Copyright 2006 Brandon W. Smith.  All rights reserved.
Click here for the old website. www.thereelestatefishingteam.com
Fishing Team
2005 Reports
Offshore Edisto
Headed offshore for the first trip on the Contractor 4 and it is official.  This boat RAISES fish!!!  We had six Sails and a couple of nice Dolphin in near perfect seas.  What a great trip.

July 1-3
Jolly Mon KMT
My dad, Reed and I fished the Jolly Mon on the Legal Ease, as my mom and Mary Coleman bailed on us at the last minute.  We fished the Jungle and managed a 23.9# fish and ended up 29th overall.

June 23-25
Greater Wilmington KMT
The Greater Wilmington has always been our cursed tournament each year.  It never fails that the fishing is less than ideal for us.  This year, the tournament was delayed due to the conditions, and we thought that might be just the thing we needed to change our luck.

Reed, my dad and I fished the Legal Ease and started the day baiting up off of Oak Island.  We then ran to the Lighthouse Rocks and deployed our spread.  We quickly had several small fish, which we released, and felt good about our spot.  It was not long before the reels began to smoke.  As we angled the fish, the GWKMT curse began to appear again as the already overcast and dreary weather quickly began to worsen.

A thunderstorm was rapidly bearing down on us, and though we put more and more pressure, we could not bring the fish to the boat.  Lightning was striking all around us.  We had already cleared our lines and prepared the boat to run away from the storm, but we still had to boat the fish.  Then a lightning bold struck yards from the boat.  It formed a bright yellow fireball-like explosion at the water which allowed me to utter words I had never said before when angling a fish I had not identified, but felt was good tournament quality… “CUT THE LINE.”  Life and limb is more important that a good fish, and we had to get out of there fast.

I ran the boat to the only break in the clouds and crossed the shoals over to the Cabbage Patch.  Again we began fishing, and found a hot bite of small kings.  We put one in the boat when we were again faced with impeding storms.  As they quickly approached, we began a run inshore to get out of the weather, but to no avail.  The bottom opened up, and even though we were on a cabin boat with full curtains, we were flying blind and we were more wet than if we went swimming.

Finally, just before reaching Carolina Beach Inlet the rain let up some.  We cruised to the Sea Buoy to find numerous boats fishing, and we debated putting our spread out again, but decided that we had experience more than enough and went ahead and headed to the scales to weigh our small fish as the scales opened.

January
Quepos, Costa Rica
Fished two days out of Quepos, Costa Rica on the Sea Lady, and though we did not land the 55 Sails we had last year, we still had double digit catches each day and had another amazing time.