CoMpEtItIVE EAtING Roundup OUTCHOMPED …...a feeding frenzy. There was a problem when the clouds...
1
A s anglers, we work within variables to do our best to pre- dict how fish will act, de- veloping patterns that work consistently. One of my favorite types of fishing involves target- ing mangrove snapper at night during the sum- mer months on the full moon on very light tack- le with 1/8-ounce jig- heads with shrimp. Thurs- day looked like a snapper kind of night, but un- fortunately the clouds didn’t get the memo. As we left in the af- ternoon aboard the Le- gal Limit, everything was coming together. Gag grouper season just opened, the moon was set to be 99 percent of full, and an average sea breeze only slightly slowed our west- ward track. Along with Ca- leb and Kyle Grimes and two other guests we were prepared with 10-dozen shrimp for the night time as well as sardines and a well full of miscellaneous baits for afternoon grouper. Around 6 p.m., we were set up and bottom fish- ing in 57 feet. Red grou- per after red grouper was coming onboard as fro- zen sardines were eat- en on each drop in one of the hottest red grou- per bites I’ve ever seen. The biggest one, a 30-inch fish, actually ate both Ca- leb’s and my Spanish sar- dine, and we brought it to the surface together with both hooks in its mouth. After being anchored for only about 20 min- utes, we had our five-per- son limit of red grouper and pushed a mile west in search of gag grouper. Now fishing a small ledge in 65 feet, the red grouper bite was still on fire. We were releas- ing legal-sized fish, hop- ing to get a few gag grou- per instead. Finally a few gags did show up, with the biggest at 31 inches. The sun approached the horizon as we made an- other stop in 73 feet and more red grouper provid- ed catch-and-release ac- tion. The last bit of light remained as we start- ed to push back east to a wreck in 60 feet. A mile after jumping on plane, the depth finder ex- posed a new spot. It ap- peared to be a 5-foot ledge that went from 65 to 70 feet with a large piece of struc- ture on top of the spot. We swung back around, confirmed our fishy sus- picion and anchored on our new-found spot be- low. What a find it was. More red grouper, gag grouper, lane snap- per and vermillion snap- per made an appearance. There were a few fish we could not stop that made their way into the un- known structure below. Could it be a wreck? A large ledge and rock pile? For now it is named “cra- zy” in response to our col- lective responses staring with amazement at the depth finder as schools of fish colored the depth find- er 30 feet off the bottom. With the sun final- ly set, we anxiously wait- ed for the full moon to ap- pear from the east, which would no doubt send the mangrove snapper into a feeding frenzy. There was a problem when the clouds did their best to smother the moon’s glow. In my experience, a clouded moon equals slow fishing. We moved around to spots that have always produced nighttime man- grove snapper bites in the past, but this night it was not meant to be. We would land only two snapper, and Kyle land- ed about a 200-pound go- liath grouper before we headed home and ar- rived at the Kingfish boat ramp around midnight. Being prepared for grou- per and finding a new spot made the trip a success. If the snapper bite had turned on it may have been one of those trips we talk- ed about for years to come. 3C THE HERALD bradenton.com/sports SUNDAY, JULY 5, 2015 SPORTS ASSOCIATED PRESS Matt Stonie shocked the competitive eating world Saturday by upsetting Joey “Jaws” Chestnut at the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest at Nathan’s Famous in Co- ney Island, breaking Chest- nut’s bid for a ninth straight victory. Stonie, 23, who finished second last year, downed 62 hot dogs and buns, beating Chestnut by two. Both are from San Jose, Calif. As thousands of spectators observed the eaters on an el- evated stage, the next closest competitor ate 35 hot dogs. “I trained hard for this. This is actually amazing,” Ston- ie told ESPN, which broad- cast the competition from Coney Island in the Brook- lyn borough of New York live like the major sporting event its biggest fans say it has become. Afterward, Stonie, holding his fist in the air in victory, said he came into the compe- tition confident and prepared in his quest for the $10,000 prize and the coveted mus- tard yellow winner’s cham- pionship belt. “We don’t just go up there and eat hot dogs. We prac- tice for this. We prepare our bodies,” Stonie said. “It was a tough contest. Joey brings it all. I had to push really hard to beat him. But I feel great.” Stonie had defeated Chest- nut in the past year in com- petitions featuring Twinkies, poutine, pumpkin pie and gyros. Chestnut, smiling in de- feat, said he was slow and couldn’t catch Stonie, who entered the match weighing just 125 pounds to Chestnut’s 230 pounds. “I’ve been looking for com- petition for a long time and I finally have it,” he said, vow- ing to return next year. “He made me hungry.” Chestnut, 31, had built him- self into a champ with his string of victories, which in- cluded setting the record in 2013 by swallowing 69 franks. He twice reached 68 but last year had fallen off to 61. After his victory last year, he dropped to one knee and proposed to his longtime girlfriend. They have since broken up. Early in the contest, Chest- nut seemed to have a slight edge but Stonie moved ahead by half a hot dog after 3 minutes and never looked back. The men’s contest came more than an hour after the women competed, with de- fending champion Miki Sudo capturing first place with a flourish that emphasized strategy rather than con- diments. The Las Vegas woman ate 38 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes to claim the title for the second straight year, along with the $10,000 that comes with it. She downed four more wieners than last year and bested Sonya “Black Wid- ow” Thomas of Alexandria, Virginia, who devoured 31 hot dogs. Sudo employed a success- ful strategy of eating the hot dogs separately from the buns and swallowing the buns after first dipping them in Crystal Light. The colorful holiday tradi- tion draws its share of charac- ters. Someone walked around dressed as a giant hot dog. A few chanting animal wel- fare protesters carried an- ti-meat signs adorned with fake blood. KEY LIME PIE — A Key West man has won a Key lime pie- eating contest on the Florida island where the tart, creamy dessert originated. Steve Carr devoured a 9-inch pie smothered in whipped cream in 1 minute,18sec- onds,immers- ing his beard- ed face in it and emerging messy but victorious. The Mile High Key Lime Pie Eatin’ Contest, highlight- ing the annual Key Lime Fes- tival, required entrants to consume the pastry with- out using their hands. Key lime pie was desig- nated Florida’s official pie in 2006 by the state legislature. Ingredients are condensed milk, egg yolks and the juice of tiny yellow Key limes, typ- ically with a graham crack- er crust and whipped cream or meringue topping. COMPETITIVE EATING | Roundup OUTCHOMPED CHAMP Stonie wolfs down one wiener more than Chestnut to swipe Nathan’s coveted belt Joey Chestnut, left, and Matt Stonie compete in Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest men’s competition on Saturday at Coney Island section in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Stonie came in first, eating 62 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Chestnut came in second, consuming 60 hot dogs and buns. Photos by ASSOCIATED PRESS basketball games, coach- es shows and women’s night basketball games. It provides the Braden- ton and Sarasota mar- kets with an improved sig- nal, and greatly extends the state-wide reach dur- ing daytime hours. NFL Arrest Time of Year This is the time of year NFL coaches go to sleep at night with a rab- bit’s foot, lucky charm and phone number of their fa- vorite criminal lawyer. Camps are closed un- til the end of the month, and every player is free to do what he wants — which isn’t always a good thing for these guys. Idle NFL players can be dangerous to them- selves and others. Last year, there were eight NFL players ar- rested in July, the high- est of any month accord- ing to ArrestNation.com. It’s early into the month, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith has to be feeling cautiously optimis- tic — though the Warren Sapp debacle can’t help un- less it’s the “I told you so” type of learning experience. The Hall of Famer is re- tired, but you hope Sapp’s recent arrest for domes- tic violence that por- trayed a life seemingly out of control doesn’t neg- atively influence some of Lovie’s younger guys. Fortunately, he has Ger- ald McCoy to keep things in the right perspective. The NFL had only one arrest in June (Brandon Spikes), but there were minicamps and OTAs to keep the players busy. Three days into July there were three NFL play- ers and three college play- ers arrested, which could lead to a banner month for America’s favorite sport. College football play- ers usually have the most arrests — and walloped the competition in June with 13 — leaving run- ner up college basket- ball far behind with two. College football has by far the most players of any sports entity, so that might explain its numbers to some extent. But it doesn’t bode well for the image of the sport at the profes- sional or college levels. Alan Dell, Herald sports writer, can be reached at 941-745- 7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports. DELL FROM 1C Warren Sapp, left, and Michael Irvin prepare to go trick-or-treating Oct. 30, 2013, at the University of Miami while making a promotional video for their NFL Network show. CARLO ALLEGRI/AP Images for National Football League Matt Stonie hoists the championship belt after winning Saturday’s competition in New York. Carr OUTDOORS OUTDOORS Jon Chapman [email protected] This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Sunday 2:45a 3:15p Monday 3:40a 4:10p Tuesday 4:35a 5:00p Wednesday 5:25a 5:55p Thursday 6:20a 6:45p Friday 7:10a 7:35p Saturday 8:00a 8:30p Sunday 8:55a 9:25p July 13 9:50a 10:15p July 14 10:40a 11:10p July 15 11:35a Midnight July 16 12:25p 12:50a July 17 1:15p 1:40a July 18 2:00p 2:25a July 19 2:45p 3:05a — Source: U.S. Naval Observatory data Solunar table Frozen sardines fire up appetites of gobs of grouper Red grouper after red grouper was coming onboard as frozen sardines were eaten on each drop in one of the hottest red grouper bites I’ve ever seen.
Transcript of CoMpEtItIVE EAtING Roundup OUTCHOMPED …...a feeding frenzy. There was a problem when the clouds...
As anglers, we work within variables to do our best to pre-
dict how fish will act, de-veloping patterns that work consistently.
One of my favorite types of fishing involves target-ing mangrove snapper at night during the sum-mer months on the full moon on very light tack-le with 1/8-ounce jig-heads with shrimp. Thurs-day looked like a snapper kind of night, but un-fortunately the clouds didn’t get the memo.
As we left in the af-ternoon aboard the Le-gal Limit, everything was coming together. Gag grouper season just opened, the moon was set to be 99 percent of full, and an average sea breeze only slightly slowed our west-ward track. Along with Ca-leb and Kyle Grimes and two other guests we were prepared with 10-dozen shrimp for the night time as well as sardines and a well full of miscellaneous baits for afternoon grouper.
Around 6 p.m., we were set up and bottom fish-ing in 57 feet. Red grou-per after red grouper was coming onboard as fro-zen sardines were eat-en on each drop in one of the hottest red grou-per bites I’ve ever seen. The biggest one, a 30-inch fish, actually ate both Ca-leb’s and my Spanish sar-dine, and we brought it to the surface together with both hooks in its mouth.
After being anchored for only about 20 min-utes, we had our five-per-son limit of red grouper and pushed a mile west in search of gag grouper.
Now fishing a small ledge in 65 feet, the red grouper bite was still on fire. We were releas-ing legal-sized fish, hop-ing to get a few gag grou-per instead. Finally a few gags did show up, with the biggest at 31 inches.
The sun approached the horizon as we made an-other stop in 73 feet and more red grouper provid-ed catch-and-release ac-tion. The last bit of light remained as we start-ed to push back east to a wreck in 60 feet.
A mile after jumping on plane, the depth finder ex-posed a new spot. It ap-peared to be a 5-foot ledge that went from 65 to 70 feet with a large piece of struc-ture on top of the spot. We swung back around, confirmed our fishy sus-picion and anchored on our new-found spot be-
low. What a find it was.More red grouper,
gag grouper, lane snap-per and vermillion snap-per made an appearance. There were a few fish we could not stop that made their way into the un-known structure below. Could it be a wreck? A large ledge and rock pile? For now it is named “cra-zy” in response to our col-lective responses staring with amazement at the depth finder as schools of fish colored the depth find-er 30 feet off the bottom.
With the sun final-ly set, we anxiously wait-ed for the full moon to ap-pear from the east, which would no doubt send the mangrove snapper into a feeding frenzy. There was a problem when the clouds did their best to smother the moon’s glow.
In my experience, a clouded moon equals slow fishing. We moved around to spots that have always produced nighttime man-grove snapper bites in the past, but this night it was not meant to be. We would land only two snapper, and Kyle land-ed about a 200-pound go-liath grouper before we headed home and ar-rived at the Kingfish boat ramp around midnight.
Being prepared for grou-per and finding a new spot made the trip a success. If the snapper bite had turned on it may have been one of those trips we talk-ed about for years to come.
3CTHE HERALD bradenton.com/sports SunDAy, JuLy 5, 2015sports
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Matt Stonie shocked the competitive eating world Saturday by upsetting Joey “Jaws” Chestnut at the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest at Nathan’s Famous in Co-ney Island, breaking Chest-nut’s bid for a ninth straight victory.
Stonie, 23, who finished second last year, downed 62 hot dogs and buns, beating Chestnut by two. Both are from San Jose, Calif.
As thousands of spectators observed the eaters on an el-evated stage, the next closest competitor ate 35 hot dogs.
“I trained hard for this. This is actually amazing,” Ston-ie told ESPN, which broad-cast the competition from Coney Island in the Brook-lyn borough of New York live like the major sporting event its biggest fans say it has become.
Afterward, Stonie, holding his fist in the air in victory, said he came into the compe-tition confident and prepared in his quest for the $10,000 prize and the coveted mus-tard yellow winner’s cham-pionship belt.
“We don’t just go up there and eat hot dogs. We prac-tice for this. We prepare our bodies,” Stonie said. “It was a tough contest. Joey brings it all. I had to push really hard to beat him. But I feel great.”
Stonie had defeated Chest-nut in the past year in com-petitions featuring Twinkies, poutine, pumpkin pie and gyros.
Chestnut, smiling in de-feat, said he was slow and couldn’t catch Stonie, who entered the match weighing just 125 pounds to Chestnut’s 230 pounds.
“I’ve been looking for com-petition for a long time and I finally have it,” he said, vow-ing to return next year. “He made me hungry.”
Chestnut, 31, had built him-self into a champ with his string of victories, which in-cluded setting the record in 2013 by swallowing 69 franks. He twice reached 68 but last year had fallen off to 61.
After his victory last year, he dropped to one knee and proposed to his longtime girlfriend. They have since
broken up.Early in the contest, Chest-
nut seemed to have a slight edge but Stonie moved ahead by half a hot dog after 3 minutes and never looked back.
The men’s contest came more than an hour after the women competed, with de-fending champion Miki Sudo capturing first place with a flourish that emphasized strategy rather than con-diments.
The Las Vegas woman ate 38 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes to claim the title for the second straight year, along with the $10,000 that comes with it.
She downed four more
wieners than last year and bested Sonya “Black Wid-ow” Thomas of Alexandria, Virginia, who devoured 31 hot dogs.
Sudo employed a success-ful strategy of eating the hot dogs separately from the buns and swallowing the buns after first dipping them in Crystal Light.
The colorful holiday tradi-tion draws its share of charac-ters. Someone walked around dressed as a giant hot dog. A few chanting animal wel-fare protesters carried an-ti-meat signs adorned with fake blood.KEY LIME PIE — A Key West man has won a Key lime pie-eating contest on the Florida island where the tart, creamy dessert originated.
Steve Carr devoured a 9-inch pie smothered in whipped cream in 1 minute, 18 sec-onds, immers-ing his beard-ed face in it and emerging messy but victorious.
The Mile High Key Lime Pie Eatin’ Contest, highlight-ing the annual Key Lime Fes-tival, required entrants to consume the pastry with-out using their hands.
Key lime pie was desig-nated Florida’s official pie in 2006 by the state legislature. Ingredients are condensed milk, egg yolks and the juice of tiny yellow Key limes, typ-ically with a graham crack-er crust and whipped cream or meringue topping.
CoMpEtItIVE EAtING | Roundup
OUTCHOMPED CHAMP
Stonie wolfs down one wiener more than Chestnut to swipe Nathan’s coveted belt
Joey Chestnut, left, and Matt Stonie compete in Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest men’s competition on Saturday at Coney Island section in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Stonie came in first, eating 62 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Chestnut came in second, consuming 60 hot dogs and buns. Photos by ASSOCIATED PRESS
basketball games, coach-es shows and women’s night basketball games.
It provides the Braden-ton and Sarasota mar-kets with an improved sig-nal, and greatly extends the state-wide reach dur-ing daytime hours.
NFL Arrest time of YearThis is the time of
year NFL coaches go to sleep at night with a rab-bit’s foot, lucky charm and phone number of their fa-vorite criminal lawyer.
Camps are closed un-til the end of the month, and every player is free to do what he wants — which isn’t always a good thing for these guys.
Idle NFL players can be dangerous to them-
selves and others. Last year, there were
eight NFL players ar-rested in July, the high-est of any month accord-ing to ArrestNation.com.
It’s early into the month, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith has to be feeling cautiously optimis-tic — though the Warren Sapp debacle can’t help un-less it’s the “I told you so” type of learning experience.
The Hall of Famer is re-tired, but you hope Sapp’s recent arrest for domes-tic violence that por-trayed a life seemingly out of control doesn’t neg-atively influence some of Lovie’s younger guys. Fortunately, he has Ger-ald McCoy to keep things in the right perspective.
The NFL had only one arrest in June (Brandon Spikes), but there were
minicamps and OTAs to keep the players busy. Three days into July there were three NFL play-ers and three college play-ers arrested, which could lead to a banner month for America’s favorite sport.
College football play-ers usually have the most arrests — and walloped the competition in June with 13 — leaving run-ner up college basket-ball far behind with two.
College football has by far the most players of any sports entity, so that might explain its numbers to some extent. But it doesn’t bode well for the image of the sport at the profes-sional or college levels.
Alan Dell, Herald sports writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports.
DELL FROM 1C
Warren Sapp, left, and Michael Irvin prepare to go trick-or-treating Oct. 30, 2013, at the University of Miami while making a promotional video for their NFL Network show. CARLO ALLEGRI/AP Images for National Football League
Matt Stonie hoists the championship belt after winning Saturday’s competition in New York.
Carr
outDoors
OUTDOORS
This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Sunday 2:45a 3:15pMonday 3:40a 4:10pTuesday 4:35a 5:00pWednesday 5:25a 5:55pThursday 6:20a 6:45pFriday 7:10a 7:35pSaturday 8:00a 8:30pSunday 8:55a 9:25pJuly 13 9:50a 10:15pJuly 14 10:40a 11:10pJuly 15 11:35a MidnightJuly 16 12:25p 12:50aJuly 17 1:15p 1:40aJuly 18 2:00p 2:25aJuly 19 2:45p 3:05a
— Source: U.S. Naval Observatory data
solunar table
Frozen sardines fire up appetites
of gobs of grouper
Red grouper after red grouper was coming onboard as frozen
sardines were eaten on each drop in one of the hottest red grouper bites I’ve ever seen.
