Matt Garabedian of The Garabedian Group chartered June Bug to fish the Beach Haven White Marlin Invitational Tournament with two buddies, Mike and Todd. June Bug's crew had a chance to really prepare for these fishing days since we got blown out the week before.

The forecast was good for Thursday, July 27, and we left the dock aorund 2 a.m. since tht tide was dropping and we have problems getting out of our lagoon at dead low tide.

In the weeks prior to this tournament, we had noticed that the conditions around the 30 to 40 fathom lines were pretty good. There had been lots of bait, rips, slicks, and all of of the other conditions that generally mark the prescence of good quantities of fish.

Since things had looked there so good as recently as the Tuesday before the tournament, we went to the 30 Fathom Knuckle and started looking. We arrived at daylight and spent the time until we could start fishing searching the area. When the pundits say that fish have fins and tails and know how to use them, they are not kidding. There were no bait pods, no bird action, no slicks, no rips, no nothing even though the current charts showed heavy currents in this area.

We moved south under the Knuckle, up northeast of the Knuckle, and worked every hump and bump that we had in our records. Not a touch.

We moved out to the 40 Fathom Fingers and started to work fronm south to north on the long middle finger. About halfway up, we started to notice a few birds and a few small pods of bait. Suddenly, a really hard strike. Two other baits got hit and our teasrers were getting a serious workout. Mike Baker jumped on the rod and fought his first Wahoo, a beautiful 50 pounder. It was likely one of a pod of 3 or 4 that struck our set at the same time as Wahoo are likely to do. The fish went pretty wild at the boat but mates Chris Mitryk and Anthony Pennella wired and gaffed it on the first try. Mike's arm was pretty tired but he said he'd take that kind of tired any day.

We made several more passes through this area with no further results.

Shortly after, we took a Skipjack and kept it for strip baits.

Between 2:45 and 3 p.m. we had lots of action. Several White Marlin made passes through our baits, and several Tuna shortstruck baits but did not hook up.

We quit fishing at 3 p.m. and headed home with a Wahoo that won the Wahoo prize for the Tournament.

Capt. Lindsay Fuller
Cell 609-585-2839