John's Tournament Day

John Ouelette has been fishing on the L&H for twenty years and he knows our operation very well. He is very fun to have on the boat because he always has a positive attitude and loves to get involved and help out. For the past several years we have fished the Mechanical Contractors Tournament of South Florida, a dolphin tournament out of Ocean Reef and nearly every year we end up in the top five. The tournament is very hard on the boat and the crew, leaving in the dark and almost always returning in the dark, running the boat hard all day. There is no time to fish for bait so we must go out ahead of time and have the bait on the boat, but to see John try so hard and get soooooo excited when we hook a big fish it somehow makes it all worth it. The fishing had been slow leading up to the event, so when we picked up John and his family early in the morning at the Ocean Reef fuel dock we knew the odds were against us. I decided to run far offshore and not stop until we found something to fish to. When we reached two thousand feet of water off Key Largo we found a likely area and before long John spotted a piece of floating debris that we picked a few nice fish off. With something to weigh and dinner for the Ouelette family everyone was feeling good. Although we did not catch a ton of fish or a monster off the debris that John spotted, it was crucial to our success that day. The floater put us in the zone where the fish were and we stayed in that zone all day and caught more and bigger fish than almost anyone from Miami to Key Largo! For the next few hours we found school after school of dolphin some with as many as one hundred fish. Then just before lunch we came upon a set of birds that looked like they would be over the big fish we needed. Our anticipation turned to frustration when I spotted some big skipjacks under the birds. Seconds later James yelled "There's a big one dad"! A single big dolphin was mixed in with the skipjacks and Wes teased the fish in close. John delivered a perfect cast with the live bait and we were on! I threw the L&H hard in reverse and it was a little black smoke alot of white water and blood and in a few seconds the fish was in the boat. Everyone was celebrating, what a great feeling! John's son, Kyle followed his dads lead with another nice dolphin an hour later and we began the forty mile trip back to the reef. Just before lines out we found a nice bull dolphin, but unfortunately he ate the bait off the hook and we had to start running for home. Again I pushed the L&H hard and our team slid into the weigh scale with only four minutes remaining. When we pulled the fish from the fish box on the L&H I could see that Johns fish was long, but very skinny and that would cost us. We missed first place by a mere two pounds, to a boat that only caught one fish the entire day. Nevertheless John Ouelette and his team on the L&H ended up taking second, third, and fifth heaviest dolphin. When we finally made it back to Key Biscayne other boats had their catch on the dock. One boat had about thirty small fish and other boats had less than half that. When we threw our catch for the day up, people gathered around asking how long we had been out and where we were fishing. All I had to tell them was "Just another good day on the L&H with my friend John". Thanks alot to the Ouelette family and we look forward to seeing you again soon!