Yesterday was the annual Budwiser sponsored fishing tournament here in Pohnpei. This tournament was a Catch Five tournament with Marlin, Yellowfin/Dogtooth, Wahoo, Mahi and Skipjack Tuna being the target species.

The day was wet, so wet that it was the first time I have been cold since being here. The rain hardly stopped all day and the wind picked up to about 30 knots at one point. Not a whole lot of fun at different stages. We targeted wahoo first and ran the barrier reef with a successful hook up within half an hour. Unfortunately the wahoo wrapped itself around the motor and the one opportunity for a gaff shot (by yours truly) was missed. Gutted...... I was praying at this stage that that wasn't the only wahoo we would see all day.

We then decided to head to one of the off-shore atolls as we had been successful there about a month ago. After the hour or so transit we put the lures out and within five mnutes we had a three way hook-up. All fish (a barracuda, a rainbow runner and a dog-tooth) were landed this time. So that was one of the five on ice. We then continued to troll the reef targetting wahoo again. About 20 minute later we hit them with a three way hook-up. My earlier prayers were answered and we got two wahoo inboard. You beauty, I was off the hook.

Now that we had the two fish you target on the reef it was time to change the plan and chase skipjack, mahi and marlin. We drove around the atoll with no sign of any schools and no 'blind strikes'. By this time the rain was coming down that hard that visability was down to 50m. Time to troll back to the main land so that we made home in time for the weigh-in. We trolled all the way and finally found a school of mahi. As soon as we hit the school the two mahi lures were hit instantly. We cleared the spread and brought the first one in, a solid mahi that we were all happy with, that made three. The second fish was going a lot harder and it put a great fight, pulling 8-kilos of drag with ease. Good fish I thought. We finally saw it, a top-sized bull mahi. After a 15 minute fight we landed what is now my PB Mahi at just over 21 pounds.

We had to punch into it then to make it back and came across a flock of birds just outside the pass we were going to enter. Out went the skipjack lures, for an instant hook-up. A three pound skipjack joined us on board, but size wasn't the issue, that was number four of the five species. We then gunned it for the weigh-in, making it with 10 minutes to spare. As it turned out we were the only boat out of 12 in the tournament with four species with about five boats getting three. So that three pound skipjack turned out to be a $600 fish as we won the tournament. We also got another $100 for the biggest Mahi. So with the cold winds and rough seas forgotten we took our two free cartons of budwiser and when home to clean the boat and the fish.

Not a bad days fishing at all. Sorry about the quality of the photos; it pretty much rained all day and there wasn't a chance to get any good pics on the water.