General Info
- All Proceeds Benefit Hospice and Visiting Nurse Association of the Florida Keys www.hospicevna.com
- More than $150,000 has been Donated to Hospice/VNA Since the Inception of the Tournament
- $25,000 Cash Purse
- $20,000 Cash Grand Prize for the Boat Releasing the Most Sailfish!
(With 20 boats entered) - Cash Prizes for 1st and 2nd Runners Up as well as the new Amateur Division!
- Weight Fish Division for Dolphin, Kingfish, Tuna and Wahoo
- Cash, Prizes, Awards and Trophies
- Categories: Professional - All Charter boats and any other vessels registering for this
category. Amateur – Any Non-charter
boat registering for this category. Category
classifications are limited to particular category's corresponding prize. - Awards Banquet at Sparky's Landing, Key Colony Beach Marina
- Dinner, Awards, Prize Drawings, Raffle and Auction
- Tournament and Sponsor Merchandise
- Noted Marine Artist Joe Suroviec
Tournament History
Captain Leon Shell Memorial Sailfish Tournament
A gathering of enthusiastic anglers dedicated to Hospice of the Florida Keys
Capt. Leon Shell and his wife, Lois, made their way from New Jersey to Marathon in the Florida Keys in 1978 to begin a new chapter of their life together. Leon’s boat, named The Puffin, was an old wooden “head boat” made for taking dozens of anglers bottom fishing. He would see a different future for The Puffin after encountering the sailfish that crowd the Straits of Florida in the winter. He added outriggers and a fighting chair, and the vessel raised eyebrows aboard the state-of-the-art big game boats that were starting to cruise the Straits in pursuit of marlin and sailfish, a la Ernest Hemingway.
Capt. Leon Shell
After a few years, the Shells got out of the charter business and into the fishing lure business. An ex-General Motors machinist, Leon set to carving offshore trolling lures, first out of cedar, and later out of cords of plastic fiber optic cable. Before long, the captains of the big game boats were ordering Leon Lures by the dozens. The lures are no longer in production under Leon’s name, but they have won tournaments as far away as Senegal and St. Thomas.
Leon Shell succumbed to a slow death of brain cancer in 1997. Thanks to the nurses and social workers of Hospice of the Florida Keys, he was able to die at home, as he wished. The following year, a group of Leon’s many Florida Keys friends established the tournament as a memorial to the Captain and lure-maker as well as to raise funds for Hospice. Now in its 10th year, the Captain Leon Shell Memorial Sailfish Tournament has raised more than $60,000 for Hospice, and this year promises to surpass all prior years’ donations.
To learn more about Hospice of the Florida Keys, please visit their website at www.HospiceVNA.com.
Special thanks to Ben Iannotta for his contribution to the history of the Leon Shell Tournament.