Florida Sail sh Cup Story 10

Jamie Bunn. With the unique format of the Florida Sail sh Cup, those days are over. Every day is a tournament day. When the bite heats up in their area, teams will have the opportunity to capitalize on a hot bite and record it on their quest to win the Florida Sail sh Cup,” said Bunn. Similarly, they will have the option of passing on those tournament days when shing is terribly slow or terribly rough.

Every tournament sherman dreams of being able to pick when and where they want to sh and now they can. Bluewater Movements is proud to announce the addition of the 7th tournament in their line up, the Florida Sail sh Cup. e new tournament will span the entire east coast of Florida, from Fernandina Beach to Key West from November 1st to May 31st each year. Eligible species are Sail sh, White Marlin & Blue Marlin. Teams have the opportunity to sh in four di erent zones - North, Central, South & the Florida Keys. And whether they choose to sh in their backyard or explore di erent waters; the choice is entirely theirs. Each release will be scored to the zone where it occurs.

ere are several unique aspects to the Florida Sail sh Cup, but the most notable is the fact that teams will decide their ve shing days during the tournament with an added bonus that enables them to purchase a sixth mulligan day prior to the start of the tournament to replace their lowest scoring day of the season.

e Florida Sail sh Cup purse is built to o er teams a wide variety of ways to cash checks. Each zone will award a cash prize and trophy to the winner in addition to an overall payout to the top 3 teams across all four zones. Add to that, a set of overall calcuttas, three calcuttas in each zone, including dailies, a dead bait division and a small boat division will set the stage for many ways to win BIG in the Cup!

“We could not be more excited to bring this unprecedented tournament format forward and bring shing teams together with representation over the entire state of Florida,” said Jamie Bunn.

Which teams will conquer the Cup? What zones will they come from? Will it be dead bait or live bait? Let the Countdown to the Cup begin!”

A CHAMPION STORY BAR SOUTH

2018-19 WAS MY FIRST YEAR RUNNING THE BAR SOUTH. I was honored to step up to the plate as the captain of a team that has a very successful track record in the Quest series. We started o with a bang! Right out of the gate we took the rst place daily on Day 1 of Operation Sail sh with 8 releases. I was stoked to have achieved this accomplishment on my rst day as a tournament captain, on Day 1 of the series. e series came down to a tight race for the top spot and we wound up in third place. Even though we did not win the series that year, I was incredibly proud of my team. We worked great together as a cohesive unit competing against the best there is. I viewed our third-place nish as a great success, but I felt that we could do better. I knew it was going to take a lot of hard work and a bit of luck to win the series but I had no idea what the next season had in store for us. Starting o the 2019-2020 season, we had one goal in mind. As the adage goes, history repeats itself. For the second year in a row, we took the Day 1 rst place daily with 12 releases. is time instead of celebrating the daily we stayed focused on the win. e second day the team kept it going and stayed in the lead the whole day. With a total of 21 sh, we beat out the 2nd place boat by 4 sh. Sweet victory was ours. Mother nature threw her best at us for the second leg of the Quest series. A strong cold front with gale force winds brought us 12 to 15 foot seas. To top it o , we had to battle a relentless rain making it a battle just to keep our kites in the air. It was a hard-fought ght, but I knew my guys down in the pit had it handled. Despite the miserable conditions, we kept our spread out and shing, but it wasn’t easy. As shing goes, we had some bad luck that day jumping o a few sh and pulling one o 5 feet from the leader that would have given us the daily. On the ride home I had a good feeling about Saturday. It was going to be rough, but I knew my crew and boat could take it. When we got to the dock, we found out the Day 2 had been moved to Sunday. Sail shing was slow, but the king sh bite was erce. In the end we nished in 5th with 5 sail sh and Shell Yeah won with 6. e 5th place nish gave us the lead in the Quest with 57 points. e Jichi was right on our tail with 51 points, and Shell Yeah with 49 going into Final Sail. I felt con dent going into Final Sail with a 6-point lead and shing out of my home port. en came the news that changed the world. Covid-19 had come to the US and the entire country went under a mandatory lockdown. Before the shut down, I fueled both boats and bought all the tackle we would need for Final Sail. I caught the best bait I had had all season, tied extra leaders and kite lines. We were ready! en we got the unfortunate news that the tournament was moved from the rst week of April to May which was ne with me because I knew the shing would be better. However, we were set for a complete re t of the boat in the late spring. Time went on, the Covid lock downs extended further, leading to the inevitable news that Final Sail would be postponed until the following year. I was heartbroken to say the least. We were more ready than we had been for any tournament in the past. Since we couldn’t sh the tournament, and we had put so much work into preparation, bait Quest for the Crest

shing, rigging etc, we had no other option than to go fishing. I gured it was time to give the guys a treat, so we pointed the boat towards Marathon where the sailfish had been tailing. at day we caught 41 sh on a half day before we had to end the day early.

With the 2020 Final Sail cancellation, the 2021 Final Sail would determine who won the 2020 series, as well as the 2021 series. e rst day of the tournament we fished a secret spot where we had done well pre- shing, the Ultra Freeze wreck. On Day 1 of the tournament, sh were being caught all around us, but we could not get into our groove. We nished the day with only 3 sh, which left us way back in the pack. To make matters worse, the Jichi had a stellar day catching 9 fish, which put them ahead of us for the series finale. Suffice it to say, the coveted burgundy jacket seemed to be getting further away from us. Despite a lackluster nish on Day 1, I spoke with my guys and told them to get ready for the second day. We had battled back and overcome bigger de cits before, and I knew we could do it this time too. We never gave up hope. We started Day 2 on the county wrecks and picked away at them. It was not a red-hot bite, but we kept our heads down and grinded. We found our sweet spot and nished the day with 11 sails to Jichi’s 7. In the end we beat the Jichi by one point, 77 to 76, to win the Quest for the Crest series and the teams' second burgundy jacket. It was a hard-fought victory against the worthiest opponents that came right down to the wire. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the end of Final Sail, we took home the 2020 burgundy jacket, Showtime won the 2021 jacket, and Priceless put on a show to win the Final Sail tournament. It’s an amazing feeling to nish at the top with two other boats that are close friends of ours.

I can’t thank my team enough. Owners Rob and Bonnie Gothier, Rudy and Michelle Espinosa are the ones that make these opportunities happen. My crew of Kyle Bohannon, Gareth Haddam, Nate Giunta, Justin Miller, Chris Dillon, Eddy Ferrer, and Bryce Barr are my warriors in the pit who make me look good. Each member of the team plays an integral role in making this team successful. It’s true what they say, the harder you work the luckier you get. I can say with absolute certainty that my team worked their tails o , persevered in the face of adversity, and truly earned every ounce of this win.

Captain Raul Gonzalez, Bar South

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A CHAMPION STORY SHOWTIME

THE ARRIVAL OF THE 2021 QUEST FOR THE CREST COULDN’T COME SOON ENOUGH FOR TEAM SHOWTIME. e 2020 season ended abruptly due to the cancellation of Final Sail and climbing Covid-19 numbers, making for a much longer o season. When 2021 rolled around and it was apparent that we would be able to sh we were all excited to get back to our passion. It was great to see everyone once again as we prepared for the rst tournament of the season, Operation

Sail sh.

Conditions for the start of Operation Sail sh were quite challenging. Unlike previous years with heavy winds and category ve kites, the wind was almost nonexistent. We modi ed our tackle selection and made sure we had plenty of light gear for the light wind conditions. We departed Miami for West Palm Beach several days prior to the rst day of shing in order to transfer all the baits and allow su cient time for them to get settled in as we established a home base at Sail sh Marina. e pre shing highlight for us in Operation Sail sh is always their ‘Take a Hero Fishing Day’ where we have the privilege of hosting a veteran on our boat for a day of shing. We had the pleasure of shing with Phillip Genz, a navy veteran, and caught him the rst sail sh of his lifetime! As we headed out for Day 1 of competition, conditions were as expected. We knew the shing would be slow and had to make every opportunity count. At the end of Day 1 we were on the leaderboard sitting in second place overall with 5 releases and 1 fish behind the leader, Team HMY. We had a double header early on in Day 2 and were able to add one more before the end of the day to secure the win and the start we were looking for in the series. With the arrival of the Sail sh Challenge, leg 2 of the series, and the unique 3-inlet format of the tournament, we knew we would need to be prepared for shing as far north as Jupiter or as far south as Ocean Reef. After several days of pre- shing we decided to sh out of Miami. After Day 1 and only one release, we weren’t so sure we made the right call. We were seeing the sh and pitched at a number of tailers but getting them to eat was a challenge. We stuck to our game on Day 2 and managed to release 5 sh, which was the 4th best of the day and nished in 9th place overall to put ourselves in 2nd place overall, just 1 point behind the Sail sh Challenge champs, Native Son.