Bay Point Invitational Billfish Tournament

Kids and Boat Parades
July 10, 2008
As reported by Tim Owens, story reproduced by permission of WJHG-TV 7.

Watch Video (Video files are available for only a short time after the event.)

Captains Meeting

The tournament teams and boats will be taking part in Thursday night’s party to a certain extent, but shortly after dark, they'll be cranking up those big Detroit diesels and heading out into the gulf, in parade like fashion. They'll do so under a show of fireworks, so you'll want to be here for that.

With the actual fishing close at hand, that meant it was a busy day for the captain and crews aboard these sport fishing yachts, making sure all the supplies were loaded up, all the gear was set. Many captains looked over the satellite data trying to decide where to fish; it's that intricate!

Hopefully, we'll see some of these teams weigh in fish Friday night from 6 to 10PM.

Remember, $10,000 goes to the heaviest fish weighed in on Friday.

We are, however, guaranteed to see some fish brought to the scales Friday, as part of the Al Hubbard Kids Fishing Experience, a new addition to this year's 25th Invitational!

It will allow about 30 kids from three local charities to fish. It's an idea that started with tournament officials, but then it was taken over by area charter captains.

Tournament co-director Chris Miller said, “Now we have nine of the best local charter guys dedicating their boats, their time to take the kids out fishing and we've almost gotten out of the way. They're so excited about it and they are the ones that are going to make the difference in these kids' lives because there will be three children on one boat with a chaperone. They'll be able to get that one on one time with the kids and really teach them and show them how to kind of change their life as they are growing up.”

Al Hubbard, the late outdoors reporter for Newschannel 7 and the Panama City News Herald, was also a co-emcee of the invitational. He loved kids and fishing dearly; it's a fitting tribute to have this kids fishing experience named in his honor.