Captain’s Log: Entry
130, November10, 2007
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This weekend we headed down to San Juan del
Sur for the annual panga tournament. Of all of the
tournaments in San Juan during the year, this is by far
the most competitive. Over 30 pangas showed up and they
were all locked and loaded to crush some fish. The locals
really know their spots and always manage to catch great
fish. The wind was ripping, so we had to stick to an
inshore attack. We ran over ?? miles in the morning to get
to one of our little honey holes. We caught some nice
wahoo there earlier in the week, and Jeff had actually
caught one there the day before. We had high hopes and we
were not let down. On our first pass, we landed a nice
15lb Yellowfin Tuna. Our next pass was when total mayhem
broke out behind the panga. One, two, then three giant
grenades went off in the spread. We jumped to our battle
stations and hunkered down for the fight. Three wahoo
dumping drag at the same time will get anyone's blood
saturated with adrenaline. With only three of us in the
panga, Jasco and Brodie started reeling on two of the fish
and I had to man the helm to keep us out of the nets. We
had to leave the third fish in the shotgun rodholder and
let ole' "Rodney" keep him tight for us. After about
fifteen minutes, we gaffed the first two fish and slammed
them in the box. Then it was time to subdue the last one.
After another ten minutes, Jasco got the third Hoo to the
boat and I slammed the Aftco gaff right in his skull!!
When the third beast hit the box, we errupted into
celebration. It was one of those moments you will take
with you the rest of your life! A perfectly executed plan
that couldn't have been written any better. We ended up
getting a couple more Hoo knockdowns, and even got one to
the boat, but the hooks pulled at the last second. We also
caught some studly Barracudas, another Yellowfin Tuna,
some Jacks, and even some Macks. When we arrived to San
Juan for the weigh-in, a large crowd had formed at the
dock. As usual, everybody started crowding around to see
what Team Va Pue landed. Sure enough it seemed our catch
was in the running for some trophies. The only downer was
this gringo charter boat captain from San Juan who
immediately accused us of cheating. He said "Wahoo are
blue water fish and the water is way too cold." Then he
went on "Lance, you can't keep doing this, we are catching
on to you, there is no way you caught those fish today!"
At this point I had already had a few Tonas and a couple
of Victorias, and to say the least, I was not liking what
this jealous A-Hole was saying. He even went as far as
trying to convince the organizers that we had brought old
fish to the scales. Anyway, you know who you are, and you
can kiss my redneck fish catching ass!!! We crush fish, it
is what SUBU is all about!! In the end, we ended up taking
first place for biggest fish overall and also got first
place for overall weight. Another great victory for Team
Va Pue. We then charged into San Juan and celebrated into
the early morning!
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