Fishing Blog

Small tuna all over in 600 – 800′ chasing bait under the birds. January 10th 2023

Club Tournament Schedule 2019-2020

March 7 HAT Tournament – sailfish

  Tournament Rules:

  Lines in will be 7:00am and lines out will be 1:00pm.   
 

Point System
Sailfish release is 25 points each
if There are no sailfish caught the winner will be decided by a meat fish at 1 point per pound. Any legal all size fish will count                        

Meat fish are 

King fish (24 inches to the fork)
Wahoo (No size limit)
Tuna(No size limit)
Cobia (33 inches to the fork)
Dolphin (20 inches to the fork)

We have our annual Chokoloskee tournament coming up on March 28, 2020.  Contact Arnie Sedel for further info (954-871-7056).

Our annual Key West tournament will be May 16, 2020.  This is one of our Club’s favorite trips and one which our wives/sig others enjoy also.  More info, contact Arnie Sedel

Leaderboard 2019-2020

 
Sailfish Catches Per Day 

1. Meat Wagon Tom Jones 4 sails released

 
Most Outstanding Catch Nominations:

• Staley Weidman & Greg Edwards boat – Wahoo 93lbs Chub Cay  

Tournaments Results 2019/2020:
 

• Hat tournament winners June 29,2019 (only 2 boats weighted in)

1^st) Final Judgement- Tom Mathews, Jeronimo Grassi (mate), Ken Whyte, Robert Roy
2rd) Crescendo – Charley Greenberg, Randy Strauss (mate), Trae west, John Kent 

• Venice trip Oct 10-13, 2019
  • No tournament points tracked due to weather

• CLUB BATTLE 2019 (Nov 16^th 2019)

1^st – Meat wagon – Tom Jones, Steve Siegel and Mike Price
2rd – Kona Blue – Charlie Berkley
3^rd – My Time/Big Dog Tackle – Trae West

We have had a few more sign ups for the tournament so here is the lasted list of captains/mates/anglers.

LHPSSA Billfish vs Meatfish Tournament Dates & Rules

Tournament Date: Saturday January 27th, 2018. BACK UP DATES: 1/28/2018 and 2/03/2018
Lines in: 7:30am
Check in 1:30pm LHPYC Main Dock
There is not a “lines out” time – just a required check in time at the weigh in location.
***allows teams some flexibility on time depending their fishing location***
A fantastic lunch will be awaiting the anglers at the LHPYC for the Awards Ceremony.

Entry Fee Per Boat: $200.00 Can have as many anglers as long as two are LHPSSA members. Entry Fee Covers Both Divisions, Food and Drinks & Additional Prizes.

Prize Categories and Payouts:

Billfish Division

1st Sailfish Caught and Called In: 15 points
Any additional Sailfish caught: 10 points
Double Hookups Landed 15 Points each fish
Triple Hookups Landed 20 Points each fish
Any Marlin Species 25 Points each
Swordfish 30 Points each

**Minimum Payout Assuming 10 Boats Participate**
Team with the most points: $500.00 cash prize
Team with the 2nd highest points total: $300.00
Team with the 3rd highest points total: $200.00

Sailfish should be caught on circle or easy release hooks.

Meatfish Division

Eligible Species: Kingfish, Tuna (YF/BF/SJ), Dolphin, Wahoo, Cobia, Any Snapper species in season, Amberjack (G/L), Almaco Jack, Any Grouper Species in Season.
Fish weighed must be of legal size.

Team with the heaviest 3 fish weight total of any eligible species: $500.00
Team with second heaviest 3 fish weight total: $300.00
Team with third heaviest 3 fish weight total: $200.00

Heaviest Overall Meat Fish Category: The single heaviest fish of eligible meat fish.
Prize: Sponsor Prize

All club winners will accumulate points toward annual awards.

Captain’s Meeting: Thursday January 25th at 7:00pm at the Wye Residence.
3232 NE 31st. St. Lighthouse Point. Beverages and Snacks Provided.

Tournament will be postponed to back up date if the marine forecast calls for Marine Advisory Conditions.

1st back up date Sunday January 28th.
2nd back up date Saturday Feb 3rd.

Members,

Starting in 2018 we will be introducing a new series of Tournaments in addition to our annual Hat Tournaments. We will be working with the new and improved LHP Yacht Club to host the new club tournaments. There will be significant prizes, entertainment, new twists, food and beverages, sponsors, demo products and more. You will be able to build your own teams so start planning now! As long as there are two LHPSSA anglers on board anything goes. We are looking at hosting the first tournament Jan. 27th 2018. We are in the process of confirming dates with the tournament committee, venue, sponsors, musicians, caterers ect.

We will have prizes for individual anglers and boats. We will have Calcutta style bonus categories. We will have Triple Threat Pool style awards that roll over to the next tournament. Your team will accumulate points toward a series CHAMPION that will earn additional prizes. Yes, there will be monetary prizes. There will be entry fees for each boat and additional categories just as with any tournament. (Entry & Category fees will be very reasonable as the club will be shifting funds to help with these new tournaments along with our sponsors) We will target 3 to 4 tournaments in the series and plan to host the CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT in May or June. Final rules will be posted soon. We will likely include some awards or points for fish shot while free diving or tank diving. We will be publicizing tournaments and results in various publications and online sources. Order your team shirts now so you look good on camera!

LETS BE CLEAR, THIS IS A LHPSSA TOURNAMENT SERIES.

WE SET THE BAR!

All we can say is……get ready! Everything you have been asking for is coming and more!

Caught a beautiful black grouper in 65ft out front of Boca and a limit of Yellow Tails Sunday.

Steve had a great day yesterday in 850 with dolphin and wahoo. The fish are biting. There were birds all over.

Hope Everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!

Spoke to a friend that went out at 5:30pm last night to go sword fishing and never made it. Said 10 miles out there were literally acres of dolphin. He said they wore them out until just didn’t want to catch fish anymore. Kept what they wanted and probably caught 100 or so. Mostly small fish but hadn’t seen anything like that in years. He was 10 miles ESE of the port. Said he saw a frigate or two and small birds crashing. No real rips or weeds. Maybe a temperature break. He felt they were inside of the stream. The fish stayed with the boat for an hour. He said more than you could ever try to count. Hopefully someone in our crew will find something like that today or tomorrow.

John

Hey Fellas,

Spent last two days in Chub fishing the pocket. Several boats did well raising blues and whites. Lots of action deep in the pocket with this wind. Here out front the wind has pushed the blue/purple water way inshore as of tonight when we came in. Lots of frigates on big fish out on the daytime sword grounds. Fishing should be really good tomorrow. 

This weekend I was fortunate enough to go fishing with Steve, Mark, Charlie, Steve’s father and my father. It was a beautiful day. There were some really nice rips and weed lines offshore. We didn’t have much luck offshore so we moved back in off the blue roof north of Hillsboro. We ended up going 2 for 2 on sails without the kites up. They were hitting sardines. My father caught his first official sailfish and it was the first sailfish caught on Steve’s new 39 Invincible.

Great day

On behalf of the LHPSSA board of directors, I would like to wish all the proud fathers and father to be a very Happy Fathers Day! Hopefully the weather holds long enough for some early fishing or fun events. I have heard a few tuna being caught in 650 and not much in the form of weed lines offshore this morning. Catch em up!

LHPSSA BOARD

Well, the boys fishing the reef for the Showdown had a long day in the rain. Lots of bonito and few quality fish. Mike Price found some nice dolphin in 800 off some nice weed lines.

Hey Fellas,

Great day out today. There were fields of tuna from 150ft to 900ft. Several charter boats out of Lauderdale were loaded and headed back to the dock an hour early.  They were hitting white and blue little jets. We got a late start and were looking for dolphin. We found a cuban raft but there were two other boats fishing it already. For the second trip in a row we ended up with a really nice blackfin tuna on a vertical jig off a wreck in 260 ft. Big Tunas are holding on and around the wrecks. If I had more time I would anchor up current of an area of wrecks in 200ft and I would chunk and live chum one evening. I would bet that strategy would produce. There were some broken weed lines in 350 – 650 and 800. If you are not able to make it across to chase the yellowfins than take advantage of the great Tuna bite right off shore. The fresh tuna and soy sauce was awesome tonight.

Tight lines!

Trae West & Randy Strauss fished in the Take a Hero Fishing Tournament on May 5th just south of the Port Everglades.

**Won the Biggest Wahoo for the Tournament**

Caught 1 – Wahoo 16 lbs & 3 Dolphin 5-6 lbs

4-6 ft outside the reef and windy

Mike golden Richie King and son in law Billy Burton boated a sword on April 29. 70 lbs.

He fellas – when you have a good day on the water – post a fishing report! Let the club know about your success!

There have been some dolphin around on the reef. A few sails are being caught. There seems to be a good deal of tuna around. We caught a nice one in the middle of the day off a wreck in 250 ft.

Hey Fellas,

Its our last Hat Tournament of the year! Its a half day tournament with lunch at the club afterwards. Please log in to the website and look under the membership tab for the tournament sign up link. Fill out your entry information and submit!! Lets make this a great tournament!

Please welcome our 3 newest mebers approved by the Board of Directors Wednesday November 4th.
Michael Golden
Mitchell Kunik
Cliff Vassallo

You can find their contact information on the member roster located on this website. Please make them feel welcome by sending them a note or call them.
I believe all 3 will be going on the upcoming Bimini Wahoo trip.

Thanks, Don Euston, Membership

The report is for flat calm seas, so we should have a great day for the tournament.  We have 5 boats signed up and are looking for a few more.  We are going to fish from 8:00 a.m. (lines in) – 12:30 p.m. (lines out) and then meet at Rick Moore’s house at 1:00 p.m. for a pizza and pool party with the kids and prizes.  This is a bottom fishing tournament where the goal is to have the kids catch as many fish as possible.  No IGFA rules here – you can help the kids hook the fish and fight the fish.  Here are the prize categories:

1) Most fish caught

2) Most variety of fish caught

3) Most snapper/grouper keepers

4) Biggest snapper or grouper keeper

5) Most outstanding catch – this is for a kid who catches something else big – mahi, king, wahoo, sail, big bonita, etc.

Each kid can only win one category.

So far we have Rick Moore, Frank Schmidt, Charley Berkley, Chris Castles and myself signed up.  Please let me know today if you would like to participate.  ssiegel@laborlawyers.com or (954) 594-4514.

We have not had many sign ups for the kids tournament – so far only Rick Moore, Charley Berkley and Chris Castles.  If we don’t get a few more boats, we may need to cancel. Please call (954) 594-4514 or email me (ssiegel@laborlawyers.com) to sign up or you can sign up on the website.   Here is the information:

With the help of Rick Moore, the Club is planning a kids fishing tournament for Saturday August 22.  All kids age 14 and under are welcome to fish – kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, your neighbor’s kids, etc.  We will fish from 8:00 – 12:30 and then gather at Rick’s house for a pizza and pool party with the kids.  This will be a bottom fishing tournament with the main goal being for the kids to catch lots of fish.   Once we get a better handle on participation, we will figure out the prize categories, which will probably include categories for most fish caught and most variety of fish caught as well as biggest snapper/grouper and most keepers.  This should be a great event.   If you have kids who want to fish and don’t have a boat, let us know and we will do our best to get you on a boat.  

We had a great turnout on Saturday with 22 anglers on 6 boats.  A lot of fish were caught, although fishing was a little tough at times.  And the winner is . . .

Bob Schulman, Sarge Crowell and Burt Dubois – This 3 man team cleaned up!  55 total points with their 3 biggest dolphin weighing in at 24, 12 and 10 lbs, with 9 other keepers.  They outsmarted the rest of the fleet and fished on the shallow side, with most of their fish coming inside of 900 feet.

2nd place:

Steve Siegel, Matt Cappiello, Walter Cornwall and Jim Blake – We had a good day with our top 3 fish weighing in at 13, 8 and 5 lbs, with 8 other keepers.  Most of our action was between 900 and 1500.  We also watched a white marlin put on a little show right next to our boat but could not get him interested in anything we had to offer.

3rd place:

Charley Berkley, Larry Crismond and Trae West – These guys had 3 dolphin weighing in at a total of 20 lbs and 2 other keepers for a total of 22 points. 

Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone for a great tournament.

Our first hat tournament of the year is coming up on Saturday and the seas are supposed to be flat!

If you want to sign up now, please email me at ssiegel@laborlawyers.com.

We currently have 6 boats and 22 total members signed up, so there is still room for more anglers.  Please sign up now.   Lines in at 7:30 a.m. and out at 3:00 p.m.  Here is how we are going to score it:

1 point per pound for your 3 biggest dolphin.

1 point for all additional legal size dolphin.

Bonus points: 5 point bonus for any legal size tripletail caught on rod and reel.  (1 tripletail bonus per boat)

Bonus points: 1 point per pound for your biggest wahoo caught.

Bonus points: 35 point bonus for a marlin release.

Let’s all stay on channel 72 for the tournament and since this is all for fun, if we find good weedlines or other structure out there and catch some fish, give a call on the radio to the rest of the boats.  The name of my boat is Here Fish!

Remember that we need pictures for any fish that will qualify for the leaderboard for the annual tournament.

Here are the teams:

Boat #1: Charley Berkley, Larry Crismond and Trae West

Boat #2: Bob Schulman, Sarge Crowell and Burt Dubois

Boat #3: Steve Siegel, Matt Cappiello, Walter Cornwall and Jim Blake

Boat #4: Seymour Ravinsky, Sherman Nicks, Dennis Brammeir and Tom Breur

Boat #5: Don Euston, Joe Imbriale, Bob Roy, John Brown

Boat #6: Tim Nielsen, Glen Turner, Bob Sablo, John Kent

Our first hat tournament of the year is coming up on Saturday and the seas are supposed to be flat!

We currently have 4 boats and 16 total members signed up but we are hoping for another boat or two and some more membership participation.  Please sign up now.   Lines in at 7:30 a.m. and out at 3:00 p.m.  Here is how we are going to score it:

1 point per pound for your 3 biggest dolphin.

1 point for all additional legal size dolphin.

Bonus points: 5 point bonus for any legal size tripletail caught on rod and reel.  (1 tripletail bonus per boat)

Bonus points: 1 point per pound for your biggest wahoo caught.

Bonus points: 35 point bonus for a marlin release.

You can sign up on the website or email me at ssiegel@laborlawyers.com.

We will pick teams at the meeting tomorrow night.

Here is the list of participants:

Don Euston (captain)

Joe Imbriale (mate for Euston)

Seymour Ravinksy (captain)

Steve Siegel (captain)

Matt Cappielo (mate for Siegel)

Tim Nielsen (captain)

Glen Turner (mate for Nielsen)

Bob Sablo

Trae West

Michael Caplan

John Kent

Burt Dubois

Arnie Sedel

Dennis Brammeir

John Brown

Phil (“Sarge”) Crowell

I will be fishing this tournament on my boat and would welcome a couple of anglers to help out. Will be my first tournamernt in along time. 56 Ocean Super Sport.  I am a new member to the club

Thanks

Our first hat tournament of the year is coming up!

We will have our annual dolphin hat tournament on June 27th.  Please sign up now.   Lines in at 7:30 a.m. and out at 3:00 p.m.  Here is how we are going to score it:

1 point per pound for your 3 biggest dolphin.

1 point for all additional legal size dolphin.

Bonus points: 5 point bonus for any legal size tripletail caught on rod and reel.  (1 tripletail bonus per boat)

Bonus points: 1 point per pound for your biggest wahoo caught. 

Please sign up as a captain/mate team or angler.  You can sign up on the website or email me at ssiegel@laborlawyers.com

Club Members,

I have one more day reserved with the commercial fishing charter we go with every year this coming up Wednesday. If three of four of you wanted to put a trip together the weather looks great. Let me know asap so I can help get things set up. We went Wednesday and Thursday this past week and slammed them as usual. My cell is 954-552-7751 or shoot me an email. I can help you with where to stay and any other information you would need.

John

Fish were all over today. Green water out to 550. Kings and tuna on the reef. The story was the incredible weed lines at 600, 700, 850, 900 and 1500. The dolphin were all over. If you were out with a line in the water you were catching dolphin. Unfortunately a nice blue ate one of my schoolies.

I was out Sunday and Tuesday and we found dolphin between 750 and 850. They were liking brite green dolphin jets and ballyhoo. Blackfin were in 650 yesterday but all over.

I went out at 8 am with club members Sarge, Burt and my friend Brad. We went trolling and right away Burt and Sarge got 2 bonita and 1 king all in 100-150 feet of water. We ended up getting 15 bonita.We then went to some shipwreck and found some snapper. The  wind picked up and rain was coming so we  got back to the dock by 12. What a great day of fishing  with new and old friends!

Hello Boys – Reports are coming in that there are nice dolphin being caught in 850 to 900 off Broward today. They are smadhing Ballyhoo naked.

The Florida Gulf Red Snapper season is only open for a few weeks each year and we have an awesome trip set up to take advantage of one of the best fisheries in the state. I have put together another trip for this year. I have two commercial charter boats reserved for Saturday June 7th and one commercial charter boat reserved for Sunday June 8th. We will have another kick off barbeque at the farm Friday night June 6th. You can fly into Tallahassee direct from FLL or you can make the drive. I’m sure there will be carpool opportunities. Space will be limited and I’ll fill on a first come first serve basis. Please email me or call my cell if your interested.
Thank you – John 954-552-7751 or John.a.piotrowski@ampf.com

Big success! My mate Sherman Nicks and I put the sailors on quality fish. Ended up with 2 kings (10 & 42 lbs) and 2 Blackfin Tuna (26 & 28 lbs). Our Kingfish was largest eligible fish in the tournament.

We now have 1500$  in donations from our members. We are 1000$ light at this point. An additional 5 members have indicated they will donate. That still leaves us 500$ short. Please consider donating so we can be a named sponsor.

Mail checks made out to Deliver the dream and mail ti

Rick Moore

2330 NE 35th St

LHP. 33064

remember to mark your calendar for 6/20-21 and fish the tournament.

April 5, 2014

D Euston along with mate, Charlie Berkley and crew, John Kent, Brad Rinsem, and Arnie Sedel set out offshore from HI for a morning of Dolphin fishing. The Darlin’ had not been out for a month and the prior trip was the club’s HAT tournament with Marlin, Sails & Dolphin the high point species.
We ran out to 600′ and deployed dolphin lures to fast troll, hoping to find dolphin. The ocean’s temperature rose to 78.50* as we headed east and at the 850′ mark a pair of dolphin hit our right short & long lures. Shortly, we had one of the two 10#er’s in the box. The other was lost at the gaff. OUCH! Having found the fish we change from lures to rigged ballyhoo and the hunt continues. We continue our drive east. We see something jump to the north – a marlin C Berkley thinks. I turn the boat in that direction. Berkley breaks out the his secret weapon ( a rigged ceril mackrel & deploys it strategically behind a squid teaser on his 50W Tiagra. Within 15 minutes something hits the bait but does not hook up. Moments later, the fish hits the long left rigged ballyhoo on one of the boat’s TLD 20’s WITH 20# test mono line. It’s hooked and it’s BIG! It breaks the water with a huge jump- IT’S A MARLIN! Sedel takes the command of the rod and the battle is on. The fish runs hard and long. I turned the boat in the fish’s direction so Sedel could take up the slack in the line. Once we caught up with the white marlin, it continued to take out line as it sounded. Arnie stayed cool with Berkley coaching him & me, at the helm. 30 minutes later Charlie B touches the leader and we have a legal catch on guesstimate 130# white marlin. The first marlin caught on Marlin Darlin’ and DARLIN OF A MARLIN IT IS!!. Way a day! Thanks to the men on board for having a great day sharing our passion and friendship.

Don Euston

03/21/2014, Friday late afternoon, Last minute fishing trip off Pompano.  Just looked like the right thing to do.  Headed out of the Hillsboro Inlet about 5pm.  The seas had been relatively calm all day with light SE winds.  That changed to a stiff east wind with 3-4’ seas, and several weed lines that had been seen earlier from the air where now broken up and scattered.  We trolled dead ballyhoo and picked up 1 dolphin gaffer size in 250’ just north of Hillsboro Inlet in the scattered weed using a bright chartreuse green/yellow sea witch/ballyhoo.  Managed to catch a lot of the scattered weed.  Wanted to change things up abet so I put out a wire line 2 lb weight, with a black/red sea witch dressed with a large hoo.  Within minutes picked up a nice 21 lb Wahoo, in 130’ of water just south of Boca Inlet.  It was now Miller Time.

A day before New Year’s eve I thought I’d take my boat out late in the day mainly to run it , but still took a long a half-dozen runners I had and a few rods ‘just in case’…   at about 3:30pm or so and as there was virtually no wind I thought I’d bump along a few baits in about 150’ (just north of Hillsboro Inlet)…  was going to run two on riggers and one down a little with an egg sinker, but before I could get the second bait out my left rigger bait went off with a huge sail (at first I thought it was a small white)….   ended up having to give chase in boat and after a pretty good ‘show’ I was able to release  it after about 20 minutes.    Then after getting reset with my two rigger baits, while I was letting out the bait with the egg sinker, hooked up to sail #2…  which promptly entangled itself in one of the rigger baits and took off to the south dragging  the rigger bait line into my engines (so I couldn’t maneuver) …  after a number of additional jumps it sounded and went under the boat where I pulled the hook and wound in one of the biggest bird’s nests cluster-xxcks I’ve seen (apparently the drag of the fouled line de-hooked it)…   ok, so I cut off the messed up line and re-rigged with the last few baits I brought along…   while changing out one of the baits to a fresher bait and still letting the line out, yep, sail #3…    smaller fish, another good ‘show’ and relatively easy release as it came pretty much directly to the boat…   now out of baits and the afternoon drawing to a close, I pulled in the last couple of lines to go home only to fine the bait with egg sinker had been taken…   having to keep a slight drag on this line (vs free spool) and in focusing on the last sail, my guess is I could maybe have had a double-header had I seen it!!!     Anyway, these days just don’t happen to me… 2 for 3 in an hour or so, I’ll take it…   seems its always, ya’ shoulda’ been here LAST week…  but I guess I was due.    Best part was not that I couldn’t get my lines out before I was hooked up, but this all happened right in front of several boats who had been fishing all day nearby and all they could do was watch.    Sometimes the stars are just aligned right.   As an info aside, all baits were smaller-ish runners, all sails were heading south, all were at 148′, and all my leaders had a small wire trace.

Charlie B.

Charlie went out by himself a week or so ago and did extremely well with live blue runners when everyone was getting skunked with goggle eyes. He got good bites slow trolling with a few deep baits. Greenberg has been fishing quite a bit for sails and should have some good up to date info.

Please make sure you post your fishing reports!!

Thank you and Happy New Year!

12/7 went out on Jim Blake’s boat with Sherman Nicks. Kites, flat lines and balloon baits netted 2 Dolphin, 8 kings, 2 muttons, lost sail, numerous sharks. All between 150-200′.

Did a sailfish trip Sat following TG on Steve Siegel’s boat with Matt Cappiello and couple of Steve’s buddies. Pulled hooks on 2 sails and Matt released a third.  Decent King on a flat line gog  in 180′ and a small dolphin. All off Hillsboro beach.

The persistence of Sherman Nicks paid off. He finally convinced me to take him out sail fishing Sat 11/24 on the Bizpoop.com along with Jim Blake. The deal was that we took my boat, used my fuel and we drank on my tab at the Sands after the fishing. I couldn’t say no to that deal. Anyway, 3 drifts produced one barely legal Mutton (Jim Blake), a small Dolphin (so small the gog he eat could have eaten him) and the sailfish posted. Kudos for Jim for spotting the bite while we had all almost given up on the day. Despite all Nick new fancy expensive kite fishing equipment, I’m still high fish……. 🙂

A friend told me his buddies caught 15 yellowfin off Lucaya today. They are still there!