Wahoo fishing certainly has its diehard fans. Most big boats in this event do not fish billfish tournaments, sticking with wahoo. As Miranda related over a dockside breakfast, just after the fleet sailed, wahoo fans go back a long way. He says that Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the first African-American U.S. congressman, who hailed from New York, was in self-imposed exile in Bimini after his years of service, around 1970. He fell in love with wahoo fishing, and the first wahoo tournaments were held right there, though the exact year is uncertain. When Powell passed away in 1972, his ashes were scattered at Bimini. A memorial wahoo tournament was held there for Powell, and others soon sprang up in his wake, notably several held by Tom Malone and Penny Turtle in the Abaco Islands.

First place crew from Scatterbrain/Double Trouble with their 64-pound wahoo.

Today’s Bahamas Wahoo Championship is in its eighth year, and conservation with biological sampling of dockside specimens is a constant. It’s very different from early tournaments, where they had an aggregate weight per boat. One boat crew got the bright idea of running to the coast of Cuba and returned with 800 pounds in a single day...whoops! Not what the tournament had in mind. A boundary of 65 miles went into effect, with the combined weight of two wahoo allowed each day.

This tournament remains fairly low-key, due to winter fishing. If wahoo ran through The Bahamas in summer, they would easily have a hundred boats entered each year, including small boats. With winter’s weather, Miranda says you have to consider a 35-foot boat about the minimum size for this event, even though fish are caught only a few hundred yards off local beaches. More isolated, wahoo-attracting spots such as Memory and Isaac rocks, and Matanilla Shoals, require running in unprotected water. Crossing the Gulf Stream back to the States in a north wind can be Charlie’s Surf, so to speak, with towering seas. Though the last day was fished in gorgeous, slick calm conditions with a fine awards banquet outside, boat crews scampered back to the mainland early the next morning in a rising north wind. By midafternoon, seas were peaking at 15 feet in the Gulf Stream. Boat owners, older participants (and writers of course) caught the smooth, 28-minute flight back to Miami on American Airlines, watching whitecaps far below from a safe altitude of 8,000 feet.

The Presidential Challenge Billfish Tournament in Iztapa, Guatemala had a memorable, if not frantic three days of fishing, with 51 anglers releasing 507 sailfish, two blue and a striped marlin.

With IGFA observers on each of the 17 boats, the numbers are beyond dispute. They monitored the mandated fishing technique, which was trolling with 20-pound Trilene line, while using circle hooks.

With savage action found just offshore, this tourney was also rounded out by a photo finish, perhaps the closest in this tournament’s history. Repeating their 2003 win of the PCCA Guatemala Contender Team Division was Team Picapleitos, with anglers Margie Adams, Gwen Hahn and Fernando Aguilar. Amazingly, they won by only four minutes over the Palm Harbor Hookers team. The second-place boat, led by Jim Turner with teammates Nick Ferraro and Mike Wnek, turned in the same number of fish and points, but barely lost to Picapleitos, who received an invitation to represent this tournament at the Rolex IGFA Offshore Championships in Cabo San Lucas in May.

Jim Turner was top angler, pulling away from challengers on the final day by releasing 15 sailfish. Margie Adams is the Eagle Claw grand champion angler. She fished the Presidential Series in Costa Rica, Venezuela and Guatemala for an accumulated total of 31 billfish releases.

FS