82nd Annual Silver Sailfish Derby 6 2018 Derby -continued- The Silver Sailfish Derby is proud to be a sanctioned event in InTheBite Magazine’s Captain of the Year Cup program (COTY). The Derby is a member of the Florida Division. West Palm Beach Fishing Club (WPBFC) member Dale Wills, publisher of InTheBite Magazine, initiated the special award over a dozen years ago in an effort to recognize the talents of professional sport fishing captains and crews, and to stimulate participationintoptournamentsliketheSilver Silver Sailfish Derby a Sanctioned COTY Cup Event SailfishDerby. TheCOTYprogramincludesfivegeographicdivisions: East Coast, Florida, Gulf Coast, Hawaii and International. The COTY competition is based upon a point system determined by a team’s finish in sanctioned tournaments, 500pointsforfirstplace,300forsecondplace, 100 points for third place and 250 bonus points for a championship series win. Kudos to our friends at InTheBite Magazine for recognizing outstanding professionals in the sportfishing industry! out finding fish, Team Southern Ground found themselves stuck at the dock.  A live well and float switch issue nearly sunk their boat the preceding night.  With dogged determi- nation they were able to recover from their misfortune and were back on the water by mid-day.  Karma was definitely at work when they soon hooked a triple-header sail not far from Palm Beach Inlet. With only two hours remaining it was evident that the tourna- ment would come right down to the wire.  Nearly a dozen teams had positioned themselves close to the top.  Teams Seraphim, LaLa, Griffin, SoreSubject, MissAnnie and ReelCaptivating were all ascending the leaderboard.  Teams Remix/ Freebird, Native Son, Southern Run and Old No. 7/Propayroll were bat- tling it out at the top.  With less than an hour to go three teams each had 16 overall sails.  Deteriorating weather was also coming into play.  Heavy rain, strong winds and building seas challenged the fleet in the final half hour.  As it turned out the rain, which forced teams to pull in their kites, would be SouthernRun’s savior.  While clearing their water logged kite they deployed a threadfin herring off the bow on a spinning rod just to keep a bait in the water.  The move paid off producing their seventeenth sailfish release with minutes left in the tour- nament.  It was the fish that would secure their win and the Top Daily Boat award.  LaLa angler Dave Bertolozzi won the Top Daily Angler award with 6 releases.  Billy Palmer aboard the Leisure Boy won the Daily Heavy Weight Fish award with a 13 lb., 11 oz. dolphin.  A total of 175 sails, of which 24 were tagged, were released by the fleet on the final day of fishing.  The last sailfish of the Derby, fish number 317, 4th Place team, Old No. 7/ Propayroll 2018 Top Tag Team, “ Good Call” 3rd Place Team Overall, Native Son Team Kite Keeper with lots of Derby swag. was released by angler Jim Fallon on the Reel Captivating. Southern Run, led by Capt. Skip Dana claimed the Top Overall Boat award with 17 releases.  Dana was awarded the Top Derby Captain.  Teams Remix/Freebird, Native Son and Old No. 7/Propayroll followed in that order on the final leaderboard each posting 16 releases.  With 10 individual releases, Kite Keeper angler Mike Simko earned the Top Overall Angler award, the famous Mrs. Henry Rea Trophy.  Anglers Mark Wodlinger, Keith Mc- Donald and Clemente Travieso followed Simko in the standings with 7 releases each.  Seraphim angler Vanessa Lindner claimed the Top Lady Angler Trophy with 6 releases on time.  Capt. Matt Alligood led team Good Call to the Top Tag Team award by tagging 8 sailfish with Billfish Foundation tags.  Kite Keeper, with Capt. David McGaha at the helm, was the Top Small Boat.