Del Brown Permit Tournament 2009: Benson and Allen vs. Rea and Vincent.

Posted under fly fishing news by Will Benson

The Ninth Annual Tournament held in honor of the late Del Brown came down to the wire as Justin Rea and angler Greg Vincent and Mike Allen and I battled it out atop the leader board.  With near perfect conditions on Day 1 Mike and I went 4 for 7 to take an early lead.  Rea and Vincent were one of many teams to post 1 fish after day 1.  Day 2 saw the winds die and the attitude of the fish change.  While Mike and I remained confident that our score from day 1 would sustain through day 2, we concentrated on catching a big fish worth 250pts.  We did manage to catch a nice fish which was not quite big enough to score the 250pts, but we felt comfortable in our strategy given our 3 fish advantage from day 1.  Then came the shocker!  Day 2 saw yet another round of teams catching 1 fish with the big exception of Rea and Vincent who posted a whopping 5 fish to take the overall lead by 1 fish worth 100pts.  Mike and I clearly had our work cut out for us the following day if we wanted to earn the Grand Champion title.  With almost identical conditions as day 2, we set out to do what we do best…whack permit!  By 9:13 we were back in 1st place having caught a fish worth 150pts.  Needless to say we were pumped.  We did what we absolutely had to do, and now we just had to hope we could eek it out. Although we found fish and had shots it wasn’t meant to be.  Rea and Vincent also caught 1 fish worth 150pts to preserve their lead and claim the title.  As we shook hands and congratulated each other on an excellent competition Justin told me how his day 2 score came together with 5 fish caught on 5 different flats.  My hat goes of to he and Greg on this point.  That is simply good guiding and good angling hands down.  In the end it was truly a great tournament.  Such a dramatic finish between two rival Sugarloaf guides is just cool.  Congrats Justin and Greg on a great victory.  Mike and I look forward to next year’s tourney and the opportunity to challenge you guys for the highly coveted 10th annual champion title.       

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