Top Billfish Boat for 2009

[Captain Jay Kavanagh]

Our charter fleet holds an annual season long billfish count known locally as the East West Tournament. Everyone is welcome to play in the tournament, we have charter boats, local private boats and some transient charter boats that divide up into two teams, the east and the west and compete season long.

Near the end of the season we have a party to celebrate. In addition to being on the winning team, The Bite Me was recognized as the top billfish boat for 2009.

It has been a personal goal of mine for about 10 years to one day be the top billfish boat for the Hatteras Fleet and this year the hard work of our mate Jeremy Hicks and our skilled anglers payed off.

The last three years we have finished second.

Congrats anglers and Mate on the Bite Me and we hope to have another great Billfish year next year!

[fishbard]

That's great Jay! Congratulations to both you and Jeremy. It figures that you would win it sooner rather than later. I'll bet Rom isn't happy, though.

[Capt. Fred]

Yup, Rom will be going out in hurricanes next year! Maybe he should buy one of those 47 foot Coast Guard surf boats that can roll over. As long as he's in deep enough water that the outriggers won't hit bottom when she rolls he can fish! (only kidding of course) :-)

Congrats Jay. I'm assuming lot's of those fish were caught on circles too? I know you've gotten real good with them.

[Captain Jay Kavanagh]

Originally Posted by Capt. Fred

Yup, Rom will be going out in hurricanes next year! Maybe he should buy one of those 47 foot Coast Guard surf boats that can roll over. As long as he's in deep enough water that the outriggers won't hit bottom when she rolls he can fish! (only kidding of course) :-)

Congrats Jay. I'm assuming lot's of those fish were caught on circles too? I know you've gotten real good with them.

Fred, yep, most on circles, almost all of the whites and sails, probably about 90%. Still have not caught a blue one on a circle yet, had a few real good shots, but could not conect with a blue on on a circle, still in R&D on that one.

Thanks for contributing to the talley also Fred.

[TunaTeaser1]

Pretty work Jay, Glad it finally worked out for you. Do you mind sharing your season totals?

[Captain Jay Kavanagh]

Sure, I don't know what was actually counted towards the tournament, for some reason I think we had 67 total fish in the tourny.

We start keeping score about May 1 and usually wrap up the count about Oct 1. Also any fish caught after 3pm each day does not count towards the tourny.

I usually try to post the top five, but I can only recall second and third.

The Sea Creature was second in the totals. Creature is probably the best pure Blue Marlin fisherman in Hatteras. I saw him catch 4 in one day a couple of years ago. One of Creature's Blue ones was worth about $750,000 this year in the Big Rock.

The Hattitude was third. Captain Randy Turner is probably the best billfisherman in Hatteras and if he would have sailed the number of trips I did, he would have easily doubled my totals.

So far we have fished exactly 120 charter trips, and caught 8 Blue Marlin, 14 White Marlin and 48 Sails.

Maybe not so impressive numbers as you might think, but keep in mind we don't have the luxury of going billfishing all day everyday. I fish for what the people want to try to catch, not everyone wants to try for a bill, alot of my folks do and we are fortunate in that way, but anyway, that's what we done.

[TunaTeaser1]

Nothing wrong with those numbers! it seemed like an abnormal amount of sails east of OI this year.

good luck with the mackerals, bout that time isn't it?

[hydeco]

Nice job there Captain.

[bluffman2]

Jay congrats on hard work and persisitence......go get em next year!!