I was out of the shop Thursday, Friday, and Saturday fishing the Pompano Beach fishing Rodeo. As many of you know I fish many Southern Kingfish Association tournaments with Steve Sprigg of the Olde Naples Boat Company. Steve is Jupiter boat dealer from Naples and was asked by Jupiter Marine if we would be interested in fishing this tournament on their factory boat-of course we will! The format of the event was a little different than we were used to but we were game. You can weigh in tuna, wahoo, kingfish, dolphin, and cobia, with points being awarded for sailfish released.
The plan was to send two kites up with three baits off of each kite. We didn't have the second line in the water before we had a fish on, and that is the way it was for 2 full days. After the first day of fishing we scaled 115 pounds of fish that were a combination of 3 kingfish and 2 blackfin tuna. We lost a sailfish which really would have helped us out.
We went into the second and final day in 3rd place due to our 1st day effort.
The second day proved to be just as active, but we weren't able to get all our our fish to the boat. We lost another sailfish, and were heartbroken when our only blackfin tuna of the day lost its tail to a shark just out of reach of the 12ft gaff. Shane was on rod and did a great job, but the shark was just too fast. We did manage a low 20 pound dolphin and a couple of kingfish.
All in all we had a great showing for Jupiter boats as we finished over all in 11th place, we were 1st place Jupiter boat in the corporate division, and capt. Craig Herndon was top Jupiter angler. Todd Albrect also of Jupiter Marine, and Shane O were our other anglers, and crucial components to the success of the team. Thanks again to the folks at Jupiter for building such an incredible boat. There were only two other boats in two days that were able to outrun us in the six foot seas that we were greated with the first morning.

Thanks Again Jupiter!

Henley Shotwell