Several more trips in the books and it’s once again it’s turning into an outstanding Spring season offshore. We’ll get to the hot canyon bite but first we are thrilled to announce we brought several well deserving military personal to the Tournament Winner’s Circle this weekend. Fishing with personnel from both the US Armed Forces and our neighbors to the North – Canada – we had a hell of a day on Saturday fishing the Warriors for Warriors Shark Tournament. Our 60’ Ritchie Howell was donated to the cause and we had US Navy Seals, US Army Rangers, US Air force medic and a highly decorated Canadian Sniper on board. While we caught one of our biggest makos to date the most incredible experience of the day was listening to the stories these fine men told. It would make you cringe! One of the guys in the photo lost both legs to a mine yet he maintains an incredibly positive and inspirational spirit that humbles you to be around.
Oh yeah – the fishing. Well Capt. Phil Dulanie put his 11th tournament win in the books while with Canyon Runner by taking us to the triple wrecks and shark aficionado Capt. Craig Angelini had the slick in fine order. It took a total of one short hour when Craig fed the 103” - 367 pound mako and the fight was on. She jumped twice and then bogged down in a tough 30 minute fight. Angler Rich Graham – a US Navy Seal Sniper – and one of the founders of the tournament and a graduate of Operation Restored Warriors www.operationrestoredwarrior.com put a beating on the fish and it was quickly subdued at the boat. She was big enough for 2nd Place as our friends on the Tra-Sea-Ann found one even bigger – congrats guy – nice fish!
Meanwhile – as we were preparing for the Tournament Capt. Deane Lambros was putting a flat out beating on the yellowfin with the Tim Gross charter fishing Thursday to Friday. Capt. Deane took them south of where we were fishing starting in the Carteret and working down to the Lindy. Trolling in 500-600 feet of 71 degree water was the ticket – but mostly it was pulling white Canyon Runner spreader bars that seemed to be important as they wouldn’t bite another color bar. We did have plenty of bites on Joe Shute’s with ballyhoo and squid daisy chains with Joe Shute trailers too. A flat out solid trip was put together with 21 yellowfin - we only kept 14 and released the rest to fight another day. They also boated and released a white marlin (the first for Manasquan), several gaffer mahi as well were killed. The night bite was flat out excellent for sharks as they saw a half dozen blue sharks, a huge tiger and 2 makos – killing one at 76” and around 175 pounds. With almost 30 hours on the water and fish boxes full of fish we came home early Friday morning.
With bad weather coming Sunday the John Dale charter moved up their trip a day and we left late Friday and went right to sharking. Capt. Deane set them up just inshore of the edge and they again had great sharking with 4 or 5 blue sharks, two tiger sharks and lost a mako at the boat. A disappointment but it happens – but they made up for the loss of meat by picking away at yellowfin all day Saturday. The bite wasn’t nearly as good as it had been due to the couple dozen boats that made their way to the Lindy so the key was staying away from the crowd and picking away at the fringes. When the dust settled they were 12 for about 17 with 8 nice fish and the rest released. With the forecast getting better for Sunday morning we offered to stay out another night and get the morning bite again and add a mako to the box but the charter was more than thrilled with the quality fishing they had and opted for a nice day Sunday to rest for the work week.
Coming in just a slight second behind putting those Vets into a big mako was that we put several of our Canyon Runner Fishing Report Members into their best trips of their lives this weekend. Working with Adam on land and Capt. Deane offshore we saw multiple Fishing Members put together double digit catches of yellowfin for the first time in their fishing careers – great job guys. And last but not least – one Canyon Runner Support Team also added to the Tournament winning pot with Capt. Sean Welsh’s Restless Lady guys nailing a nice mako in the Ocean City Mako Mania tournament taking home over $50,000 – congrats guys! Capt. Sean provides intel for the report service and has been crushing the makos this past week catching 7 on an overnighter, several others throughout the week and of course this tournament winner.
