While most of you were preparing for the Super Bowl over the weekend, Ben, Matt, Bear, Whit Louie and I were in Key West, FL participating in the first annual Cuda Bowl fishing tournament. The objective of Cuda Bowl is to see who can catch the largest 6 Barracuda over a two day period. Three must be caught on day 1 and 3 more on day 2, with each fish being measured and the person with the largest number of inches being declared the winner. So now that you know how the CB works, we can go into the exploits of the characters involved, with special emphasis placed on the Cuda King.
On day one at 8 sharp, we split up into groups of 2 anglers and a captain per boat. Ben and I were with Capt. Pat Bracher, Matt and Louie went with Capt. Bob Paulson and Whit and Bear were assigned Capt. Doug. As we headed out, we all pledged that this would just be fun for us and that none of us really cared who won, and besides, there were a lot of other folks in the competition, so we just wanted to have a good time, ha ha! These boats are fast (ours had a 115 hp outboard) and thus we arrive out on the flats in seemingly record time. Almost as soon as the boat stopped, I made my first couple of blind cast and found myself reeling in my first Cuda of about 43 inches. Not a bad start for a city kid. Next Ben pulls in his first, wow 47 inches and he takes the lead on our boat, but not for long as I proceed to pull in a 44 inch er, but things are just getting interesting. We have all day, and since it's still early we decide to throw back the next few without measuring because if you measure the fish, you have to count him in the 3 for the day.
Pat decides that the fish in this area aren't big enough, some A-Hole has moved into our area, so he decides to move onto another spot. THIS IS WHERE I ALMOST LOSE MY LIFE FOR THE FIRST TIME-Ben, gets a bite and is reeling in another Cuda, and boy he's putting up one heck of a fight when he stops running away from the boat and turns towards it. Pat's yelling to Ben, "he's headed for the boat, reel, reel", Ben's yelling back "I'm reeling". Now I'm just standing on the Bow enjoying myself watching Ben fight with the fish when all of a sudden, the fish decides that he wants to get into the boat with us, so he jumps out of the water, (probably traveling at about 30 mph) and almost takes my leg off at the knee. Only my quick thinking and Bojangles like moves saved me from certain disaster. The sad part is that the fish while weighing maybe 25 lbs, appeared too short to measure as he was probably slightly less than 40 inches, so we threw him back into the water, but we did get a good laugh out of it, once I stopped sweating. Later in the day, Ben caught a 51.5 inch er, and I caught another 40 inch er, so after 7 hours we called it quits for the day.
When we arrived back at the dock, we found that some of our comrades had not done quite as well as we had, with Matt and Louie not getting the 3 minimum fish into the boat, however Whit and Bear got theirs, and Bear was only 2 inches short of me. When we got to the central meeting spot with the rest of the competitors, Ben was the leader overall by 3 inches and had the the day one lead.
Day 2 - Ok, remember when I said that none of us were going to take this serious? Well, with Ben in the lead, and some of us hating to lose to him, you can forget that! So, I'm trying to get in that last hour or so of sleep, when I hear moving around in the room, and look over at the clock, yep you guessed it, Ben's all keyed up, and can't sleep, so he's up getting ready to go fishing. Just one problem, the boat won't be there until 8, so we both get up, make some coffee and decide what the hell, let's wake the rest of our crew up. Ok, so we have breakfast and head for our boats. All of the captains are ready to go and I'm just 8 or 9 inches behind Ben after day one, so I'm ready to catch the big one, and if you think yesterday was wild, wait until you hear what happens today.
We get to our initial flat and start our day, and it's another great day in Key West, the temp is 72 by 9 am, headed for close to 80 and we're loving life. Once again, Pat finds the right spot, and as soon as we start to cast our hooks, the Cuda start to bite, and we're on our way. I get a quick hit, and before I can get mine halfway to the boat, Ben has one on the line, so we have some early morning excitement as within 30 minutes, we pull in 4 or 5 Cuda, but I'm throwing mine back because their not big enough for me to catch up with Ben and I figure I've got all day to land the big one. Ben counts 1 for 44 inches right away just to ensure that he gets his 3 for the day. He later pulls in another one in the mid 40's, so now he only needs one more and decides to throw a few back while he too waits for a bigger one. Now it's close to noon and I decide I had better start measuring to make sure that I get my 3 in for the day, and thus I end up with my 3 Cuda totaling 125 inches for the day, with no chance of catching Ben unless he lands a shrimp.
What happens next is that I almost lose my life for the second time on this trip, and it's really close this time. Ben only needs 1 fish, and it's starting to get late so he decides to pass on anything but Barracuda's until he has fulfilled his quota for the day. Pat see's a couple of Cuda off the front side of the boat and tells Ben to throw at them. He gets a hit, and right away we can all tell that this is another big one and Ben has his hands full. Once again, the fish is running all over the place, but then decides to turn back towards the boat, and clearly I didn't learn anything from yesterday because I am once again standing on the bow of the boat when this fish that must weigh at least 40 or 45 lbs jumps out of the water and almost literally takes my head off as he comes across the right side of the bow, goes clean over the boat and lands in the water on to the left rear and continues to run. After what had to be 10 minutes, Ben finally gets this monster into the boat and he's 52 inches. For the rest of the day, we keep coming back to how close I came to being a gonner if that fish had hit me, but I have to admit that when it was all over, it was kind of funny.
Finally we get back to shore and head over to the marina to see who has won the first annual Cuda Bowl. It takes about an hour, but finally we have a winner who hence forth will be known as the Cuda King. Ben is crowned CUDA KING with a total of 279 inches over the two days, the second place person was 10 inches behind, and thus Ben is crowned Cuda King. As for the rest of us, Bear finished 4th and I was 5th by less than 1/2 inch. We don't know who was DFL, but he wasn't in our group, so that's a good thing. We finished fishing on Sunday, getting in 5 more hours, and as luck would have it, I did finish with the longest fish for the week by catching a 53 inch er when it didn't count. I guess that's why Ben is the Cuda King, he came through when it counted.
This was a really great trip,made so much better because I was able to spend it with 5 good friends. We fished together, ate and drank together, and enjoyed each other's company.
If you're planning a fishing trip, contact one of our captains at:
Captain Pat Bracher · PO Box 764 · Big Pine, Florida 33043
Phone: 305.745.3408 · Email: fishovertime@comcast.net
Doug - tarpindoug@aol.com
Bob Paulson 305-744-8291
bobpaulson1@comcast.net
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