Tough Day Tournament Fishing by Ed Valitutto

Posted on July 1, 2018 by VHFC

The first annual VHFC – BHM&TC Joint fluke tournament was held on Saturday June 30th and the results will be published when available. However, it was a tough day for VHFC. My boat – me, Dave Spendiff, Caesar Pesarini and my grandson, junior member Nick Rossi – had the only VHFC weigh in. And that wasn’t much to brag about! Dave caught our only keeper at 19″ and 2.4 lbs – he was camera shy. Nick caught a 16″ weakfish and that was it except for two monster rays caught by Caesar aka Rayman!

We left my dock at 6:00 AM and fished until the closing at 3:00 in brutal heat and nasty greenheads. The worst part was that we caught all our fish at our first stop at the brick pile in Marshelder Channel. Several long drifts through LEI produced nothing as did drifts by the #126 tripod buoy and in the ICW from Holgate northward, We saw hardly any nets in action and the reports from other boats in the tournament were equally dismal including folks who went outside to the reefs.

It was still a fun day on the water. Special thanks to Bill Kleimenhagen for his work in organizing the tournament. As they say “See ya’ next year!”

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

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