Jim Knapps AMAZING Day

I have known Jim Knapp for almost my whole life. When I was much younger, fishing tournaments on the Frick and Frack, with my grandfather, dad and brother, Jim's team was always finishing near or on top and they were the boat to beat. I had never fished with Jim before, so I was very excited when he called a booked a full day with us. He was only bringing two family members, Ken Hallstrom and Lad Lubanovich, both from Ohio so he had no problem with Debbi, James and Laurel coming along to help out. The bait came very easy so I decided to try some bottom fishing to get some action as well as a few fish for dinner. At our first spot as soon as the lines got down, we got bites immediately. This was a very good sign. We had nonstop action and in no time had fifty yellow-eyes, vermilion's and silver snappers in the box. When the action slowed we found ourselves at a new spot and caught several nice tile fish and a snowy grouper. When the grouper came in I decided to run to the south and try to find a few more of these tasty fish. Somehow our team on the L&H found ourselves in one of the best deep water grouper bites we had ever seen. We were catching them like crazy, sometimes three at a time and there were a lot of nice fish up to fifteen pounds. Every spot had them and they were biting. Just before everyone was ready to go look for dolphin we stopped and caught a few almacos, including a twenty-five pounder Jim caught on spinning tackle. With an amazing quantity and assortment of bottom fish, I then steered the L&H offshore. The sea was flat calm and you could see for miles. About ten miles out we came across a two foot piece of foam with dolphin all over the place. Our team went to work and soon dolphin were flying into the boat fast and furious. All of the sudden the school came together and hid under the boat. From our view in the tower Debbi and I watched as a mako shark nearly three hundred pounds raced up from the depths through the middle of the dolphin in an amazing display of speed. It was truly a sight to behold. Wes and Greg got the shark rod out right away, but the mako and the rest of the dolphin had left the area. Before we moved on we caught a nice wahoo to add to the nearly full fish box. A few miles away, Wes spotted some birds and when we got there dolphin were everywhere. Again the L&H team had dolphin coming in the boat like no tomorrow and in short order we had our limit. It seemed like everything we tried that day was working, so why not try for a day time sword. The first try we had a good bite, but didn't hook up. I was feeling confident that we could get another bite and a few minutes later we did. The rod doubled over and line melted off the reel, we had a big fish on! After twenty minutes we knew this was not fighting like a sword, more like a thresher shark. When we finally got the beast to the surface everyone was shocked to see a big swordfish coming in backwards. After we muscled the big sword into the boat we were shocked to see that it was not hooked, only the leader was looped around its tail. It was amazing to pull that fish all the way up with so much pressure and have it stay on all the way to the boat! As Debbi, James, Laurel and I rode together in the tower I felt so very lucky to have such a wonderful family, crew and friends to share such and amazing day with. We caught a couple nice tunas close to shore just to put an !!!!!!!!!!!! on the day and when we made it to the dock it seemed like it took forever to unload all the fish. When word of our catch spread, one boat owner was reported as saying "There is no way the L&H caught so much fish in just one day, my boat was out the day before and they only got a few dolphin". It is days like these that separate us from the rest of the fleet and that is what makes the L&H so special.