How Did Paul Do In The Mercury Saltwater Slam Fishing Tournament? (Photos)

How’d we do in the fishing tournament? Not bad!

When my Son came to me and said, “Dad, wanna fish the Mercury Saltwater Slam fishing tournament?” Two things came to mind:

A) we never win (I won the Miami Dolphin tournament about 20 years ago)

And B) who’s gonna pay for this (me)?

It’s an expensive proposition with bait (some cost $80 a dozen and you need like 10 dozen!) ; fuel (I have a 400 gallon tank) and entry fees!

So when I complained my kid said, “don’t worry about it, we will catch the bait...ok good. And they did! So that saved about $600!

We started out at 4:30am, meeting at my place, my driveway looked like a Ford dealership with all the pick up trucks. We had 6 guys plus a cameraman on the Hectic Daze, my 36 ft Contender.

I live in Boca, and we decided to fish in Jupiter and that’s a good 40 miles away but I knew that if we hit it right, the bite would be on and when lines in hit at 7:30am, it was on!

We had 10 kingfish in the box as well as a ton of bonito which you think are gonna be tuna, but sadly they A) are not and B) don’t count!

At the end of the day we caught a ton of fish, including a nice 18 lb African Pompano which is delicious but doesn’t count either!

We ended up winning 3rd place in the non pro division, and had a great time.

Oh, and the prize money paid for the fuel! The Papa’s Pilar fishing team is alive and well!