2009 Results
What a difference 24 hours makes when
it comes to marine weather. The
first day of the Downeast Maine Shark
Tournament, Friday, 8/28, I was
drifting around the shark grounds about 20
miles offshore in my little
22 foot Trophy, and it was absolutely beautiful.
Surface temps were
around 72 degrees, the wind was a gentle breeze, and there
were sharks,
whales, and even tuna everywhere you looked. To the south,
however, we
knew trouble was on the way.
On Monday, 8/24, the marine
forecast was looking very good for both
days of the tournament. Hurricane
Bill had just passed through, so the
liklihood of something really bad
cropping up in next 7 days was small.
Naturally, Murphy’s Law was enforced
and out of seemingly nowhere
Tropical Storm Danny appeared. So by Tuesday,
8/25, we went from looking
at a great forecast both days to looking at a
complete disaster
weatherwise on at least the second day of the tournament.
And that’s
exactly what happened. The storm picked up speed, as if it knew it
had
to get to the Gulf of Maine soon lest we have two great days of
fishing.
It was as if the Humane Society had learned to control the weather,
and
had created Danny on 8/24 and launched it on its northward track.
It
arrived late Friday night with a fury.
Any of you that drove down
to Camp Ellis pier on Saturday, the second
day of the tournament, saw how
impressive Mother Nature can be. The
winds were absolutely howling out of the
east, the water was ripped up
in the river all around the pier and the flag
at Camp Ellis looked like
it might be torn from its pole at any moment. The
seas in front of Old
Orchard and Ferry beach were monstrous, 10 to 15 foot
white caps rolling
in one after another, only a few seconds apart. I remember
thinking “I
hope to God that nobody went out late last night or early this
morning
and got caught in this”. Thankfully, nobody had made that
potentially
lethal mistake.
However, even though no one made the mistake of
going offshore that second day, one of the gentlemen who fishes our tournament
every year almost lost his boat on the second day due to the storm. John Murphy
and his boys from Massachusetts have been fishing the tournament forever, and
are always competitive. John has a Grady White, and on Friday night, he tied up
on the Camp Ellis pier for the evening. Unfortunately, his stern was facing
downstream in the river (East), which of course is the direction the wind blew
from during the ensuing storm. His boat has a low transom with the folding door
that covers the back. At the time of the storm, the door was down and the
motors were tilted up. The wind and current of the flood tide along with
the wind and waves, was more than the boat and bilge pumps could handle. The
boat eventually filled with water and listed to the right. Click here to see a picture of it. Jerry McMillan,
the dockmaster, discovered the boat Saturday morning and got busy contacting
John that his boat was in trouble. When John arrived, someone with a 36' boat
offered to tow it to have it self bail. However, the Harbor Master told John
that it was too dangerous and that he should wait until slack tide to move
it. Slack tide was two hours away, so John and his boys drove away to get
a coffee and warm up.
When he returned, there were 12 guys in rain suits
ready to work on getting the boat out of the water. John said these guys were
amazing. The Harbor Master jumped right in and tied the ropes to the boat.
Everyone pulled the rope to get the boat out of the current and around the pier.
One captain and his crew of three went out on his large boat with cranes and
booms and attached them to John's boat. Two other guys in another small boat
kept all lines working. A pickup truck was used to vector one of the lines to
pull the boat in.
John said he has not seen a group of guys
getting together to help someone out as these guys did since he spent the first
five days at Ground Zero. He said he wished that he could thank them again, and
that we have very special friends and neighbors here in the Saco area. None of
the people helping him would not take anything for their efforts, and the
Captain from the large boat said that his boat broke away last year and others
helped him out. He said that he was just glad to help. Another example of how
fishermen and people who make their living off the ocean seem to be a close knit
group, who are always willing to help out the other guy. A big thanks to Jerry
McMillan and all of these guys who came to John's
rescue.
Although a handful of us showed up at
the weigh-in that second day
(including the biologists) no boats came to the
pier during the weigh
in. There was no way that was going to happen, given
the weather.
Perhaps the only thing interesting that did show up at the weigh
in that
Saturday was a small, older woman with a rain jacket and a camera
asking
lots of questions and taking lots of pictures. She refused to answer
my
questions about what she was doing there, stating that ‘she was
an
attorney’ and she knew the rules and that she could be there if
she
wanted - she clearly had an agenda. Not sure if the Humane Society
sent
her or if she was simply on her own Search and Destroy mission, but
no
doubt her pictures and some hate-filled diatribe will be appearing
soon
at a theatre * or website * near you. I hope she got my good side.
I
probably should have told her that if she was an attorney, she ought
to
realize that recreational shark fishing is legal.
So in the end, we
had a one-day tournament this year. Twenty eight (28)
teams were signed up by
the end of the Captain’s dinner at Saco Bay
Tackle on Thursday afternoon. The
action was furious that beautiful
first day, and there were a total of 11
sharks weighed in Friday
afternoon at the Camp Ellis Pier - 10 large, male
blue sharks and one
female thresher shark. Our team of biologists were there
to dissect all
the sharks and take multiple blood and tissue samples as part
of their
ongoing research on these fish. The thresher shark was of course cut
up
into steaks and given to the crew of Quint’s Revenge.
The final
rankings at the end of Day One were:
1. Team “Quint’s Revenge” captained
by Frank Moda - 278 lb
thresher shark
(417 points)
1. Team “Endorfin Rush” captained by Ed Bilsky - 418 lb blue shark
(418 points)
2.
Team “Techfishin” captained by Dennis Legere - 371 lb blue shark
(371 points)
3.
Team “Reel Addiction” captained by Mike Keegan - 365 lb blue
shark (365
points)
4. Team “Off the Rocks” captained by Corey Sherrill - 349 lb
blue
shark (349 points)
5. Team “Seeking Fins” captained by Scott McIntyre
- 342 lb blue
shark (342
points)
5. Team “Special J Shark Therapy” captained by John Shusta - 342 lb
blue shark (342 points)
6.
Team “Tuna Bound” captained by DJ Creswell - 313 lb blue shark
(313
points)
7. Team “Loan Shark” captained by Steve Feinberg - 296 lb
blue
shark (296 points)
8. Team “Mad Dog” captained by Chris Cantara - 290
lb blue shark
(290 points)
9. Team “Fish On” captained by Scott Hall - 227
lb blue shark (227
points)
As you can see, we had a very unusual event
this year - not one, but
two ties. Quint’s Revenge and Endorfin Rush were a
single point apart
for first place in the tournament, and Team Seeking Fins
and Team
Special J Shark Therapy both weighed in a 342 lb blue shark, tying
for
Fifth place in the tournament.
There was some small controversy
about the first place tie, which was
worked out between the two teams. I had
a long discussion with the crew
of Quint’s Revenge at the Run of the Mill
Restaurant that Saturday
night, over a few fermented adult beverage products.
This is a great
crew, consisting of Dave Curtian, Chris Cobbett, Rick Lally
and Aaron
Trembley, and their captain Frank Moda. They fished on Frank's
boat, the
Shockwave. Chris and Rick are both professional outdoorsmen - check
out
their websites at www.northwoodsadventurestv.com
and at
www.camospace.com/ncbrotherhood.
It
was decided in the end that, in the spirit of fun and fair play,
that both
teams should be awarded a First Place trophy. This is because
the Downeast
Maine Shark Tournament is not, and never will be, a big
money tournament like
the Monster Shark Tournament, where hundreds of
thousands of dollars might be
on the line for first place. It’s a
tournament where around 30 to 40 of some
of the most hardcore shark
fishermen in Maine, New Hampshire, and even
northern Massachusetts get
together each August to have some fun and see who
can come out number
one among all this fishing talent over a two day period -
which is not an
easy feat.
However, although first place in the
Downeast Maine tournament is
typically not lucrative money-wise, we are
starting to see thousands of
dollars appear in the Calcutta each year, and of
course there is always
the possibility of breaking a new Maine state rod and
reel record for
the insured TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR prize we have if a state
record is in
fact broken. So to minimize the chance of ever having a tie in
the
Calcutta or in the ten thousand dollar state record category -
or
first place for that matter - next year we will start taking 3
weights
on each shark weighed in, and the average of the 3 weights will be
the
recorded weight of the shark for the official record book.
So
congratulations to Capt. Frank Moda and his crew, as well as Capt.
Ed Bilsky
and his crew on the Endorfin, which included Geoff Bove, Drew
Rosati, Ryan
Cleary, and Shane Miniutti. Both teams received a large
first place trophy
recognizing the fact that they came out on top in the
2009 Downeast Maine
Shark Tournament, fishing against a lot of highly
experienced teams -
something they can be proud of.
CALCUTTA
This year, we had 11 out
of the 28 teams in the tournament get into the
Calcutta, and there was a
total of $3000.00 in the envelope by the end
of the Captain’s dinner. Mike
Keegan and his Reel Addiction crew were
confident enough to be one of these
11 teams, and their 365 lb blue
shark turned out to be worth $3000.00 to
them. Neither of the two first
place teams who weighed in higher point total
sharks (Endorfin Rush or
Quint’s Revenge) had gotten into the Calcutta. In
addition, the nice
371 lb blue shark weighed in by Dennis and Tim Legere
along with Jim
“swims with sharks” Ermoldof of Team Techfician would have
beaten
Reel Addiction’s blue shark, but they too had elected not to enter
the
Calcutta (FYI, this same crew landed their first bluefin tuna the
weekend after the
tournament; not a bad week for them!). I’m betting
all three of these crews
get in the Calcutta next year. I handed the
$3000.00 in cash to Mike Keegan
and his crewman Garon Mailman at the Run
of the Mill Restaurant Saturday
night. If it is any consolation to the
10 other teams that were in the
Calcutta, Garon put this unexpected cash
influx to good use, buying expensive
drinks all night for a very
attractive red head who was in the bar, which I
think paid significant
dividends for him later on. You’d have to ask Garon,
of course.
SPECIAL THANKS
There are always people who either
directly or indirectly help make
this tournament work each year. So thank you
to Saco Mayor Ron Michaud
and the Town of Saco for allowing us to use the
Camp Ellis pier again
this year as the weigh-in for our
tournament.
Thanks to Jerry McMillan, the dockmaster down at the Camp
Ellis pier.
Jerry helps out with crowd control and handles the boats that
dock at
the pier during the weigh-ins or overnight. I realize that
the
tournament gives Jerry a lot of extra work and I appreciate what
he
does!
Thanks to Peter Mourmouras and Saco Bay Tackle for helping
with the
event each year, especially with arranging the clean up crew and
truck
to work at the weigh-in, and getting stuff into the Captain’s bags
at
the last minute, which I always fail to do.
Thanks to Bruce Haskell
from Bruce Haskell Photography for giving us a
last minute deal on the nice
coffee cups with the Downeast Logo that
were in the captain’s bags this year.
Thanks to Dr. James Sulikowski and his crew who take charge of
the
weighing of the sharks, as well as the biological tissue sampling
and
study of all sharks brought in during the event. They always do a
great
job!!
A big thanks to Denise Giuvelis, a hard working young lady
who each
year takes time out of her busy schedule to help out at the
Captain’s
dinner, getting all the teams registered and checked
in.
Thanks to Doug Ellis and Jeff Fowler from United Way, who show up
each
year and donate their time by selling hats and T-shirts at
the
Captain’s dinner, as well as the weigh-ins at Camp Ellis pier.
Much
appreciated!
Finally, a special thanks to Ian Peacock on Team
Ruthless for donating
his half of the 50/50 raffle ($150.00) to United Way. A
classy gesture.