Tuttles Offshore Tournament – Sargent, TX

This tournament was one that would test our abilities as a team.  The captain’s meeting started out on Friday night at the Crusty Pelican in Sargent about 60 miles away from our home town of Pearland, TX.  When the captain’s meeting was over we headed back home to get the 24ft Cape Horn and make the 100 mile road trip to launch the boat out of Sabine, TX near the border of La.

We had been pre-fishing a spot approx. about 100 miles offshore of Galveston and the bite had been pretty good.  We launched the boat out of Sabine because it was going to take about 30 miles off of our run for the day.  We headed out in to pitch dark conditions running off of the radar and chart plotter only, making about 10 knots until the sun began to break over the horizon.  Once Kevin had full light, it was wide opens throttles for the twin engine 24 ft. Cape Horn.

As we approached our fishing grounds there had been another boat that had been tied up in the area overnight, and to top it off the crew of the boat was swimming in the water like they were at the beach.  Our spot was ruined for the day.

We could only manage to pull some small snakes out of the area before we headed to another spot.  We managed some high 20 lb. fish at other spots, but no money fish.  Later that day with about an hour of fish time left we went back to our first spot, the over night boat was gone.

We started deploying baits and the bite was on. We managed about 7 fish starting out in the mid 20 lb. range with each fish being caught weighing a pound or two heavier each time.  As time was running short we threw out once last bait and it got nailed as I was deploying it in the prop was.  Kevin ran down the fish as fast as he could with about twenty extra minutes to spare.  We gaffed the fish and had her in the boat in less than five minutes; she was a solid 35 lb. fish.

We decided to take a gamble.  We knew that 35 lbs. would not win the tournament.  So we decided to deploy one last bait, and the big blue runner also got nailed in the prop wash.  This fish was big; it smoked off about 250 yards of line.  Kevin once again was putting the boat on top of the fish as quick as he could.  With the fish almost to the boat, the rod doubled over again.  It was now a hard steady pull like the big king had went to the bottom.  This monster of a fish pulled the boat through two rigs and about a quarter mile farther offshore.

We were pushed for time.  I buckled down on the drag and started to make lead way on the fish.  To our amaze about a 400lb Hammerhead had eaten or big king.  The king’s head was still in the Hammer’s mouth, with the approx. other 45lbs. of her in the Hammer’s stomach.  We were now about 10 minutes behind on the clock to weigh in our 35lb King that we had caught shortly before.

We buckled everything down on the boat and prepared ourselves for the 150 mile run back to Sargent at wide open throttle; it was a ride of a life time.  The seas were a sloppy and choppy 3-5ft. with some 5-7fts. Mixed in.  We made it to the scales with about 5 minutes to spare.  The big king weighed 33.40 at the scales and was good for an 8^th place finish.

We only ended up fishing 3 of the 5 tournaments for the 2007 TKA season with only weighing in two nice fish.  We still managed to finish in 18^th and qualify for the Texas Championship.