Most fishermen are happy to get one or two sizeable fish at sea. Very rarely do they walk away with 12 big catches.
However that was the case for the crew of Too Lucky in Robert Whorms, Albert McLean, Roger Wood and Ernest Bush. The local anglers were competing in the Barcadere Classic last weekend, the first sanctioned Cayman Islands Angling Club competition for 2012.
Whorms, 32, states the crew nabbed various species of fish.
“Seven wahoo, two yellowfin tunas and two dolphin were weighed on day one with a big dolphin on day two,” Whorms said. “We murdered all of the fish, just none of the big ones. We did well, especially for being in Cayman waters. We didn’t go off-shore as we were off East End. All of the boats were in our area by the second day. We lost a couple of tunas to sharks, one of them was big but the shark got him.”
In all, the Too Lucky crew caught about 429 pounds of fish in two days. That mark would earn a $500 fuel voucher from Scotts Landing, sponsored by the angling club. However, that would be the extent of their tournament winnings as none of the fish were among the two heaviest for their respective species.
Whorms, who is a Savannah native, states they were close to the top ranks.
“We were third place for dolphin and tuna but there was no prize. We easily had the boat with the most weight as we caught other fish that didn’t make weight. Most tournaments have a grand slam prize, for catching one of every species and we could have won that. But there was no prize for that either at the Barcadere Classic, probably because the event is small.”
A number of fishermen reeled in big fish and large pay-outs over the weekend. The I and I crew of Waylon Bush, Franklin Kerr and Stephen Ebanks had a 93.5lb tuna that was the heaviest catch in the tournament and earned a $2,000 cash prize (sponsored by Automotive Art) and a $300 fuel voucher from Scotts Landing, sponsored by the angling club.
Second place in the tuna segment went to Jason Powery of Morning Spirit, who earned $1,000 from The Phoenix Group and a $300 fuel voucher for the heaviest fish on the second day. Eric Maierhofer on Run Around reeled in $6,000 cash (sponsored by Scotts Group) for the tournament’s heaviest wahoo at 67.7lbs. Behind him in the wahoo segment were Rob Jones of Strikeforce (who earned $3,000 courtesy of Scotiabank) for a 67.2lb catch and Simon Wetherell of Team Tukka (who got $1,000 from CUC) for a 63.1lb fish.
Daniel Kirkconnell of Blue Diamond had the heaviest dolphin at 27.9lbs (good for $2,000 from BCQS). Leon Dilbert of Miss Nyah was second at 25.5lbs and got $1,000 from Rooster 101.
The top female angler was Jenny Elvidge of Kai One On and she earned a spa treatment from Spa Escape. The top junior angler was Alyssa Cayasso of Topless and she took home a rod and reel. Al Parsons of Strikeforce had the most marlin releases and won a prize from Guy Harvey.
Though Too Lucky missed those honours, the crew did walk away with a few thousand dollars selling their catches. Whorms, the Manager of Electrical Maintenance at Caribbean Utilities Company, states everyone did alright monetarily.
“We sold every one of them, even a barracuda. We went to a restaurant and sold two tunas, three wahoos and two dolphins. We delivered the rest to another restaurant and sold a fish at the dock.
“We made between $2,500 and $3,000. The market is saturated with wahoo now so we sold ours for around $5 per pound. However people paid top dollar for the tunas as they are more rare this time of year.
“Ultimately we had fun and we really enjoyed it. We’re a CUC team full of CUC employees and we thank our employers for always supporting us. We thank our wives for supporting us and we’d like to make special mention of supporter Giovanni McLean [who served as manager of system operations] as we’re working with him to help promote his Tight-Hand Fishing Gear clothing line.”
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