The 2021 Ship of Fools Tournament is in the books, as Captain William of the Wanderer brought home the gold for the FishingNosara team on April 10th and 11th, 2021.
Georgia anglers Bob Pease and Pat Vincent scored 5 Sailfish releases (100pts. each) and a big Dorado (25pts.) on day one.
On the second day they added a Blue Marlin release (300pts.) and a Sailfish release. They also nagged three Dorados over 25lbs. during the weekend, good for 25 pts. each.
“I’m so happy for Bob,” writes Pat. “he’s fished this tournament and finished second a couple of times. Mostly I’m happy for Captain William who fishes every year and has finally won it himself. Can’t say enough about good things about Captain William, he is a smart, competitive, methodical fisherman. We worked a small patch of water for three days, it was twenty miles south of where everyone else was fishing but it was right where we needed to be.”
With the Wanderer’s total of 1075pts., Captain William won this tournament by a landslide.
Second place was secured by fellow FishingNosara skipper Captain Fico Bran on the 27-foot Explorer. This the second win in three years for the young Captain, who is now clearly the one to watch in future tournaments.
Though it was their first time fishing in the tournament, Martin Cooper and his great group of anglers from Northeast Florida had to overcome a slow first day (50pts from two Dorado).
They rallied on day two with a blistering 800pt. performance (Two Marlin releases and Two Sailfish releases).
The other FishingNosara boats were in the hunt throughout the tournament. Defending champion Captain Alex Moreno (Harvester) missed third place by a razor-thin 50pt margin.
The Harvester did with the Biggest Dorado Calcutta for the tournament on the shoulders of this 50lbs. monster:
The 32-foot Discoverer and the 23-foot Adventurer tied for 6th place with 475 points each. This was the first time that the sneaky 23-footer entered the tournament, but that didn’t stop the Adventurer from posting the first Marlin release of the tournament at 9am on the first day.
We are still compiling photos and videos from the whole event, and will be updating this space soon, so stay tuned!