep in search of something with a bill. Less than ten minutes after setting the dredge we were hooked up to a pair of white Marlin. Within an hour of releasing the pair of whites Shane noticed a shadow under the right short rigger. With grace the blue marlin deleted worded the sea witch down and disappeared to the deep until I pushed the drag up and he hit the surface greyhounding, dumping the Penn 30 as he went. With a thirty minute fight and six inches of water in the cockpit and we had the leader on a frisky 300lb blue. Despite the great marlin fishing, my favorite fish of the day was a 30lb mahi that I hooked on the circle hooked dink and handed off to a 77 year old gentleman. It was a great battle on the TLD 25 that brought as much excitement as the blue marlin for the crowd from up-state NY.

Monday's fishing was just as good as we caught 20 big gaffers and released a sail fish. We also had a stud blue marlin appear on the teaser while we were fighting a couple of mahi but he faded off showing us no love. The rest of the fleet also had great marlin fishing yesterday with the stand out being Capt. Thomas Woods on the Dancin Outlaw with 3 blue marlin and a white. That kind of fishing is certainly note worthy and what makes Morehead City such an outstanding fishing destination.

Brad.

(I personaly want to thank Capt. Dave with Sea View he put us on the fish for 4 days in a row during the tournament. Thanks Capt Dave!)Shane

[Trollnheel]

Nice work guys! We were following along pulling for ya. You'll get 'em :239_fishing:next year

[King Smurf]