Scouting for fish before a tournament is always beneficial.
Even if you don’t catch any fish, you can at least rule out those spots the day of the tournament.
That’s what Capt. Jeff Scott and Michael Kornahrens of Advanced Roofing/Sailsmen did during this past Saturday’s Mercury/SeaVee Pompano Beach Saltwater Slam and they ended up winning the tournament and $16,715. That included $500 for winning the Slam’s costume contest for the team’s patriotic red, white and blue outfits at the weigh-in.
The team caught 144.9 pounds of kingfish, dolphin and blackfin tuna to top the 97-boat fleet for its second consecutive victory and third win in its last four tournaments dating back to the Final Sail sailfish tournament in Miami in April.
Kornahrens, of Lighthouse Point, who owns the 39 SeaVee powered by four 300-horsepower Verado outboards, said he and his mates ran to Fort Pierce the Thursday before the tournament and fished all the way back to Hillsboro Inlet without a decent fish.
On Friday, Scott, of Pompano Beach, and the crew fished from Lake Worth Pier to Hillsboro and didn’t find anything worthwhile.
But that pre-fishing paid dividends because it allowed Scott to narrow his choices for Saturday.
“Mike didn’t fish with us Friday,” Scott said, “and when we came in, Robby [Waddick] said, ‘Mike we didn’t catch anything, but don’t worry, we know exactly what to do tomorrow.’
“I knew fishing was going to be tough, and that’s why I petitioned the guys to pre-fish with me Thursday and Friday. You can know where not to go.
“On Saturday, if I wouldn’t have known there were no fish up north, I would have probably gone there.”
Scott added that he and his crew “did the math on what we would catch” if they fished all day off Fort Pierce and it didn’t add up to a winning catch.
Besides the slow fishing, Advanced Roofing/Sailsmen having to make the two-hour run from Hillsboro Inlet would mean local anglers would be first to the decent spots off Fort Pierce.
So Scott decided to start fishing off Juno Beach Saturday morning, but the team, which consists of seven excellent anglers who fish hard, caught only bonitos and lost some possible non-bonitos to sharks.
He talked with some other anglers fishing there and they caught only bonitos.
“They said they didn’t have any kingfish bites and I said, ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ I believe when you’re in a kingfish area and your baits don’t get bit in the first 10 minutes, they’re not there,” Scott said. “We were looking at each at 11 o’clock thinking we might not weigh a fish.
“I said, ‘Let’s go, let’s find something.’ I remembered I had a spot inshore off Hobe Sound. It’s a reef that comes up to 60 feet that has a lot of bottom fish. We had a couple of quick kingfish bites on the kite. I’d say my drifts were only about 100 yards long.”
In about an hour, the team caught four kings and a tuna. At 12:30 p.m., Scott ran offshore in search of dolphin.
Running the boat from the tower with Waddick, they looked for birds, flying fish and weed patches and found “probably 10 different schools of 5- to 10-pound” dolphin.
It took patience and determination for his anglers to fish for the few bigger dolphin in the schools. They brought a 10.5-pounder and a 14.4 to the scales at Hillsboro Inlet Park. Either of those fish was enough to provide the margin of victory over second-place Wish List, which had a total of 126 pounds. (That included the Slam’s biggest fish, a 51.8 wahoo, which helped Wish List win $24,187.)
“We’d watch the whole school and cast a bigger bait like a goggle-eye to the bigger fish. We left hundreds of fish out there,” said Scott, who ran out 25 miles, then came back on an angle to Hillsboro Inlet and found a productive weedline about 18 miles off. “We were snapping small ones off left and right.”
To their credit, Scott’s anglers never stopped casting and reeling and casting again.
“We know that from sailfish tournaments, the last hour or two hours of the day are 100 percent different from earlier in the day,” Scott said. “I’m fortunate to have great fishermen that trust my decisions on where to go and they work really hard wherever we stop.”
Fish of the week
Family Therapy was the top boat in the 18th annual Miami Dolphins Foundation Fishing Tournament out of Miami Beach Marina Saturday with 74.9 pounds, earning its crew a trip on the team charter to a Dolphins road game. Capt. Terry Claus’ Qualifier was second at 53.9 thanks to a 23.5 dolphin caught by receiver Brian Hartline. Contender Too, with Capt. Rick Murphy, was third at 47.
Capt. Alan Zaremba, of Hollywood, reported great largemouth bass fishing in Everglades canals, but that was before the wildfire out there filled the skies with smoke and ash. Ed White and his grandson Max, 14, of Pinecrest, caught 216 largemouth bass up to 3 pounds on a morning trip in the L-6 Canal using floating and suspending Rapalas and soft-plastic lures. Luke Smith and his son Harris, 17, of Atlanta, fished for two days and caught 29 peacock bass in the C-100 and 504 largemouths up to 3.5 pounds using jigs, suspending Rapalas and trick worms in the L-6. Jack Tatelman, of Boston, and Rick Roberts, of Houston, caught 25 peacocks up to 3 pounds using jigs and fly fishing with Clouser minnows in the C-100. Joe and Lindsley McClein caught 26 peacock bass up to 3 pounds using jigs in the E-4.
Snakehead tournament: A JD’s Custom Baits Snakehead Round-Up is Saturday from safe light to 2 p.m. out of the boat ramp on the C-14 Canal at Rock Island Road and Southgate Boulevard in Margate. Entry fee is $20 per two-angler team or individual. Fishing is allowed in all legal waters. The angler catching the biggest snakehead wins all the money, but each team must bring in a minimum of five snakeheads for its biggest fish to count. Visit jdscustombaits.com.
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