Time spent with a topflight tournament crew yields tactical plans that apply to many kinds of fishing.
- Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.
Meticulous notes I took for this article are at the bottom of the sea somewhere south of Fowey Light. For all I know, given the circumstances under which I dropped my cellphone, they could be inside the belly of a sailfish.
So you can take some of the following details with a grain of salt.
What I remember is we had one angler at the bow fighting a sailfish—I believe it was Matt George, from Stuart. There were two, possibly even three, boats off our port side also fighting sailfish. I was holding a spinning rod with a live cigar minnow in the water, waiting for a bite of my own. In my right hand was my new iPhone 16, snapping photos of Matt, waiting for the moment when Capt. George Gozdz—reaching for the leader—would holler “Caught fish!” to Capt. Ray Rosher, at the wheel.
Suddenly the mosh pit shifted my direction and my phone flashed like a wounded goggle-eye into the clear blue Gulf Stream. We got the fish, one of 14 for the three-day tournament. I lost my phone but kept my hand on the rod. When it’s the final day and you’re within a few catches of the top seat, you go hard and don’t look back…