Summer Tournament Season is Here! | HMY Yacht Sales x West Palm Beach Fishing Club

Hi, this is Riley Hutchinson with HMY Yacht Sales. Sailfish season is wrapping up down here in South Florida, but the fishing is far from over. We have a lot of exciting fishing coming in the spring and summer. We're here with Buzz from the West Palm Beach Fishing Club. Buzz, what do you guys got coming up soon? Coming up soon, May 5th through the 10th, is our new Palm Beach Tuna Tournament, home of the $10,000 tuna. Pretty good. Tell us more. These boats go out and if they catch a fish that's over 40 pounds, it'll most likely be a yellowfin tuna. That's what we see mostly out here. Could be a blackfin. We've seen blackfin tuna over 40 pounds caught in the last couple of years. Bigeye or bluefin. They go catch one of those four tunas over 40 pounds and bring it to the scale. It's a guaranteed $10,000 fish. That is so exciting. What happens if there is no 40-pound or plus tuna this year? Okay, well, I hope there is because we've got some really serious fishing crews. Like you said about sailfish season, a lot of the crews that are signing up for this are some of those crews that are pretty dialed in for live baiting. Boats that we've seen fish on our silver sailfish derby are now signing up for the tuna tournament. But if they don't get the right bite, if they do get the right bite, I bet they'll land them. If they don't, though, the prize money is going to roll over to next year's payout, so it'll be home of the $20,000 tuna then. That's really exciting. Can you give us a rundown of what that week of fishing is going to look like for people participating in this event? Yeah, so like I said, it's May 5th through the 10th, so it's six days. And teams that register for all tunas, those species that I mentioned, they can declare to fish three of the six days. So they might pop out after work two days, and then I'm sure a majority of the boats will be fishing Saturday. And Saturday, we have our Blackfin Blitz going on there. What's the Blackfin Blitz? Give us more details on that. Yeah, so that's kind of how this idea came about, is we've done a really popular Blackfin-only tuna tournament the last couple of years. And one of our members, Hunter Simpson and Team Cowboy, went out, and they show up to the scale with this 141-pound yellowfin tuna. And just got a pat on the back for it, you know. That is so tough. Yeah, so that kind of sparked the idea. And so we wanted to keep that. That sparked the idea for the Palm Beach Tuna Tournament. But we wanted to keep the Blackfin thing kind of rolling. So the last day of fishing, which is going to be Saturday, we're having, calling it the Blackfin Blitz Day. So all our boats who maybe aren't equipped to go and hook into those big fish and target those tunas, or have time to fish three days during the week, will have a day of fishing Saturday that's open to members, free for members of the West Palm Beach Fishing Club. We'll award the top three Blackfin tunas for adult and junior anglers. The club has a really wonderful legacy of promoting youth fishing. And so any event that we do, we try to incorporate that into it. Something for the kids. For the Saturday Blackfin Blitz, where will you be doing your weigh-in at? Yeah, right here at Sailfish Marina. So this is just like an incredible venue for events. And we're so lucky to have them as one of our most important community partners. The proximity to Palm Beach Inlet, which is just a beautiful inlet, and they've got beautiful blue water and a wonderful bar and restaurant. We'll do the weigh-in here. And it's kind of unique. We're working with another one of our partners, who's the Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County. They're doing their member picnic here the same day, and our scale is going to be featured inside of their event. So it'll be a really family-friendly weigh-station environment. They'll have bounce houses for the kids or water slides, music, food, drinks, other games they do. It's like a picnic that way. And we'll be inside their event. It's a ticketed event, so it's $25 for adults to attend. And kids under 12 are free to come too. So kind of a call to action if people want to come see the Blackfin Blitz weigh-in, which will be from noon to 2 on that Saturday, May 10th. They can come out and buy a ticket to that, come hang out and enjoy the whole event, and see some really cool fish at the scale. A lot of Blackfins will be showing up, and hopefully a big yellowfin as well, or any kind of tuna. We're hopeful for sure. We're really proud to sponsor this tournament with you guys. What else do we have going on this summer? Yeah, HMI is also a sponsor of our Full Moon Wahoo series. And I want to say this is our 9th annual year doing it. I kind of lose track when it's just rolling like that. But it's been a really popular event. Trolling for wahoos around the full moons has always been something that's kind of proven to entice the bite a little bit more. So July, August, and September, the Saturdays around those full moons will be the three fishing dates. And you can catch the heaviest wahoo on any one of those. And we also have a series grand champion. So the boat that has the highest aggregate weight from one single fish from those three days will be our series champion. And that's another just cool, unique event that we try to do. It's just something different. People like to go out and do that. So we try to provide a platform for a fishery that's already there and something people are excited about. We're really excited about it. A lot of our brokers participate in this event. Well, thanks for meeting with us and giving us a rundown of what's coming up this summer. We're really excited to be a part of all of it. And if you guys have any questions or want to register to become a member, where can we get all that information? Great question. So you can always call or stop by our clubhouse. The West Palm Beach Fishing Club was established in 1934. Really wonderful historic institution. And our clubhouse is in downtown West Palm Beach, not far from where the boat show is on the north end up on Flagler Drive. And the building was built in 1940. It's on the city of West Palm Beach and national historic register. And you can stop by there. I'm there Monday through Friday, typically. You can call the club. Our website is just more information than you need on us. We have so much going on. So you can go on there and sign up for the club, sign up for the tuna tournament, sign up for the Wahoo series. We have a lot going on. We have monthly seminars that we do at the clubhouse. We've got Captain Arts app coming down actually in April to do a live bait seminar. So he's just one of those all time captains. And we've got some really reputable people at the club to talk about how to and where to fishing. And I always try to provide, you know, that kind of community involvement in the club. It's kind of how it was founded. But that's where I'm at. That's where they can find me. Perfect. Thank you so much. And we hope to see you guys out on the water this summer.