| MIDNIGHT BLUE WINS THE SAILFISH KICKOFF
The fishing started out very slow for the 37 boat field with very few releases being called in. The slow action had the fleet checking and re-checking their radios all day. The committee boat even resorted to 15 minute “radio checks” to make sure there weren’t any electrical issues. One team caught a bad break; some would say it was a good break. “Rock Star” had some mechanical issues and couldn’t make the run to the south they planned on. So they limped out to Fowey Light and setup their typical spread. Before they could even complain about the lack of mobility, they had a quick double header on the lines. Shortly thereafter they raised a triple and caught two of those fish. It was almost noon by the time they had six releases and the rest of the feel heard of their success. A few moments later, almost every boat in the tournament was setup off of Fowey Light trying to catch “Rock Star.” By the end of the day “Rock Star” led all boats with 8 releases. “Get Lit,” “Wound Up” and amateur team “No Problem” had 5 releases each. A group of boats had 2 or 3 releases and many had not seen a fish all day.
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December 11, 2011 – Coconut Grove, Florida - Traditionally, the Sailfish Kickoff has been one of the hottest tournaments on the sailfish scene. It seems that records for sailfish releases are always being broken at the Sailfish Kickoff. In 2004 over 400 sailfish were released in one day. In 2007 100 sailfish were released in the first hour of fishing. But this December it seems the sailfish did not get the memo. Fishing for the 2011 Sailfish Kickoff was slow all weekend except for a few lucky teams.