Big fish of the Grove Slam winners, Back For More.

Fish Up Sets New Grove SLAM! Record

May 5, 2008, Miami, Florida - Once again, the Sea Vee / Mercury Grove SLAM! pulled out all the stops. 181 teams and over 1,000 anglers competed in the 7th annual event. And the stakes this year were high: over $45,000 in cash prizes.

The festivities before the fishing.

This event’s popularity has grown immensely and now reaches outside of South Florida, even outside the state. The teams came from all across Florida and even a few imports from New Jersey, Chicago and Texas made their way down to the Grove. In addition, our live streaming events were watched by people from almost every state in the Union plus Australia, France, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, and the Bahamas. The Grove SLAM! is really living up to it’s title of the “Funnest Fishing tournament in the World.”

The Grove SLAM! takes place right on the water at Monty’s raw bar and marina. If you want to visit Coconut Grove, May’s Florida Sportsman Web Xtra lists captains, hotels and boat ramps in the area.

To enhance an already festive atmosphere, teams were treated to open Bacardi and Miller Lite bars. Free food and plenty of give-aways keep all the teams entertained throughout the tournament. Anglers, friends, and family had plenty to do dockside with displays from the tournament sponsors like Brickell GMC, Bill Potter Marine, HotFish, eBoat Loans and others.

The Bimini Start--quite a start, quite a rush to be there.

But what about the fishing and that blistering dolphin bite that worked offshore anglers up into a frenzy the last couple weeks of April?

The Bimini Start (shotgun start) is the most exciting event in fishing. Over 180 boats were poised and ready to start their day of fishing; all waiting for the “go” call. With two helicopters in the air and all the bottled up horsepower, it’s easy to see why this is a crowd favorite. Once the signal was given, it was full-throttle for all the boats. Once the boats hit open ocean, they quickly disperse and head out of sight and may are also out of radio range.

The fishing reports were few and far between, but that is the norm for these types of tournaments. Teams don’t want to give any insight as to where they are fishing and what they are catching. Teams will look for any advantage. They refer to this as “stealth mode.” Often times, the quieter the radio, the better the fishing. But it’s all in the open when the fish hit the scales.

Teams trickled into to the Monty’s marina all day. Some teams made their way back early opting for the dock party over fishing. Maybe the fishing was a bit slower than expected. For all but one team; the crew on Fish Up! had a banner day and broke the current Grove SLAM! record by .3 pounds! Their total of 121.95 pounds with five fish is an impressive 24.4-pound average and good for $20,000.00. Quite an accomplishment especially since they did not have the big fish of the tournament. That honor goes to Back for More and their 48-pounder which was good for $5,000.00. Fishin’ Magician won $10,000.00 for their 2nd place dolphin because they were entered into a value-added category. The top 5 teams were rounded out with What in second place followed by Peacekeeper in third. T-Zer finished 4th with Dusky 33 rounding out the top five.

Miss Hot Fish!