Planning The Tournament ~ Serious Buisiness At The South Florida Fishing Club

Guys love competition and nothing guarantees a good turn out at a meeting of the South Florida Fishing Club like planning a tournament. At various times of the year we have a kingfish tournament and a dolphin (also called dorado and mahi-mahi) tournament where the biggest fish is the winner. We also have annual tournaments for sailfish and tarpon where the most released fish is the winner. They still have to be a minimum length but since neither one is very good to eat it's best to just catch them for fun and let them go again.

Tarpon are an inshore species and I've won several nice trophies for the most releases. The other fish are offshore species and I tend to get seasick so I act as the club weighmaster, keeping track of who catches the biggest dolphin or kingfish. Usually somebody will give me a mess of fish to take home so I bring a cooler full of ice with me. After the weigh-in we have a barbeque in someone's back yard with all the boats rafted up at the dock.