Sport Fishing Travel Blog of photographer Scott Kerrigan

I finally got to shoot a local species now that I’m back full time in SoFlo. Lucky to have friends like Fly to invite me drift a live bait in Jupiter Inlet. We didn’t get nearly the action we were hoping for…but still managed to have fun and hope to do it again very soon before the season changes things around. The morning started out rough after a long spell to catch bait we burn up a circulation pump. Yup, on this skiff, the only circulation pump.

No worries, a quick trip to the marine store and we are back in business a few Sardines lighter. Fly did find the lip of a cuda with his circle hook skills –

And then we found what we were looking for. Not in any great numbers or size, but a nice one just the same.

Thanks for the ride Fly.

The UPS man just dropped off a new toy. Canon’s latest piece of glass is a 8-15mm fish eye zoom. I always did have a soft spot for wide angles. Now I can satisfy that urge to the point of uber excess. Can’t wait to take this thing out on the water and put it thru some paces. Until then, I’m stuck with lens testing around the house. Sure looks sharp so far …. watch your toes.

The F/V Revenge does it again. Captain Mike, Dean, and Ryan along with Sam and Jon angling have once again shown the fleet that they rule the drop with an eleven fish boat win in the Boy Scout Tournament.  Sam released six fish and Jon had five.  This gave Sam enough points for second place angler behind Chach angler Damon Chouest.  They had some very good competition this time with the Gulf Rascal finishing second with ten, and the Chach in third with ten also based on time.  Reports are that it was a real close finishing day with several lead swaps in the final few hours.  Congrats boys!

While fishing Jupiter Inlet the other day, I witnessed and impressive sight. What started out as a tiny column of smoke in the background, turned into the mother of all conflagrations. The column of smoke was so large that it looked like it was starting to create it’s own weather. The illusion of depth made it look like the ocean front middle class neighborhood on the North side of the inlet was in danger. Actually, the source was a safe distance away in Jonathan Dickinson State Park. And a check of the news that night revealed that is was even a park ranger controlled burn.

The July Moon is rising and I’m headed down island. I’ve been hired to shoot the Virgin Islands Game Fishing Club’s 48th annual July Open Billfish Tournament. This should be a blast. The July Open is always a great event with plenty of Blue Marlin bites for all the boats. The July moon in St. Thomas can produce some spectacular fishing and if it’s anything like last year, some very big fish. If you can’t make it down there in person, I’ll be posting updates here for all to see.

Well it’s finally happened.  Someone has finally caught a fish large enough to set a new Bahamian Blue Marlin record.  A quick history is that back in 1979, Miami developer Sam Jennings was fishing a Bimini BBC tournament on his boat the “JC”.  Late in the afternoon on the last day of the event they trolled over toward a Frigate Bird and hooked a monster fish right out front.  Epic battle, mates swimming over to help with the gaffs, and a WFO run across the sandbar gets them to the weigh in scale just in the nick of time.  Ends up being 1060 lbs, and this record holds for the last 32 years.  Fast forward to this week and we find team Double Dog fishing the final leg of the BBC out of Treasure Cay.  Bahamian angler David Albury hooked the fish and took three hours to reel it in.  This monster ends up weighing in at 1119 lbs!  This record should hold a while.

June Moon Report from the North Drop:

The summer Blue Marlin season is up and running on the North Drop. This June moon will be relatively quiet, with only 10 boats fishing this weekend.  Pardon the time delay in posting these results, American Yacht Harbor can’t seem to get their marina internet working this month which prevented me from doing daily updates.  All of these photos and a few hundred more will be added to my photo web site shortly.

Tuesday June 7 – This many days ahead of the moon most teams have not started fishing yet. Just the Black Gold, Hoosier Daddy, and the Prime Time.  Light winds and plenty of clouds and rain. Keith on the Black Gold released one fish. Capt Butch was the one to watch today with 2 releases from 5 bites. That report of 5 bites really stirred things up back at the dock.

Wednesday June 8 – Travel day for me as I arrived late this evening after my short hop from SoFlo. Today the Revenge caught 3 of 4 bites and the Black Gold was 1 of 4.

Thursday June 9 – Riding along with the Revenge today. It’s great to be back fishing with Sam and Mike. We caught 2 of 3 marlin bites and 1 white marlin. Also managed to catch a small Yellowfin Tuna on a lure and a nice Wahoo on a mono Ballyhoo. Conditions are crazy calm with little or no wind and mostly sunshine. The Black Gold was 5 for 5 today, and saw two other fish in the spread. The Chach didn’t see one.

Friday June 10 – Back on the Revenge for a second day. The wind speed has doubled today, now it’s blowing 8 knots. A few more boats out today and plenty of bites to go around. We only released one of our 3 bites. The other two fish fell off the pitch mackerel circle hooks after several minutes. But before that happened, I managed to get a shot of one of these fish chasing a teaser – photo below. Ray on the Therapy saw the most fish, 6, but only held on to one of those. Black Gold picked away and caught 2 of their 4 bites, and added a Sailfish. Hoosier Buddy had 3 bites and caught 1. And the Chach is out of their slump with 5 bites, releasing 2. One of those releases is the frisky little jumper pictured below with Damon in the chair and Dominick steering.  I took the liberty creating a photo montage that shows all eight frames of this sequence in one shot.

Saturday June 11. Aboard the Therapy today with Capt. Ray.  Our anglers are Billy, his son Hunter, and Shelbie.  The goal today is to catch Shelby her first marlin.  Our first encounter doesn’t take long with a bite coming before 8:00 am.  A down and tight lure bite and Shelby makes short work of a 100lb fish – photo below.  While clearing the spread a second fish made a few passes at a teaser before fading off.  A few hours later Hunter also catches a down and tight lure bite.  One more fish darts around the spread in the afternoon before they quit fishing.  Ending up 2 of 3 and seeing a fourth.  The Mojito released two today, one was a real quick 10 minute fish they called 500lbs.  Most boats had several encounters.  The stats below are courtesy of Jimmy Loveland:  Revenge was 0 for 1, Marlin Prince 1 of 2, Therapy 2 of 3, Batichica 2 of 5, Capital Punishment 1 of 2, Black Gold 3 of 3, Mojito 2 of 4, Lady Magic 2 of 2, Chach 2 of 4, Hoosier Buddy 1 of 2, Prime Time PR 1 of 3, and About Time caught 2.

Sunday June 12. Riding out again with the Therapy.  Another early morning bite puts Shelbie in the chair.  Unfortunately this is short lived as the fish falls off after the initial run.  Mid afternoon a fish shows up behind a bridge teaser but doesn’t play along.  And our last bite eats a short rigger teaser and does just what it is supposed to do.  All the way to the boat, circle back, and pounce on the pitch.  Hunter catches the Therapy’s only fish of the day.  The rest of the fleet all see some decent action throughout the day.  The following stats are courtesy of Jimmy Loveland:  Revenge 2 of 3, Mojito 0 of 1 + 1 white, Batichica 2 of 2, Black Gold 0 of 2, About Time 1 of 4, Hoosier Buddy 3 of 4, Chach 3 of 4, missed both a white and a sail also, and Prime Time PR 3 of 4 and caught a white.

Monday June 13. Back on the Revenge today.  Rasta Dean returns to work from a medical break and brings some good luck.  Around 5:00 down in the corner we wrap it up with a double header.  First one to come tight gets to use the chair…nice work Sam.  All of today’s fish are small with only two of them jumping near the boat.  The following stats are courtesy of Jimmy Loveland:  Chach 7 of 10, and a white, Prime Time PR 4 of 5, Abigail 4 of 5, Hoosier Buddy 2, Marlin Prince 0 of 2, Black Gold 1 of 2, Mojito 2 of 5, and the Black Pearl caught 1.

Tues June 14. Day before the full and hopes are high for my last day aboard the Revenge.  Continued light winds still over the area with talk of a tropical wave making some changes in a few days.  We start off with a morning teaser bite that doesn’t switch over and see Sam’s pitch bait.  Next is a long rigger lure bite that pulls off after a long run.  Jon then gets a pitch bite to stick and a second fish lurks around while the boat is being cleared but swims off.  Late afternoon has a long rigger ballyhoo get cut off by a wahoo and while winding in that head a blue marlin zooms up and follows it in.  Good tease but it doesn’t transfer over to Sam’s pitch bait.  The following stats are courtesy of Jimmy Loveland:  Black Gold 0 of 0, Mojito 2 of 3, Chach 1/2 day 1 of 1, Hoosier Buddy 3 of 5, Marlin Prince 1 of 3, About Time 3 of 3, Black Pearl 0 of 1.

Wednesday June 15. Fishing aboard the 60′ Spencer boat “Mojito” today.  Trade winds are starting to fill back in a bit with the arrival of a tropical wave.  The action starts early with a teaser bite.  However, this small fish doesn’t paddle in and never shows on the pitch mackerel.  Our second bite is a down and tight lure bite.  Another small fish but it’s feels great to get a release by 8:15 am.  Next bite is a small teaser fish that eats well and Pico comes tight.  One brief hop on the leader and we get back to trolling.  Next is a small teaser fish that eats the pitch and makes for a quick release.  Just as the spread goes back out, we raise another fish and come tight on the pitch mackerel.  Several other boats are getting bites at the same time.  This fish pulls much harder and ends up being a 250lb fish that jumps on the leader for Aileen.  End up with 5.  The following stats are courtesy of Jimmy Loveland:  Revenge 3 of 3, Hoosire Buddy 1 of 1, and 0 of 2 whites, Therapy 2 of 3, and Marlin Prince 0 of 1.

DAM as in Digital Asset Management – As a long time user of iView Media Pro software, I spent years avoiding the versions that MicroSoft put out after they acquired the company and renamed it Expression Media. iView Media Pro did it all, read all types of files, and worked fast and smoothly. It just plain worked. In four years of MS development, I never read of any improvements. I was excited to read that Expressions Media was recently purchased by Phase One and would once again be the go to software for managing a collection of digital files on a Mac. Who wouldn’t be. Phase One is a major player in the high end digital imaging field in both hardware and software. Unfortunately, this upgrade is a step backwards. The performance of even displaying an image file on screen is many times slower than than the 10 year old software that was iView. I made the mistake of paying for this “upgrade” and installing it first before reading the forums. Now I see posts from plenty of users who are not happy with this release and feel like they are having to pay to be beta testers for Phase One. There is a lesson in there somewhere…

This event has come to a close and what a great time it was. Thirteen boats signed up and fished the tournament. And the winner was the 58′ Merritt boat “Renaissance” out of Ft. Lauderdale. Over 25 fish were seen and plenty of fish jumped off over the three days. We were blessed with incredible weather and clean blue water offshore. And the land activity was world class. The Big Game Club is the perfect facility for a fishing tournament with everything happening right at the base of the marina docks and around the pool. From their waterfront restaurant to the outdoor party tents, everything flowed smoothly. And the service and staff could not have been better. There were some great stories told in the Hemingway bar by industry folks like Guy Harvey, Frank Johnson (Moldcraft), Kent Ulberg (sculptor), Bill Shedd (Aftco), Ed Pang (sculptor), Tim Choate, John Graves (Virginia Institute of Marine Science) Mike Myatt (IGFA) and Charlie Forman. Joining this roster of stars were media folks like photographers Bill Boyce and Pat Ford, along with publisher Fred Garth. Even with the slow fishing the warmth of the people and the uniqueness of this event have me looking forward to coming back next year.

Bimini Big Game Inaugural Billfish Tournament winner “Renaissance” arriving back at the dock.

Team Renaissance accepting their stainless steel jumping marlin sculpture from it’s creator Kent Ulberg.

Groups photo of VIP’s presenting the Big Game Club perpetual award to Frank Johnson.

A cool looking school of fish hovering around an early morning blue LED transom light.

The artist and mogul Guy Harvey has released his latest project. A glossy magazine with the theme “The Art of Ocean Conservation”. Guy Harvey Magazine is a uber classy product full of interesting stories about our ocean, all who love it, and the critters within. Not to mention packed with Guy’s incredible art. Each quarterly issue they also feature an outside marine artist, and this “Spring 2011” they feature me. I was lucky enough to get a 12 page photo portfolio of some random shots from my stock file. If your local newstand isn’t carrying this magazine, call the publisher to get dialed into a subscription 1 (888) 275-2856.