9/18/04 Nantucket News from Capt. Lynne Heyer

As I look out the window, the sun is shining and it is pretty nice outside. You can't believe everything you see on the weather reports. The wind is picking up though. I guess you can't have everything. Even the Blue Angels bugged out without doing their thing. The hurricane blasted their home base of Pensacola, FL. One pilot told us that it is the first time they have ever cancelled a show. I have to admit that taking care of their families is more important.

Now to the important stuff--the fishing. Great Point has been on fire off the beach and by boat. We were just told that someone got a really big tuna at the point. I think it was an albie, but we have not seen the proof yet.

The West End is also pretty hot with albies, stripers and blues. The boats have also found a few bonito way west. Capt. Jeff had out Doug George and Lisa Peckham the other day and they got a slam and almost the grand slam. Seems they had a nice bass hit on a darter, but he just wasn't happy and shook off. Doug and Lisa had an awesome day of fishing.

The Nantucket Slam was earlier this week, and we had awesome couple days. The weather was perfect. The fishing was good, and the competition was hot. The Jetties was red hot for Hal Herrick. He caught the first slam of the tourney, and was leading after the first day of fishing. I fished with friends, P.J. Rubin and Mike Krinsky, and we fared pretty well over the two days. I was close the first day, but got blown away the second.

The winners were:

• Largest Bass, 41 inches, Jay Digeronimo
• Biggest Bluefish, 31 inches, Tom Rogers
• Biggest Bonito, 24.5 inches, tie between Jay Miller and Joey Walker
• Biggest Albie, Carlos Ferrer and Capt. Shawn
• Most Bluefish, 39, Chip Cunningham
• Most Bonito, Jeff Belzikian
• Most False Albacore, Meg Blair
• Most Stripers, Pete VanDingstee
• Spin Division Champ, Carlos Ferrer
• Trolling Division Champ, Ray Simms
• Fly Division Champ, Capt Hal Herrick
• Grand Champs (won by total points), Jay Belzikian and Ray Simms captained by Capt. Tom

All in all, the first Nantucket Slam tournament went off very well. We will be tweaking the rules and looking at ways to improve the tournament for next year. We will keep everyone up to date about next year's dates, and we hope that everyone that fished this year will be returning again--and hopefully a bunch more.

-- Capt. Lynne

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