LAST EDITED ON Jun-10-01 AT 01:34 AM (PST)

Well, Larry showed up at the ramp without the sheep commander (Dimitri) and I still don't know if that was good or bad... The two of us launched the boat at about 5:45, got 1/2 squid and 1/2 chovies in the tank and ran up to Naples. Parked it next to Seth and started driftin. The morning was pretty slow. I caught a couple sharks, Larry caught a couple sole. A few drifts into the morning Larry hooks the right kind and has the hook pop out after a few seconds. Not 5 minutes later I do the same freakin thing! Both fish felt like nicer units, at least 10lbs. After some more junk (I hate classifying bass as junk...) I finally got a solid biter on the 900XL/20lb. I thought for sure it was a shark at first, and even into the fight. The head shakes were real like lethargic and it wasn't feeling quite like a halibut, but following Larry's advice, I played it like a halibut (cause "just when you think you've got halibut figured out, they pull some weird $hit"). The fish took me around the boat 1 1/2 times and my rod was bent. Further and further into the fight it started acting a little more flat. I'd get it up a bit, and it would go back down, get it up, go back down... Finally got color and Larry stuck a 23.25#er!!! Nice way to start the day! Next keeper was Larry's, a nice 17#er. This brought us to about 10:00 or so when the current shifted a bit and the bite took a dump. We weren't even catching the junk, or shorts anymore, and it was the same case for most boats (there was a good number of boats in the area by then...). Just about every boat in there got a couple legals during that bite, but it seemed most fish were smallish. We dicked around and made more drifts all day long and scratched at the junk, and maybe a short now and then. Larry HOOKED UP and fought this bottom monster for about 10 minutes on the light line. When he got it up, it was a NICE 30+#er. Larry missed the self gaff job (man, I NEVER heard the end of that complaining... j/k LMAO) and the fish jetted back down. Larry got it back up to color, just to see the fish shake it's head and spit out the hook. Woulda put the tournament away right then and there. Oh well. For awhile the wind picked up and the current was rippin a little faster and we had to throw out the drift sock, but at about 3:00 (weigh in was between 4 and 5) we found ourselves drifting in a current which was going the right direction, slowed down, wind died, and not a boat in sight. Larry got like 2 ALMOST legals that had to be tossed, and 3 legal fish between 23 and 26 inches. Next drift in the same spot produced 1 more for Larry and 2 for me. All the fish were smallish, but it definitely added to our weights. Larry now had a limit and I had 3 fish. I hooked one more, but it came unbuttoned (between that one and the one in the morning I woulda had a NICE limit...) on the Castaway w/ 12#. At 3:45 we had to jet. We knew we were sittin pretty, but we hadn't heard anything from the bounce ballers. The way the tournaments work is that there's the individual points standings, which is your own weight of your own fish, just like normal, and then there's the captain's cup where it's the boat's weight divided by the number of anglers on board, and that's like a separate deal. When we got to the ramp we threw all the fish in the cooler and exclaimed to those around how we'd caught 6 legals in the last hour and a half... Hauled the fish over to the scale and weighed em up. My big fish weighed in at 23.25 (personal best) and I forget my total weight, but it was probably about 35 or so. After all was said and done, Larry won the thing, and I placed 3rd w/ big fish of the tournament. Edged out of 2nd by .3 pounds. So, not too shabby for my sportfishing club debut. Thanks for lettin me tag along Larry!!!
-Brian

I'll post pics tomorrow.