This report is about the Virginia Beach Billfish Tournament. We fished this tournament last week, and what a great time. The fishing was good, but the weather was even better! Whenever you get to have good fishing and good weather, then everyone's mood is always good.

We got there on Wednesday, and went fun fishing on Thursday, we went one for one on the white marlin, and caught a dolphin or two. The first fishing day for us was Friday and we saw birds working, bait fish on top along with white marlin cutting through the bait. Once the bites started, we had steady action for a few hours, and ended the day going 3 for 5 on the bites and saw several other fish in the area. One of our three was a blue marlin, which was a pleasant surprise, and the other two were white marlin.

On board was Clyde, L.O., Pete, Parker, and the mates were Justin and Thomas. The crew was 100 percent on their hook ups, but due to unlucky events we were not able to complete the release on two of the fish. Still it has been awhile since we have had that kind of action, and I look forward to next years event.

Finally had another trip, and it was a good one. Charles had this one scheduled for a long time. A little choppy, but not too rough, they managed to do a great job. We bailed a few dolphin early, and despite Mark feeding them instead of catching them the rest of the crowd took up the slack. Catching 20 or so. We then shifted gears and tried for something different, and managed to catch 4 wahoo to go with the dolphin. I tried to tell them wahoo were not very good, but Jamie had too much experience to go for that old trick.

I had a blast with this group, and hope next time we can find a marlin for them.

WHAT A DAY! Chris and I chatted several times, and I told him that the first two weeks of July can be very special around here. With all of that said this year has not been the best billfish season so far. Chris and his crew however timed it perfect! We went 3 for 8 on the sails and white marlin. Severel other boats did very well as well. We had a great day with a great crew and I look forward to the next trip with Chris and his friends and family.

Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament is now over and despite a lack luster fishing week, there were some remarkable achievements during the week. The first of which was the Citation boat catching a new record for the tournamment on the very first day of the week! 883 lbs shattered the old record. The Miss Judy on day two was the only boat to even release a blue marlin and they released two. That is something that has always baffled me, how can fishing be so slow, yet one boat out of 100 boats catch two, and no one else catches one? The Carnivore caught a nice fish that on most tournaments would have won, but not this year. Their 528 lb fish was only good enough for second, and then third fish was 460 lbs caught on Friday for the Wet and Wild.

Our party was with Mech Works and they were GREAT! I will try to list everyone that fished with us, but I am not sure I can remember all of the names, as Ron and Andrew invited different people through the week to fish. Ron, Andrew, Richard, Freddie, Trapis, Kieth, Winsor, Kyle, Kyle, (not a typo)Teddy, Mike, Judson,and others that I am struggling with remembering. They showed a lot of patience and we fished hard, but it was just not meant to be for us this time around. We had a blue marlin take a swipe at a plug on THursday, and jumped a white marlin off on Friday, but that was about the extent of our tournament. However good times were shared and stories told during the week, and I hope to see these guys again real soon.

On our lay day we took radio personality Donna Kelly fishing and actually did some radio things while fishing in the action during Wednesday. We caught some dolphin and even cleaned and ate a couple for lunch.

We had great weather during the week, and today we are off to Hatteras to fish the Marlin Club Tournament, and have some great food. I hope the fishing picks up for this week. After this we are back home for regular charters, and we have many open dates, so call for days available and details.