As posted we ended up in 8th place
We got down to Virginia for our 1st ever trip there and had a blast !!!
We trailered our brand new Hydrasport 2900 vector down there leaving Ma midnight Sat Dec 2, about a 16 hr drive for us !
We fished around the bridge sunday, mostly observing what the locals were doing, and watched, seeing lots jig mojo rigs there, but we caught only small fish there, so we went with our plan from talking with some charter captains we talked with and fished way north .
Monday was a blow out because of the wind so we got in the truck and took a ride to scout the area Smith point, stopped in all the bait/tackle shops and picked up as much info that we could!
We even came across what is my opinion, one of the biggest problems with the lack of bunker/pogies (Omega Protein)
Tuesday we got in the boat early and headed 70 miles north and fished Smith Point and got tons of very fat slot size fish that we needed for the tournament and even some larger ones up to 40lbs.
Wed we did pretty much the same run, but fished a bunch more spots on the way back to Virginia beach, to have plan b in place , but it seemed the larger fish were north.
Wed evening, we attended the captains meeting and dinner (great meal they put on for us!!! )
Thursday 7:00am start for the tournament we start the 70 mile run with me at the wheel, we get about 30 miles and making good time and the 1st problem for the day, port engine prop blows (spun hub ) we have a spare stb but not a spare port!
We continue another 20 miles now doing 18 kts ( was doing over 40 kts )
start fishing and within 1/2 hr we land a nice fat 33 1/2 in 19lb fish, we are pretty happy !!!
Fished another hr there, no fish and we figure we should start heading back as we figured it was going to be a LONG ride back only being able to do 18 kt max and the wind was supposed to kick up.
We get about 5 miles from Cape Charles and started fishing there as we made pretty good time!
We stayed there about 1/2 hr and picked up another slot size fish !, not as big as the 1st, but over 30 inches!!!
We now realize that we are going to need gas in the sbt tank so we go to Cape Charles for gas and about 1 mile from the gas dock the stb prop blows (another spun hub)
We get to the gas dock, I get in the water and change the prop while we gas up .
We start heading for the weigh in and about 2 miles from Lynnhaven the 3rd prop hub starts slipping :x
But we back off the throttles a bit and make the weigh in with 15 minutes to spare!!! :wink:
We end up in 6th place for the day and are both happy to be in 6th cosidering the problems only allowing us to fish for about 2 hrs , but also a bit bummed because we know we could have ended up higher without the prop problems !!!
That night the wind kicked up and we had a gale warning till noon friday.
Tournament officials decide we are starting at noon friday as they were told by the coats guard they would be lifting the warning at noon thus only allowing every team to fish for 3 hrs !
Friday conditions made it pretty tough and all but 2 boats who went out came back with NO fish, and the 2 boats who came back with 1 fish each jumped into the top 5 !dropping us down to 8th.
But even though we had some problems with the new boat and the weather, we had a great time and will be making the trip again next year.
I want to send out a big thank you to Ranger Tim for his help !!!
Sorry for not responding sooner Tim, been playing catch up all week from being gone !
For anyone considering this tournament, I have nothing but good things to say about it as it is run 1st class !!!
We've fished lots of tournaments from local ones, ASA and now FLW
and this is by far the best run tournament !!!
