Team Yellowfin/Comfortably Numb
Becky Smith, Eric Smith, Jake Smith, Cooper Cordin
Ft Myers 4/11-13 SKA Event 2 Day
Here we are, the last tournament of division 11 and we are currently 5th in Class standings, 1st in Ladies, and 1st in Juniors. We have a plan and hope all works. The boat has been serviced and the bite has been good since the Naples tournament. Weather looks good on Saturday but an approaching cold front Saturday night will make sea conditions somewhat unfavorable on Sunday.
As with the last 2 events, we arrived at the Naples boat ramp Thursday morning at 6:30am. We were at our bait spot by 7:30am. The bite was hot for all of 15 minutes. It took us 4 hours this time to locate the runners and fill the well with the 7 dozen needed for both days. That was 3 hours longer than I really wanted to spend doing this, but its all part of the preparation for these tournaments.
Day 1:
At 6:40am we arrived at the entrance to Mantaza's Inlet located at the north end of Ft Myers Beach. Checkout was at 7am. We figured it would take a fifty for us to place in the top so our choice spot was Cooper's honey hole. This is an area that has produced some big fish in the past for him and this is what we needed this trip. So at 7am we headed to the "Shed" in search of our 50. We arrived there and moments after our first spread was out this took a 2lb mullet:
Jake was able pull this to the boat within 15 minutes where we released the sail. Got the next spread out and the king skyed on a runner.
This king would end up being the fish we'd weigh in on day one:
The rest of the day was very slow. We caught several AJ's, sharks, and cudas, and a few more kings in the 20lb range. Back at weigh in the king went 36.84lb and placed us in 6th for the end of the day. Ozzie Fisher, a well known angler in the southwest part of Florida weighed in a 56.14lb and was currently leading. We knew we'd have our work cut out on day 2.
Day 2:
With weather conditions deteriorating we decided to stay close. At checkout we ran up to Boca Grand Inlet. The plan was to give this place a couple hours in the morning then head offshore to a couple of places, then back to the inlet for a couple hours in the afternoon. The first line in produced a king in the low 20's. The bite shut down after that. We moved offshore to an area that looked very fishy. Plenty of bait in the area but only could find a few in the low 20's. The rest of the day was extremely slow. We did have a large bull shark attempt to eat a mullet but missed it. That was a sight there! At 3:20pm we headed back to Ft Myers.
Back at weigh in we learned that Ozzie had boated another 56 lb king. Unbelievable!! Congrats to Ozzie and his team, what a weekend for them. We ended up in 7th place in the Class boats, 1st place in Ladies, and 2nd place in Juniors. It was a good tournament for us and well run by Alberto. We will look forward to fishing Division 11 next year.
FINAL division standings for our team: Total points 114.21
4th in Class Boats
1st in Ladies- Becky is the 2008 SKA Top Lady Angler - Division 11
2nd in Juniors
Jake also won the Mercury Marine's Junior Angler Scholarship award for the third time. He claimed all 3 in this division. Here is a couple more pictures of him in action:
We would like to thank Wylie of Yellowfin Yachts and Mercury marine. This combo gets you there first!!
Weigh In with the Hooters Girls
Naples 3/28-30 SKA Event 2 Day
We came into this event 6th in Class standings, 2nd in Ladies, and 2nd in Juniors. We are hoping as are other teams of placing first in Class. This would be a great event to win. We found out earlier this week that we would have a camera crew on board for day 1. They are filming a new show, hope to get the video coverage up on our site soon.
We arrived at the Naples boat ramp Thursday morning at 6:30am and headed offshore for those blue runners the kings feed on. We went straight to our new bait stop 27 miles offshore where we were able to load up with 14 dozen in two hours. Sea conditions were not perfect but in the 36 Yellowfin we barely felt anything. We also took a couple of the guys from the Catch 22 team(23 Class team) to help them with bait. Here is a pic from the bait day :
Day 1:
Some careful planning went into this one , we chose an area called G ledge. We figured fishing would be good there, and we needed a spot with good action for the camera crew. BTW its just inside the bait area we fished Thursday in 62ft of water. Temps and bait were ideal here, 5 minutes after getting our first spread out (4 lines) the fish we were looking for hit the port flat line runner. Jake handled the rod perfectly as always and was able to get the fish to the boat in 15 minutes. Cooper did a great job gaffing. As I went forward to help pull it over, Cooper just flung it over the gunnel and fell to the deck along with the king. The fish weighed over 40 on the boca-grip. Alot of high fives followed. The whole event was on shot on camera, can't wait to see that. The bite the rest of the day was somewhat slow. We did manage a few more kings in the 30lb range which were released. Jake also boated dinner just after high noon, a 55lb cobia. But at the scales our fish weighed 39.98, we were in 6th at the end of this day.
Day 2:
Weather conditions were not as good as day one and winds were forecast to increase during the day. We headed back to the same area first thing in the morning. Caught a couple high 20's and released them. This is a big fish event so we needed something in the 40's. We moved to a couple other spots, but the bite was real slow for us. We managed a couple more fish in the afternoon, just nothing bigger than day one. Back at weigh in a local team managed to find a fish of a lifetime, a 64.74, Congrats to their team on their win. We finished 9th Overall, 2nd in Ladies, and 1st in Juniors. Jake also won the Mercury Marine's Junior Angler Scholarship award for the second time.
Team Yellowfin/Comfortably Numb is currently in 5th place Open Class , 1st place Ladies, and 1st place Juniors. We are 17 points out of the lead in Division 11 and figure we'll need at least a 50lb king to have a chance at winning this division during the Ft. Myers tournament April 11-13th. This is the last Division 11 tournament for the 2008 year. Point standings can be found at http://www.fishska.com/trail/standings/
A few pics from Naples:
Marco Island 3/14-15 SKA event 1 Day
It has been a while since the Numb family team has fished together. We sure missed fishing the SKA events last year, although our team members fished with other teams during the 2007 year. With the economy the way it is and with the plumbing business slowing down we elected to hold out for a while on our new 32 Yellowfin powered by the new Mercury 300 Verados. The new 32 is AWESOME. The ride is similar to a 34 and 36. Will have more on that soon, but back to fishing.
We have always liked fishing the Division 11 events and this year Wylie Nagler (owner of Yellowfin Yachts) has offered to let our team use hull #1, a 36 Yellowfin with triple 275 Mercury Verados. We can not thank Wylie enough. The goals this season are to try to win the division, get qualified for SKA Nationals in Biloxi, and re-qualify for the 09 SKA Professional trail. A good friend of ours, Cooper Cordin, from Naples will be fishing with us in these 3 events.
Our plan was to arrive in Naples on Thursday the 13th early morning and run offshore for runners and pre-fish for a while. But I really do not think that pre fishing is necessary when your mind already knows where you plan to run Saturday morning. Runners were hard to come by for the first couple hours but at the last stop we hit the mother load, caught 10 dozen within 40minutes. Hope there still there in two weeks for the Naples event. Friday morning we planned on netting some inshore bait but got sidetracked with several errands before we were able to net around 2pm. The captains meeting Friday night was great. Steve Sprigg of Galati Yacht Sales and Scott Hopkins of Cedar Bay Marina did an outstanding job, they ended up with 58 teams fishing. Division 11 will only get better with these guys running the show!!
Saturday, our plan was to run ssw to a favorite area of mine where we have caught good kings before. Heard the bite there was good along with another spot farther south. There had been some reports of fish up to 40 being caught just off Naples a week earlier. We saw another team boat a fish close to 30 while bait fishing. We figured we would work our way back north later in the day. I will tell you this 36YF w/T275’s is fast. We were leading and pulling away from the pack. The start was being filmed by Extreme Angler, I’m sure they have good footage.
We arrived at our first spot within the hour. Our first baits in got devoured in minutes and the first fish was on. It took the port side surface bait and ran towards the boat cutting though both downrigger lines then breaking off. I thought for a moment, what the heck just happened, felt we were new at this. The next fish on we came back into focus with our ways and decided to boat it without the gaff. The king would weigh in the low 20’s, a good start but we needed something in the 30’s before we would make a move. A team next to us, Triple J, was battling a big king. We saw them gaff it and bring it aboard, heard the screams and saw the high fives, knew we were in the right place. A couple hours later and several fish later we decided to make a move north and a little east. Fishing in 62ft close to a tower, a spot I call the pc ledge, we were able to boat a couple of nice fish. At 3:30pm we decided to call it a day and head back with the hopes of placing in the top 6. We weighed both fish on a 60lb boca-grip to make sure we would weigh the right fish. On the official SKA scale our fish weighed 37.39lbs. A 40.5lb was already leading. All said and done we ended up 6th place, 2nd Ladies, and 2nd Junior. Jake also won the Mercury Marine's Junior Angler Scholarship award. We now set our sights on Naples March 28th-30th.
