How Bradenton-area anglers took home thousands in prize money from fishing tournament

Less than a week after Hurricane Debby brought 20-foot seas to the Gulf of Mexico, 26 boats joined the 24th Sarasota Slam out of Marina Jacks in search of varieties of fish to claim prizes in multiple categories.

The Slam rewards individual fish divisions and not six-fish point totals like many others on the Gulf Coast.

“We wanted to check off as many species as we could,” explained Captain Jack Dingle of offshore Team Going Deeper. “When we left here out of Sarasota after the Friday captains meeting, it was pretty rough still. We ran the beach down to Marco Island then went south toward the Dry Tortugas area.”

During the trip, Dingle and his crew of Tyler Thirion, Alex Kompo, Mike Molload, Alec Decker and Trevor ran across a school of birds working bait about 100 miles offshore. It didn’t take long and they had their first category checked off. They caught multiple blackfin tuna, with one at 24.4 pounds that would win the tuna division.

“We found some nice tuna then kept going south and stopped at a wreck for nighttime. The bite wasn’t great. I fought probably five or six sharks on the big rod, something we keep having to deal with in the Gulf. Then around 5 a.m., the big bait was eaten once again.”

The big bait resulted in a big fish that Dingle described as “like fighting a horse bucking at the other end.” As it ran for its home, he was able to turn it before making it back to the wreck thanks to a little luck.

“When the tide changed we swung 150 to 200 feet to the side of the wreck. I could feel him trying to get up under the boat back to the wreck,” Dingle said. “After a while, I got it up, saw it was a big cubera snapper and the adrenaline at 5 a.m. woke everyone up! It was a great way to wake up and we couldn’t believe how big it was when it was in the boat.”

At 81.5 pounds, that would win the snapper division.

“We then went deeper trying to catch some exotics, snowies (grouper) and queen snapper,” Dingle said. “The first bait down, we broke off a warsaw (grouper). After breaking off three more times, we ended up getting one.”

The warsaw grouper they caught, 84.1-pounds, took home first place in the warsaw division and they would also land a snowy grouper that would bring home first place grouper.

“We wanted a swordfish so tried to catch one during the day, something we don’t normally do. We got a small one on the first drop then had four other bites into the night we couldn’t catch. But we did catch a big alfonsino, a rare fish for the Gulf, while swordfishing that was pretty cool,” explained Dingle.

The deepwater alfonsino was able to be entered into the wildcard division, and at 9.4 pounds it would be first place wildcard. They also landed mahi mahi at 4.5 pounds that won the mahi division.

Taking home six offshore first places, the only one they missed out on was swordfish. Team Galati’s 223-pound swordfish won that division, wowing the crowd during the Sunday afternoon weigh-in.

In the inshore divisions, Team Hawk Chewah would claim first place snook at 43 inches. Team Genesis Planning won the redfish division with a two-fish total of 62 inches and Team Gulley’s pair of trout at 47 inches won that division.