To see the whitecaps roll through the East Pass is not a good sign. Nor is the fact that Rodeo weighmaster Bruce Cheves has resorted to telling the 100 or so people braving this overcast but stiflingly humid Thursday evening stories about sharks, sting rays, people being killed by falling space debris and some type of brain-eating amoeba running rampant through parts of the Southwest.

“Not a whole lot of people went fishing today,” Cheves said.

Capt. Kelly Windes on the Sunrise, one of the Rodeo’s great showmen, cruised by the scales about an hour ago and rumor has it, there aren’t very many boats behind him.

The weather has been the story of Day 4 of the 59th annual Destin Fishing Rodeo as big seas and storms have kept most of Destin’s charter boats in their slips and the Rodeo leaderboard relatively unchanged from the day before.

Cheves said he isn’t sure how many more boats he will see — and as for the weekend?

“It all depends on the weather,” he said.

-Patrick Donohue

The clamor after the storm

October 3rd, 2007 · No Comments · posted by williamh

The docks were standing room only 10 minutes before the scales were set to close behind AJ’s Seafood and Oyster Bar. The 6.6-pound bluefish swung in the breeze as weighmaster Bruce Cheves called it as the new catch to beat in the pan-fry division.

Anglers and boats lined up and easily got their fish on the leaderboard after intermittent rains and choppy seas kept anglers away. A 4.6-pound Spanish mackerel hauled in by Jonathan Rogers, 35, of Rising Fawn, Ga., easily landed on the leaderboard. Rogers was fishing on the Willie Mae.

April Bullock, a Destin resident for two years, sat in the crowd and said her highlight of the day kept changing as anglers hauled ashore bigger and bigger fish.

“This is the best of Destin, the fish … the sunset,” she said.

At about 7:15, the crowds began to scatter after the last boat, Bill, brought in a prize- winning 17.4-pound cobia caught by Sherry Taylor, of Sheppardsville, Ky.

“Party Time,” Cheves said as he closed the scale for the day.

- William Hatfield