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2009 SBO Blue Storm Classic - May 16-17 Here is the Classic Spearboard Open Tournament on the west coast of Florida

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Old 05-19-2009, 06:49 PM   #1
fishkilla
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SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Here is how the story goes down. Two Saturdays ago I was shooting the West coast Council Series Tournament #1 with Capt. Gene , Greg and Wade. During the trip they asked if i would like to go along and shoot the SBO on their friends’ boat out of the Hatch (Steinhatchee). The plan was to go shoot the Grounds. I accepted the invitation and loaded up two handheld GPS' with some of my favorite North Grounds fishin holes. We kept an eye on the weather and things looked good so I signed up Thursday night and finalized my plans to meet up at Aquatic Adventures and drive north.

The run out Friday afternoon was relatively calm, 2 feet out of the Southeast. We headed Southwest for 80 miles and started looking for some "private" wrecks. We wanted to know if there were big jacks on them so we could hit them on the way in. The bottom machine lit up once I was 300ft from the number. There wasn't much structure on the bottom but it was obvious that something was there. Tommy and Joe fired down some pinfish. Instant hook up! 12# American Reds come over the rail. They are not open for harvest until June 1st. Back in the water they go. As quick as they could fire down a bait a large Genuine came up. We suited up and rolled in hoping to see Jacks to shoot the next day. Nope. The Gulf Council and the NMFS is right on the money when they say ARS are endangered/overfished/non-existent. You can see in the video the hundreds of snapper that call home an engine block and a broken up hull.

We went to the next "wreck" and see the same thing on the bottom machine. The boys fire down baits. ARS pandemonium. Lets leave before we are overcome by the urge to poach. After a few miles we are in the Grounds and the Sun sets, the seas calm and we try to get some sleep. At about 1am the 2 to 4ft that the forecast was calling for arrive. Gear shifts into uncomfortable places, live well water pours over bean bag entrenched anglers and visions of 20# hogs dance in our half conscious minds.

My plan for this trip was to get Tommy, the boat owner in front of a quality hogfish. He didn't enter the tournament and I wasn't sure I was going to enter it either. I figured I should because if I didn't a giant hog or carbo would be staring directly at me at some point of my dive rotations. My whole plan for the trip was to focus on making sure everyone had a good time diving some of my favorite numbers. Placing anywhere in the tournament was very low on the priority list.

The dive day started with Tommy dropping a line while we were still anchored and catching a 40# jewfish. We dropped in on our chez tops and started shooting decent gags and mangos. The hogs were small and the jacks were no where to be found. I kept pushing us South a mile at a time but didn’t want to go much further due to the seas. Whenever I would see a fish that I needed to fill a category I shot it. I kept looking for a big hog for Tommy to shoot but they never showed up. It got towards the end of the day and we still needed jacks. There was talk about running to the Air force Tower back towards the Hatch but I kept telling the guys that the big hogs were in the Grounds and jacks should be on a number I had only two miles away. Greg and I dropped into "9 ball" first. I was loaded up with my sisters’ commercial rhino HPL line gun since all I really needed was a jack. There were hundreds of jacks all up in the water column. I'm thinking we are all set and team two can roll this spot after us and get their jacks. Greg and I swim all the way around the giant pinnacle and I find one legal jack mixed in with 500 twenty inch fish. I shot the jack right in the cheeks and wrestle him to the top of the pinnacle thinking that all this commotion might bring in some bigger jacks for Greg. No such luck.

The rest of the day was drop after drop with average sized gags and huge American reds following us up and down the ledges while we searched in vain for big hogs and jacks. It got to be late in the afternoon, most of our air was burned and everyone was beat from putting up with the 2 to 4ft seas all day. Tommy pointed the boat to the Hatch and we settled into our E-searider bean bags.

Never once did I think I had any chance at getting anywhere in the top 20 spots. I figured the Headhunter boys or one of the other heavy Gulf hitters had found the big hogs and my pile of moderate fish were just enough to get a decent pick at the table. Ironically this was one of my worst trips to the Grounds but we all had a good time and everyone was safely headed back to the dock. I was almost so embarrassed with how my grouper looked I thought about not weighing in. The fish box we had at the back of the boat didn’t hold ice very well and by the end of Saturday all the ice was melted. All that remained was cold bloody water that in the heavy seas sloshed our fish around so much some of them were almost de-scaled! I thought surely some body at the weigh in is going to give me all kinds of grief about these "old" looking fish. Where was the heckling from the other teams? None of our team thought we had a shot at top places and we surely didn't think we could've taken the top boat category. We even stopped at village in at 10am in Dade City for a quick bite to eat and slinked into weigh in at 11:20 am. I was truly surprised at the outcome. When people kept coming up to me saying, "hey I think you got it." I kept saying, "No way, I weighed in a 5# and a 4# hog. How could I take 1st?" We gave the tournament a shot and the weather prevented many people from doing their Plan A. This tournament is set up to be close and margins for winning to be slim.

I wish the weather would’ve been better. Due to how ruff it was out there I only filmed a few drops. We got no fish pictures and I didn’t shoot any topside footage. It was difficult enough just keeping tanks and gear out of each others way and divers safely in and out of the boat. In the video towards the end you can see the 20# gag I shot slip from one big rock into a cave. I tried to signal to Tommy there was a nice gag in there for him to shoot but since this was the first time we had ever dove together I didn’t know how to communicate to him what was under there. I set the camera down and shot the gag right in the face. I almost gave away the fish that won the tournament for me!

I didn’t have plans to shoot this tournament until the last minute and I didn’t have plans to shoot the PBO in July but now I might have to give that one a shot. A big thanks to my tournament team (capt. gene, greg and wade) for inviting me to go and to Tommy and Joe for bringing the boat to the Hatch and letting us shoot the tournament on it.

SBO 2009





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Old 05-19-2009, 07:18 PM   #2
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Nice video. Thats pretty good when one of your worst grounds days still wins the tournament! Congrats to you and the team.
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Old 05-19-2009, 07:24 PM   #3
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Cool video! Now I know what my problem is with these tournaments..(I'm trying too hard).
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Old 05-19-2009, 07:54 PM   #4
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Awesome Video! Congrats on your win!
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Old 05-19-2009, 09:40 PM   #5
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Congratulations Ben, you are the man! Thanks for the video.
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:40 AM   #6
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

conditions looked good but where was the shooting lol
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Old 05-20-2009, 07:00 AM   #7
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Cool Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Congratulations Ben!

Thanks for the report!
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Old 05-20-2009, 07:31 AM   #8
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Quote:
Originally Posted by IRONHEAD View Post
conditions looked good but where was the shooting lol
yeah that's what i'm saying! if we would've been pulling in massive stringers i would've gone through the trouble of taking the camera on the dives but we really weren't shooting what i thought were tournament fish.

no camera, no video, no expectations, just go and have fun... that's how you win tournaments.
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Old 05-21-2009, 10:53 AM   #9
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Goin' divin'............

Man do I miss hearing that! Good job on the tourn. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Thanks for taking the time to introduce & instruct this minnesotan to the great world of spearing.
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Old 05-21-2009, 01:01 PM   #10
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

nice.

but remember...just cause you see them on a few spots in big numbers, doesn't mean they are like that everywhere.
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Old 05-21-2009, 02:58 PM   #11
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Nice job winning the SBO! My freedive boat only went about 28 miles out of Tampa, but got thrashed in those waves/wind most of the day. I kept thinking to myself that guys in the Grounds must be getting pounded. We had the opposite happen... smashed 3 Jacks immediately in the morning and spent the rest of the day barfing and chasing down the other categories to no avail...

See you in July
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Old 05-21-2009, 03:01 PM   #12
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

Nicely done Ben!!
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Old 05-21-2009, 03:19 PM   #13
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Re: SBO 2009 Trip Report and video

congrats!! nice vid
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