Costa Rica is a must-visit destination for saltwater anglers, offering a variety of inshore and offshore species all year long. Interested in breaking a line-class or all-tackle world record? The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) documents anglers fishing in Costa Rica have set close to 200 world records, including bottom fish and pelagic species such as Pacific cubera snapper and sailfish.

One Pacific hotspot is the fishy coast off Nosara. Given its remote location and limited infrastructure, the fishing pressure is low compared to more popular fishing communities like Los Suenos, Quepos or Crocodile Bay. And unlike other Costa Rican fishing spots, the fishing grounds off Nosara are just six miles from the beach. Fishing along this northwest region is truly for diehard anglers. You won’t find mega-million-dollar fishing machines or fancy night clubs, but it is a place where world-class fish roam.

Costa Rica Inshore Targets

I stepped onto the small wooden skiff that transports clients from Playa Guiones to our 27-foot super panga called the FV Explorer. We were fishing with Fishing Nosara, a top sport-fishing operation that also offers a great vacation stay. Morning excitement was building, even if expectations weren’t too high. We were visiting in August, the end of peak season. After navigating the surf zone — including three sets of head-to-overhead waves — we made it to the mooring area.

Captain Antonio and mate Raffa greeted us. Antonio quickly asked me, What species do you want to target today? Familiar with the area, I answered, “Let’s spend the morning inshore, targeting roosterfish or cubera snapper and the afternoon targeting offshore species.”

A few minutes later, we were trolling small metal lures and catching foot-long skipjack tuna and bonito for baitfish. Once the tuna tubes were filled, we hit the local fishing hotspots, spending a hot, hazy morning in search mode, tossing surface plugs for roosterfish and bottom fishing for cubera snapper. But the fishing was slow and we didn’t hook a fish. Our spirits were low until the VHF radio started chirping loudly and a Spanish voice shouted, “Fishing Vessel Explorer, can you read me?”

A Spotlight on Dorado

When Antonio got off the radio, he eagerly asked us if we wanted to chase dorado. He told us his colleague had spotted a homemade fish aggregating device (FAD) about 10 miles south of our location. It was swarming with dorado. FADs are manmade structures that are commonly deployed or anchored throughout the Pacific Ocean to concentrate marine life. Fish are attracted to these manmade objects just like natural floating debris, such as seaweed, logs and coconuts.

“Sure,” I answered to Antonio, but with less enthusiasm than he would have liked. I hadn’t flown to Costa Rica to catch school-size dorado.

My mahi-mahi fishing experience dates back to my days as a federal fishery observer aboard commercial pelagic longline vessels in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. As a fish biologist in the late-90s, I measured numerous mahi-mahi that were caught incidentally on longline gear. Plus, I landed plenty myself on hook-and-line along the weedlines where we often set commercial fishing gear. During my time on the high seas, I learned mahi-mahi are pretty easy to catch in large numbers. Despite being an acrobatic flyer, I had never battled a large one. The biggest mahi-mahi I landed weighed 15 pounds, and the largest I recorded was maybe 30 pounds.

In my opinion, dorado are the most colorful fish in the ocean — bright yellow, blue, green, or other electric tints on their sides. They change color dramatically as soon as they hit the deck. I’ve seen schoolies change from bright yellow to blue to grey in less than a minute. Although both sexes have similar vibrant displays, their body morphology is much different. Females (called cows) have a sloping forehead; males (bulls) have a blunt, vertical forehead. Unusual for the fishing kingdom, males grow much larger than females.  

Hot Costa Rica Dorado Action

“How big are these dorado?” I asked Antonio, as we reached the homemade FAD. Raffa was rigging 50-pound-class boat rods with large live baits. Terminal tackle included an 8/0 Eagle Claw circle hook tied to seven feet of 50-pound-test fluorocarbon leader. “Grande!” he said. Apparently, the light-wire circle hooks were the key to hookups in the clear Costa Rica waters.

First tossing frisky large baits into the blue abyss and reaching a slow trolling speed, we approached the FAD from the south. The captain yelled “Listo!?” Almost immediately after passing the small FAD, our two stout rods doubled over. The reels started to scream.

My wife and I quickly grabbed the rods and held on. Handling the rod with a tight grip, I was confused by the sheer power of the fish. These fish couldn’t be dorado. They were both digging down like a yellowfin tuna or billfish. Glancing over at my wife, she too had a look of excitement and shock. I could feel the power of every head shake. When the fish hesitated, we pumped and retrieved as much line as possible.

About 10 minutes later, both fish launched toward the surface at full speed, going airborne like missiles fired from a sub. Twisting and turning out of the water, it became apparent our fish were not majestic sailfish, but iridescent bull dorado. With each crank of the reel, our fish came closer to the gunwale. My wife’s flamboyant green-blue beast was first to the gaff. The fish was so big that Antionio had to help Raffa heave it over the gunwale. About a minute later, my dolphin met the same fate. Thrashing on the deck, the colorful fish began to change colors like LEDs synchronized to music. With our hearts pounding and sweat dripping off our faces, the adrenaline rush left us wanting more.

Big Dorado Want Big Baits

I was shocked the dorado attacked such large baits given their relatively small mouths.

“This is the only way to catch big dorado,” Antonio told me. “The bigger, the better. If you want to slay schooling dorado you can sight-fish with small jigs, plugs or natural baits. But if you’re after large bulls, you need to troll large marlin-type plugs or live tuna at least 12 inches long.

“The bigger dorado are often found below the smaller ones, so you have to troll slowly to allow the baits to swim deep. Obviously, small dorado are found year-round in our area, but if you want to catch the big bulls, then you need to fish during June through August.”

How deep do the baits swim? I asked.

“Our baits are probably 30 to 40 feet down,” explained Antonio. “Also, if you noticed, we started trolling about 100 yards before the FAD. If we throw the baits out next to the FAD, they will just get attacked by the smaller dorado first.”

With the hot sun beating down and calm seas, we continued hooking, fighting, and landing dorado until the bait was gone. The cooler was full enough to feed a village, so we called it a day and headed back to the mooring area. Later, we brought our fresh catch to La Luna, our favorite local restaurant, where they cooked us a feast while we sipped margaritas and watched the sunset.  

The post Costa Rica’s Mega-Sized Dorado appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

“A dredge teaser will greatly increase the productivity of any trolling spread,” says Jupiter, Florida, captain Seth Funt, who uses them to attract fish from a distance while targeting a wide range of game species, ­including billfish, mahi, kingfish and wahoo.

For many years, ­battlewagon-style sport-fishing boats dominated the practice of dredge-fishing. Their heavy-duty outriggers with tripod bases and spars with guy-wire ­reinforcements could withstand the strain of trolling the heavily weighted ­subsurface teasers. Today, however, specially designed booms allow anglers in ­center-console boats to pull dredge teasers, says Boone Oughterson, sales manager for Tigress Outriggers & Gear in Lake Worth, Florida.

Game Changer
Booms such as the new 7-foot fiberglass Tigress Poseidon ($649) allow anglers in any kind of boat to pull dredges in clean water out to the side, Oughterson says. “This makes it easier for fish to see the teaser, and easier for you to see fish chasing the dredge,” he observes.

Dredge booms are a game changer for smaller boats, says Capt. Pat Price, of Stuart, Florida, “especially on center-consoles with three or four outboards that generate a tremendous amount of white water.

“Not only does a boom get the dredge away from the bubbles, but it also helps keep the teaser line from tangling in the running gear.”

Dredge teasers can place tremendous strain on the boom and associated components when trolling, making setup critical.

Well-Built Booms
Today’s most advanced booms range from 6 to 8 feet in length, and feature a ring at the tip for shackling a pulley (aka block) for the line, and two rings at the ­midpoint (one on each side of the boom). One ring allows the captain to attach a safety tether to a secure point on the boat; the other is for creating a block-and-tackle. Top-of-the-line booms feature a ferrule at their base designed to fit an aluminum bent butt/reel seat from companies such AFTCO, Stuart and Winthrop. The butt is usually not included, giving the customer the option to buy any brand. The Poseidon, for instance, comes with a No. 4 ferrule and locking nut, which fits an 80-pound-class bent-butt section. Funt likes to use a Stuart bent butt (about $190). Price prefers a Winthrop Terminator Adjusta-Butt model (about $380) with an adjustable butt angle, which allows him to fine-tune the angle of the boom.

Electric Reels
A host of trolling reels can deploy and retrieve a dredge, but most captains use ­electric reels from brands such as Daiwa, Hooker and Lindgren Pittman. This eases the task of reeling in a heavy dredge. Oughterson uses his Lindgren Pittman S-1200 electric reel (about $5,000). Funt, on the other hand, uses a Hooker Gen II Shimano Tiagra 80WA levelwind reel (about $4,900). Both Funt and Oughterson spool up with 400-pound-test monofilament for dredge-fishing. To use an electric reel, you also need a 12-volt DC receptacle conveniently located in the cockpit.

Placement and Security
Most captains place dredge booms in a 15-degree ­gunwale rod holder that’s near midship and oriented perpendicular to the center­line of the boat. That means the boom is also ­perpendicular to the centerline, while the force on the boom pulls astern. At trolling speeds of 7 to 8 mph, that generates a tremendous amount of torque on the rod holder, Price points out. “You definitely want to use a top-quality rod holder, and make sure it is through-bolted and reinforced with a backing plate,” he advises.

As indicated ­earlier, dredge booms come equipped with a ring for attaching a safety lanyard to alleviate stress on the boom and rod holder. The Poseidon boom, for example, comes with a 14-foot woven nylon cord with a carabiner that attaches to the forward-facing safety ring

The other end of the safety lanyard should be attached to a spring cleat about 6 feet in front of the boom, Price says.

Block-and-Tackle
Dredges can be deployed with the line running just through a block at the end of the boom and directly to the teaser, or by using a block-and-tackle that adds a secondary pulley. With the Poseidon, for instance, the second pulley is attached with a short line to the aft-facing ring in the middle of the boom. The line runs through the block at the tip, then down through the secondary block and out to the dredge. Tigress offers an ­optional block-and-tackle kit ($149) for this rigging.

The first method works well when using lighter sinkers and/or ­lightweight Mylar-strip dredge teasers, Price says. However, as weights increase, the block-and-tackle makes sense. “Use the block-and-tackle to make it easier to retrieve the dredge,” Price says.

Read Next: Fishing with Dredges from Small Boats

Dredge booms can serve in others’ angling roles as well. “Many anglers use them as downriggers too,” Funt says. “The difference is that we use 100-pound-test braided line on the reel, instead of monofilament, to reduce line drag.”

What’s more, a boom can pull any kind of teaser, not just a dredge. “You can also pull linear squid chains,” Price points out. “Just as with the dredge, the boom puts squid teasers in clean water to work more effectively in ­attracting gamefish.”

The Art of the Dredge
First employed in the early 1990s, dredges were designed to replicate a school of baitfish. Today, they take on a wide range of configurations. Dredges can feature reflective Mylar strips, soft-plastic swimbaits, rubber squid or rigged natural baits such as mullet, sometimes trailed by a lure such as an Ilander. Captains commonly pull dredge teasers from both sides of the boat, along with a full trolling spread.

Dredges are pulled behind a trolling lead, typically ranging from 6 to 48 ounces (depending on sea ­conditions), and a six-arm spreader bar that spans 3 to 4 feet in diameter. In addition, some captains run two or three dredges in tandem, deploying them 30 to 150 feet behind the transom, again depending on sea ­conditions.

The post How to Rig and Use a Dredge Boom to Catch More Fish appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The South Florida seas had grown into nasty 4- to 5-footers; the sky darkened. If it hadn’t been the August full-moon period, Capt. Chris Fay would not have ventured offshore. But he and his buddy were confident that it was prime time to catch a wahoo. “It was rough…nasty,” recalls Fay, a Deerfield Beach, Florida, charter captain (poseidontoo.net). “We had been fishing in 300 feet, but we saw a storm coming in, so we went into shallow water, 97 feet.”

Fay continues: “Right before the sun went down, the moon was coming up. As soon as that moon popped, the one fish that we were looking for decided to feed. We were doing a turn, and I looked over at the short planer rod, and that thing just started dumping. The fish made a 350-yard run, and we knew exactly what it was: a big, fat, giant wahoo.”

The fish, which ate a split-tail mullet, came within 15 feet of the boat after that initial run, then took off on another run. The wahoo eventually came close enough for Fay and his friend to sink two or three gaffs into the fish. Then they struggled to lift the wahoo into their boat.

They headed straight for the dock after that, where the wahoo bottomed out a 75-pound scale. “We just said we’re going to call it 80 pounds,” Fay says. “When you go specifically looking for that one bite on that day, there’s no better feeling, especially when you put in the time and effort.”

Moon Magic
Anglers catch wahoo year-round throughout southeast Florida, from Jupiter to Miami, yet relatively few know of the hot summertime bite. Savvy anglers and captains like Fay say that the absolute best time to catch the most and biggest wahoo—40 pounds and up—occurs around the full moons in July, August and September.

In the northern Gulf—a well-known action spot for big ’hoos—the prime bite happens in February or March, with no known summer-full-moon bite. In North Carolina, however, a summer fishery ignites a day or two before the full moons of July and August. The fish come in fairly close to shore, says tournament captain Mark Henderson, who caught a 75-pound wahoo in 42 feet of water on a live bluefish two summers ago.

“My favorite moon is in August,” says Fay, who prefers the days leading up to the moon and the day after. “There’s so much more water flooding out of the inlet, and the fish are waiting for the food (baitfish) to come out. I like to fish 2 miles north and 2 miles south of the inlets.”

Capt. Skip Dana, who charters selectively on his center-console Pop-A-Top out of Pompano Beach, Florida, says that in 2018, the wahoo bite was best around the full moon in September. He prefers to fish “three to four days before a full moon and then a few days after. The day of the full moon is usually slower, with the best bite at midday.”

Even kayak anglers take ­advantage of the summer-full-moon wahoo bite. “I’ve caught them all the way out from a week before the full moon to a week or a week and a half after,” says Joe Hector (extremekayakfishing​.com), who puts on kayak-fishing ­tournaments out of Pompano Beach. His tournament two years ago around the full moon in August produced eight wahoo, including a 71.9-pounder and two others over 50 pounds.

“To me, August is the prime time to get those monster wahoo,” Hector says.

Timing the Tides
Capt. Stan Hunt, who used to charter out of Pompano Beach before retiring and moving up the coast to Palm City, caught one of the region’s most ­celebrated summertime wahoo several years ago. Fishing in a local tournament, his first fish of the day was a 74.2-pound ‘hoo that he caught trolling in 95 feet of water off Hillsboro Inlet. The biggest fish of the event, that wahoo helped Hunt and his crew to a victory—and a record $99,025 payday.

Where Hunt chooses to fish depends on what the tide is doing because that determines where the bait will be. On the last of an incoming tide, baitfish are pushed close to an inlet, so Hunt fishes shallow. When the tide is out, he fishes around wrecks and other baitfish attractors in 200 to 400 feet of water.

Fay says his favorite tide time to fish for wahoo falls on what he calls the switch of the tides: the first hour of the outgoing and the first hour of the incoming.

“I usually catch wahoo on an outgoing tide,” Hector says. “I fish around the deep wrecks and inlets because that’s when the bait is coming out.”

Fay also likes to fish around wrecks, particularly in depths ranging from 140 to 240 feet. He also studies his depth recorder to locate schools of fish on which wahoo feed. “Get your electronics dialed in to where you can mark the bonitos,” he says. “Where there’s bullet bonitos (tuna) and little blackfin tuna, there’s going to be wahoo. If there are tunas in 400 or 500 feet, guess where the wahoo are?”

Trolling Tactics
Fay usually fishes a split-tail mullet from a planer 100 feet behind the boat. If he wants the bait deeper, he lets out more line. He also fishes big swimming mullet on two shorter planer lines, each about 20 feet behind the boat.

“There are two kinds of wahoo,” he says. “The shy wahoo that’s going to swim up to the bait three or four times before eating it on the long planer, and the big wahoo that’s not afraid to hit the short planer. They’re not swimming up to look at it; they’re swimming up to crush it. Seventy to 80 percent of my bites come on the short planer. They’re nasty, they’re mean, and they come right up in the prop wash.”

His spread also includes two big lures on the short outrigger lines. He likes to fish lures made locally at RJ Boyle Studio, as well as Ilanders with ballyhoo. On the long rigger lines, he trolls two midsize baits such as a Sea Witch with a fresh bonito strip on a long-shank 10/0 or 12/0 hook.

Fay says, on low-light days, he uses bright colors such as pink-and-blue and chartreuse-and-purple. On bright days and in clear water, he likes blue-and-white, all white and pink-and-white. “In August, my spread is almost all pink. Why? Because shrimp and squid are around on that moon.”

Hunt trolls bonito strips behind Sea Witches or ballyhoo with a skirt; he ties both rigs himself. Both the lures and skirts feature lots of Mylar for added flash, and his favorite skirt color is blue-and-white. He rigs the baits with a single hook, and pulls two of them on planers from the cockpit and one on a weighted line from the bridge at 8 to 9 knots.

Live-Baiting Choices
Dana prefers to use live bait for summertime full-moon wahoo, especially in August and September. “You get more bites live-bait fishing than any other time of year. I’d rather catch one on live bait than 10 trolling a lure on a planer.

“Usually first thing in the morning, if there’s a little bit of a breeze, I’ll put out the normal spread and try to get surface bites,” says Dana, who’ll fly two fishing kites, each with three lines, a couple of flat lines, and a couple of deep baits. “They’ll sky on the kite baits, just like kingfish.”

Once the sun comes up, he starts slow-trolling in 200 to 400 feet of water. He rigs goggle-eyes, blue runners, speedos and little bullet tuna, and bumps the motors in and out of gear to keep the lines tight. “I’ll put one flat line 200 yards back, and one 50 or 60 yards back. I’ll put a downrigger bait on each side of the boat and stagger them. I’ll start at 75 and 125 feet down, and if I get a bite on the deeper one, I’ll go to 125 and 200 feet.”

When he gets a bite, his crew cranks up the downriggers to get the cables out of the way. Dana also pays attention to the depth where he catches the first wahoo because subsequent bites likely will be in the same depth. And don’t be surprised if you catch other species with downriggers, fishing deeper.

“There are 30- to 40-pound kingfish out there, and sailfish,” he explains. “I don’t know how many times the line takes off, zipping across the surface, and then a sailfish comes up jumping, and I thought I had a wahoo on.”

Hector buys live bait before he launches his Hobie pedal-drive kayak off the beach. He typically buys only five goggle-eyes and three pilchards, and keeps them in a 5-gallon bucket with a battery-powered aerator. Once he catches a wahoo—his personal best is a 65-pounder—he heads back to shore.

“When I’m targeting wahoo, my trips are short and sweet,” he says. “I’ll put out my first gog on the way out in 80 feet, then set up a drift. Or if the current isn’t strong, I’ll slow-troll [by pedaling the kayak]. I free-line a pilchard around 60 yards behind me on top, with a gog below. With goggle-eyes, sometimes to get them down I use a 2- or 3-ounce egg weight and try to keep it at middepth. If you put out two gogs together, you’re going to end up with a tangled mess.

“Believe it or not, I’ve caught more wahoo on big pilchards than on gogs. Some of my best catches have been on a 6-inch pilchard as opposed to a 3- or 4-inch one.”

Hector uses a Garmin Striker depth finder to locate wrecks in 180 to 250 feet, and keeps zigzagging in and out of those depths unless he sees a sizable school of bonito or a solid color change, where the water abruptly changes from greenish to dark blue.

If he catches a blackfin tuna, Hector uses it to entice a wahoo bite. “I’ll cut open the tuna, take my gog or pilchard and stick it in the belly of the tuna, count to three, then put out the bait,” he says. “I believe it’s all about scent. Blackfin tuna and bonito have a distinct scent, and they’re very oily. I believe that’s why wahoo eat them. I once caught three wahoo in three days doing that.”

Waging War
Fay fishes his dead baits and skirted strips from a straight-butt rod with a Shimano Tiagra 30-wide reel spooled with 80-pound braided line. He uses a No. 6 or No. 8 planer and trolls at 6 to 7 knots. On calm days, Fay switches to a No. 4 planer and troll at 8 knots.

He connects the other end of the planer to 60 feet of 50- or 60-pound monofilament, attached with a double uni-knot to 10 to 15 feet of 60- to 80-pound fluorocarbon leader. Fay adds 18 to 24 inches of No. 7 wire leader to the fluorocarbon with a Spro swivel.

Dana fishes live baits on Penn Fathom high-speed reels spooled with 20-pound Momoi Orange Crush monofilament line on 7-foot medium-action 20-pound rods. He uses a 15-foot Momoi 30-pound fluorocarbon leader that he ties to the main line with a blood knot. To prevent cutoffs, he adds a 3-foot piece of 30-pound Knot 2 Kinky nickel-titanium leader wire attached to the fluorocarbon with an 80-pound Spro swivel. He ties the terminal end of the leader to a 6/0 VMC J hook, and adds a second J hook as a stinger.

“We always have a stinger on,” Dana says. “The length depends on the size of bait: 3 to 6 inches of No. 6 wire tied to a 4/0 VMC that we hook in the skin just enough so it holds.”

From his kayak, Hector fishes a Shimano 6500 spinning reel spooled with at least 300 yards of 30-pound monofilament on a medium-heavy rod. “In South Florida, you never know what you’re going to get—maybe a yellowfin tuna or a marlin, so you don’t want to miss the opportunities if you get them.”

His leader consists of 50-pound fluorocarbon or monofilament with a 6- or 7-inch piece of 30- or 40-pound wire. He fishes his baits on a 3/0 or 4/0 J hook with a 2/0 treble stinger hook. “Every single wahoo I’ve ever caught, when I gaffed it and brought it in the kayak, was caught in the throat, eye or side by the stinger. The lead hook was swinging freely.”

Read Next: Wahoo: Speeding Up Fast Tactics

Hector ties all of his connections and keeps plenty of spare leaders in a small plastic bag. “I don’t do any swivels,” he says. “When I’m offshore in the kayak, I don’t want to be tying knots the whole time. If my wire gets kinked, I can tie on another leader [with an Albright knot].”

For anglers who have always wanted to catch a big wahoo, timing is everything, and there’s no need to brave wild winter weather to land that trophy fish—at least in South Florida. Check your calendar for the summertime full moons, put out your live bait or trolling lures, and get ready for that sizzling run.

The Kayak Endgame
Kayak angler Joe Hector always keeps a 2-foot gaff with him. He brings the wahoo alongside his Hobie, puts the gaff under the fish, and pulls up rather than reaching out and over the wahoo.

“A lot of anglers have lost some epic fish in our ­tournaments that way,” he says. “In a kayak, you’re literally in the water with the fish. Just gently put that gaff in the water, and pull up and hold on tight.”

Hector keeps a fish bag aboard; after he gaffs the wahoo, he puts it into the bag headfirst. “You don’t want him coming out of the bag headfirst,” he says. “The good thing about wahoo, most of the time—especially with big ones—is that by the time you get them up to the kayak, they’re close to death.”

The post Wahoo Full-Moon Madness appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Capt. Wade Wells, of the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company in Venice, Louisiana, was itching to get back on the water. “We were off the water all last week, and you never know if the fish are where you left them,” he said.

In late August 2016, treacherous rains and overflowing rivers flooded many residents out of their homes, causing FEMA to declare 20 different Louisiana parishes disaster areas. Although the floods didn’t affect the entire state, the heavy storms sure did. Venice, located in Plaquemines Parish, didn’t see the high rain fall or floods, but its waters were churned like butter.

Our fishing trip, as part of a Cajun Fishing Adventures Media Bash, was partly an exploratory mission to find out which oil rigs were holding yellowfin tuna after the storms. Thankfully, the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company has a fleet of captains that work together on and off the water, communicating with each other which rigs are producing. A number of boats headed offshore the same day we did.

I set out to record the day in full, capturing each step along the way. Capt. Wells and his deckhand Chris Fotta were the brains, while fellow anglers and fishing industry friends Reid McKinstry, Jay Harris and Brian Evans provided the reeling muscle. From gathering bait, to deploying the trolling spread, to running and gunning to different rigs — the whole process isn’t too complex once you’ve done it as many times as Wells and Fotta. Check out the gallery below to get a true taste of southern-style Louisiana tuna fishing.

First stop on a trip offshore is to find live baits. Schools of threadfin herring are available some months of the year, but hand-size blue runners (hard tails) are more dependable most days. Mate Chris Fotta drops a sabiki near a platform to test the waters. If the rig has blue runners, he’ll get bit pretty quickly. But catching four or even five blue runners has its downsides too. First, the baits can tangle with each other or sinker. Second, sharks quickly home in on the struggling baits and trash the sabiki rigs.

Although blue runners are fairly hearty baits, a hook remover quickly unhooks baits and allows them to fall directly into the baitwell. Savvy anglers hold the line tight while unhooking baits to prevent hard tails from shaking and tangling the sabiki rig. Capt. Wells had us catch at least 50 hand-size (or larger) blue runners before we headed to the deepwater platforms. There’s a definitive reason to overload the baitwells, which becomes apparent in an upcoming image.

Expect a couple baits to get completely thrashed by sharks.

Capt. Wells positioned his Contender on the up-current side of the oil platform to mark fish on his finder. Spending a half-hour at the rig with nothing to show for it, we headed across the Gulf to a different one. Part of rig fishing is being able to adapt. Wells freely named each rig we fished, not trying to hide any secrets. Rigs don’t hold fish day after day; instead, “waves” of tuna come and go to different rigs based on conditions such as water clarity, current, wind direction and water temperature. While Wells might prefer blue water, he catches plenty of fish around rigs in green water.

Rigging blue runners is a cinch. No bridling necessary out here (though I imagine a rubberband bridle rig wouldn’t hurt hookups). Fotta hooked a snelled Mustad Demon Perfect Circle 3X 7/0 into the shoulders of the runner. This placement keeps the blue runner near the surface when slow-trolling.

With fish marking on the finder at the Tinkerbell rig, Wells gets to work. He attaches a line to the ‘rigger clip for trolling. For our trip, each outrigger had a single line slow-trolled at the surface. Honestly, the riggers weren’t necessary except to keep the two baits from tangling. Fishing is so productive and reliable around the platforms that some of the more complicated trolling rigs and tactics aren’t necessary.

Fotta winds up a hollowed-out plastic bat filled with live baits and chucks the baits out behind the boat. Trolling past the Tinkerbell platform, the goal of live chumming is to bring suspended tuna to the surface. This is why it pays to have a ton of extra baits in the well. If the tuna are active, expect to see blowups behind the boat as tuna crash to the surface for a meal. It’s only a matter of time until a bait with a hook is chomped.

Seaguar’s Brian Evans fights the first tuna of the day. A fighting belt is necessary for larger yellowfins that can battle for drawn-out periods.

But the fight is worth it! Brian Evans, center, took down this 105-pound yellowfin tuna with 80-pound braid, 80-pound top shot and 80-pound Seaguar Premier fluorocarbon. Capt. Wade Wells (right) and Chris Fotta (left) provided help with the boat handling and gaff shot.

Next up, Mustad’s Jay Harris landed this 100-plus-pounder at the same Tinkerbell platform. Everyone on the boat saw his yellowfin attack a trolled bait at the surface, drawing stunned reactions. This fish was accidentally tail-wrapped from the start of the fight, shortening the fight time. “That’s cheating,”joked Fotta.

Unless the yellowfin tuna is undersized, anglers who target tunas in the Gulf don’t practice catch-and-release. Yellowfin tuna (ahi) is delicious just about any way it’s cooked and served. Plus, captains like those at the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company are cognizant of daily boat limits. Fishing’s done when the legal limit is reached. Many times, fishing is done before a limit is reached because there’s already enough tuna on ice and anglers are damned tired of pulling on bullish yellowfins. This yellowfin tuna makes one last jump boatside before being stuck by a gaff.

Mustad’s Reid McKinstry landed the last tuna of the day. All the fish caught on our trip were above the 60- to 80-pound average that’s common in the area.

Beanbags are a must-have for the ride offshore and the ride back home — rides to and from the offshore grounds tend to be at least two hours. The chairs allow anglers (five in this photo) to relax and sleep while traveling.

Back at the docks, tuna are loaded up in a wheel barrow and taken over to the fish-cleaning station. If an angler wants, Venice Marina offers a scale to weigh your catch. Other charter boats nearby re-fueled and prepped for tomorrow’s day of fishing.

Expect the unexpected at the docks. A boat that went deep-dropping for swordfish caught this pomfret. Pomfrets are a deepwater species hooked as bycatch when swordfishing or deep-dropping. The unusual-looking fish is safe and tasty to eat.

The post Louisiana’s Tuna Fishing 101 appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The coastal and canyon waters off Long Island’s south shore are, in fact, for a brief 10-week period each year, one of the most prolific blue marlin hot spots in the western north Atlantic. That’s not urban legend but documented fact.

So let’s head offshore to find out where, when and why Long Island may be the home of the next grander blue marlin.

Science Lesson

To better understand why blue marlin find these coastal waters so attractive, I went to one source who could explain the science of it all. Few experts are better qualified than Dr. Mitch Roffer, president of Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service (roffs​.com) and adjunct professor in the department of marine biology at the Florida Institute of Technology.

According to Roffer: “The key to finding big blue marlin is to locate the clockwise eddies that form along the northern side of the Gulf Stream and work their way inshore, getting trapped along the walls and drop-offs of the various northeast canyons that are prevalent in the New York Bight and New England areas.”

These pinch-off eddies effectively trap blue water and the migratory fish that are using the Gulf Stream to aid their seasonal migration movements. The best conditions for productive fishing action are where the combination of Gulf Stream and continental-shelf waters mixes to form blue-green water. This brings together baitfish from the continental shelf and migratory marlin that leave the Gulf Stream to feed. The best location to find this phenomenon is where the current pushes into structure in one specific location for three to seven days. This allows enough time for the ocean’s convergent forces to concentrate phytoplankton, then zooplankton, and then baitfish such as flyingfish, squid and anchovies.

“If the water’s too turbid, visual-feeding billfish will not be successful in finding their prey, and they won’t stay in the area,” says Roffer. “Water that’s too clear indicates there’s no substantial abundance of plankton or baitfish.”

For surface trolling, blue marlin prefer waters from 72 to 78 degrees F, he says. When water temps get above 78 degrees, the fish simply swim deeper in the water column near the thermocline. Favorite forage baits for marlin in the Northeast are squid, small mahi, tinker mackerel, skipjack and other small tunas (such as yellowfin, albacore and false albacore, which are called “little tunny” in the Northeast).

Time of the Season

Looking back at my detailed offshore fishing logs starting from 1980, the optimum 10-week period to target blue marlin in both near and offshore canyon waters is from the middle of July through the end of September, when the dreaded alphabet-storm season is in full swing.

One positive indicator that big blue marlin might be in town coincides with the arrival of dorado in Long Island’s offshore waters. The first mahi usually show up in shark fishermen’s chum slicks somewhere between July 4 and mid-July, when inshore shelf waters warm up to 73 degrees. I have taken dozens of dorado from lobster-pot buoys dotting the Hudson Canyon, the Dip, and Block Canyon, including the near-coastal weather buoys, that all sported fresh slash marks on their sides from being battered by big blue marlin.

Not coincidentally, many reports of monster marlin catches and sad tales about ones that got away take place the last two weeks of July. One eventful day back on July 20, 1986, put Long Island on the blue-marlin map and made everyone take notice.

Big-Game Hunters

Capt. Harry Clemenz of Montauk, New York, is no stranger to the offshore scene. He was one of the first canyon explorers in the early 1960s who discovered the prodigious blue-water fishery south of Long Island. Clemenz rocked the fishing world with an incredible New York state record that still stands today as the largest blue marlin caught off the East Coast of the continental U.S. The 1,174½-pound behemoth was bested by 19-year-old angler Bill Sweedler Jr., under Clemenz’s command, on July 20, 1986, after a five-hour slugfest. Now in his mid-80s and still a Montauk legend, “Clem” shared his blue marlin moment with me.

“I was running the 46-Bertram Tempo for Bill Sweedler Sr. back then. We set up this offshore trip around a favorable weather window,” Clemenz says. “At the last minute, Bill had to commit to a golf outing, but his two boys and a few friends were looking forward to the trip offshore to the Block Canyon Fish Tails, so we left Montauk in the dark and arrived at the 100-fathom line just before daybreak.

“We started trolling south of the Tails. I was working a 68-to-72-­degree temperature break near the 500-fathom Lobster Claw when a big blue came into our spread and approached a modified blue-and-white Hakuna Hawaiian lure. This lure was dancing on the third wave, attached to a Penn 80 on a flat-line clip, when the marlin struck it with a vengeance.

“There were a series of surface jumps, and then the big girl sounded in 2,500 feet of water,” says Clemenz. “Bill Jr. got in the chair and I ran the boat, trying to get some line back on the reel. It was a down-and-dirty fight, but after two hours, the rod suddenly snapped in half. At that point, I jumped down from the flybridge and stripped some line from the Penn 80 International before the marlin could go on another run.”

Acting decisively, Clemenz removed some Dacron from a Penn 130 outfit to make room for the 80-pound line that was already in the water. He connected the two lines with a blood knot, and now Sweedler was fighting the marlin on the 130 outfit. Three grueling hours later, they were able to get the blue up on the surface, and it started coming to the boat backward — it was tail-wrapped!

“Backing down toward the billfish, we were able to get a tail rope around the big girl, but then the fun started,” Clemenz says. “How were we going to get her on board for the ride back to Montauk?”

Fortunately, the Tempo had a tuna door in the stern. When they returned to the Montauk Marine Basin, the fish measured 15 feet, 4 inches in length with a 7-foot-9-inch girth. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute who examined the billfish determined it was a 30-year-old female. This fish of a lifetime put Montauk on the map as a prime spot for catching big blue marlin.

Always Be Ready

Clem’s story isn’t the only tale of big blues off Long Island; plenty of other oversize billfish have been tagged and released, or lost after heartbreaking battles. In July 2011, Dr. Lou Pastore of the Moriches Anglers Club had the good fortune of catching and releasing his sixth blue marlin while fishing Long Island’s offshore waters. His most recent catch, an estimated 850-pound female, was caught just south of the 100-fathom line near the Dip, the confluence of two canyons (Ryan and McMaster, recently named by the U.S. Geological Survey) ­positioned between the Hudson and Block canyons. The big blue hit a green Moriches Mauler lure and was angled boat-side on a 50W outfit in only two hours. It was tagged, revived and released.

Clem’s record blue surpassed a pair of 940-pounders caught off Long Island back in 1981 and 1984 respectively. Pete Fisher, an East Coast marlin fanatic from the mid-’80s, boated an 835-pounder in 1985 and an 800-pounder that was weighed at the Montauk scales a week before the Tempo’s catch.

But big blues are not limited to deep canyon waters, and will venture inshore to 20- and 30-fathom depths to seek their favorite forage. Last year, Capt. Nick Savene from Oceanside, New York, trolled up an estimated 550-pound blue marlin south of the wreck of the British tanker Coimbra. His angler fought and released the billfish in 180 feet of water south of Shinnecock, New York. Back in the late ’90s, Capt. Billy Martin and “Mako” Mike Townsend lost an even larger blue in only 17 fathoms, southeast of Fire Island, after a punishing nine-hour fight. The moral of these stories is that if you have 73-degree water off Long Island with an abundance of forage like dorado, skippies and other small baitfish in the area, a hungry marlin can make an appearance without warning. If you fish the Island’s fertile offshore waters and get the chance to tackle a big blue marlin, consider tagging and releasing it to fight another day.

Best of Both Worlds

Most big blue marlin caught in Long Island waters are hooked accidentally while fishermen troll for tuna. With seven species of tunas in the neighborhood (bluefin, yellowfin, ­albacore, bigeye, skipjack, Atlantic bonito and little tunny), someone is usually around and always hungry. This fact is a reason that many marlin are broken off by shocked tuna anglers.

If you scale down your tackle to catch 10- to 40-pound tuna, and a big blue comes calling, in all likelihood your small outfit will fail. If you run heavier tackle for that once-in-a-lifetime grander marlin, that takes some of the sport and enjoyment out of catching smaller tunas.

I have solved that problem by going with reels capable of heavy, 25- to 40-pound-strike drag settings, such as the Penn 30 and 50 VSX reels, and filling them with braided line. They are relatively lightweight, and hold impressive quantities of line (650 yards of 100-pound braid for the 30; 875 yards of 130-pound braid for the 50) that will come in handy if and when that big blue hits a lure. Attach the reel to a 6-foot (50- to 130-pound) stand-up stick of your preference and a heavy-duty harness-and-belt setup (like those made by Braid or AFTCO).

Many marlin specialists will eschew this “mouse tackle,” and go right to the big guns in the form of bent-butt 80Ws and 130s. If this heavy-duty gear is your preferred route, you’ll need a quality fighting chair and footrest, along with an adjustable bucket harness, all of which can set you back $8,000 or more.

When it comes to lures, usually bigger is better to attract big blues into your spread. Hawaiian swimmers such as Black Bart, Joe Yee, Melton and Polu Kai catch marlin with great consistency worldwide. You’ll need larger 11/0 and 12/0 hooks to rig these lures. Since all of the 800- to 1,000-pound blue marlin you’ll meet have significant mass and length, a 20-foot leader is a must, which will require your leader man to really have his act together when bringing any large billfish boat-side.

I’ve had a number of run-ins with blue marlin off Long Island during my charter operations. They are definitely here and ready to rumble.

About the Author

Capt. John N. Raguso runs MarCeeJay Sport Fishing (marceejay.com) out of Long Island, New York. He has published more than 3,000 articles since the mid-’80s on topics including saltwater fishing, boating, marine electronics, guns and ammo.

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

Long Island Blues

The post New York Blue Marlin Fishing appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

mpofday3

Day Three of the 15th Annual Offshore World Championship sport fishing tournament is re-writing up the record books. The overall tournament results at the end of Day Three totaled 2,307 sailfish, seven blue marlin and 63 dorado by the time “lines out” was called at the end of Day Three.

According to past tournament reports, the last world record for billfish tournament releases took place only three months ago.

“The 2014 Offshore World Championship hosted by Marina Pez Vela in Quepos, Costa Rica has beaten the world record of tournament billfish releases with 2,314 in just three days of fishing,” said Carter Takacs, Marina Operations Manager of Marina Pez Vela. “The last three day record was 2,170 releases set at the 2014 Los Suenos Signature Series Leg I, which was also set this year on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica.”

On Day Three, the catch stats were 707 sailfish, one blue marlin and 18 dorado. The top team on Day Three was Waihau Bay Nationals aboard Frenzy with 22 sailfish for a total score of 4,400 points.

Overall Standings by End of Day Three

Top Teams

1st Place, 13,630.90 points, Luanda Sailfish Classic

2nd Place, 12,000 points, Torneio Marlin Azul do Rio de Janeiro

3rd Place, 11,800 points, 33rd Annual TTGFA Marlin Madness Tournament

Top Boat/Captain

Frenzy — Captain Jose Fernandez and Mate Marco Solano, 13,800 points

Dragin Fly — Captain James Smith and Mate Albert Ramos, 12,500 points

Gamefisher II — Junior Bustos Abarca and Mate Diego Lopez Castrillo, 11, 600 points

Top Three Anglers

Rafael Brigham, Billfish Kifofo Express, 7,400 points

Michael De Freitas, 33rd Annual TTGFA Marlin Madness Tournament, 5,400 points

Dario Marijan, Kup Prvaka-Vodice, 5,245.60 points

Heaviest Dorado

1st Place, 52.7 pound, Igor Franceschi, of Kup Prvaka-Vodice Team

Video Edited by Dan Grissom

The anglers of the tournament represent many nations as well as generations. Isaiah Aleong Baksh, a 13-year-old angler from Trinidad, has been fishing since he was three-years-old. He caught his first, 350-pound blue marlin at the age of 10. He is fishing on the Trinidad Tarpon Team along with his four friends.

“Of all the tournaments, this has been the best one,” Baksh said. “I’ve never seen so many fish before.”

The Offshore World Championship is not only bringing fish records to the Quepos coast, but economic impact to the Quepos community.

“Marina Pez Vela is very proud of hosting the 15th Annual of the OWC. This tournament is succeeding in positioning Costa Rica as a top of the line sport fishing destination, and also bringing economic benefits up to $2 million for the tourism-related value chain,” said Miguel Ramírez, Strategic Development Director at MPV. “The Quepos community is more than glad to have the best anglers of the world back.”

Marina Pez Vela has also recently joined with the Blue Carbon Program, and has initiated efforts to become the first Carbon Neutral Marina in the region. The Blue Carbon Program launched during the 2014 Offshore World Championship. The program was developed by The Costa Rican Fisheries Federation (FECOP), which is an association that promotes responsible fishing in Costa Rica and is made of organizations willing to protect, develop and encourage the sustainable use of the country’s fisheries.

One of FECOP’s primary focal points is billfish conservation. Besides the environmental impression such as their shaping of oceanic food chains, they are also important for tourism through sport fishing.

“Through many studies, an individual billfish has been estimated to be worth $3,000 each,” said Enrique Ramirez Guier, Executive Director FECOP. “One billfish drives money to so many services such as hotels, attractions and restaurants. There is a wide distribution of income coming from this kind of event.”

FECOP is taking the opportunity to align itself with the Offshore World Championship to inform through the tournament’s presence while at Marina Pez Vela.

“We wanted to create a relationship with Offshore World Championship to educate our initiatives to all the participating captains and mates,” Guier said. “It gives the sport fishing industry a relevance to promote the conservation of sport fishing species.”

FECOP hosted a dockside party for the captains, mates and anglers at Marina Pez Vela with complimentary food, drinks and entertainment to round out the day.

The tournament is sponsored by the Costa Rican Tourist Board (ICT) and Marina Pez Vela, along with Accurate, AFTCO, Costa del Mar, Eat Me Lures, Flor de Cana, Garmin, Geoffrey Smith Galleries, Guy Harvey, Hidden Bay Realty, IWS Scales, King Sailfish Mounts, Lazer Sharp Eagle Claw, Marlin, Maverick Sport Fishing Charters, Maverick Yachts, Mississippi Gulf Coast Billfish Classic, Ocean LED, Parador Resort and Spa, Salt Water Sportsman, Shimano, Sport Fishing, Toyota Rent a Car, Tycoon Tackle, Vanmark Jewelry, and Yeti Coolers.

Follow all the action live on the official online scorekeeper site: http://owc14.catchstat.com/

The tournament fishing will continue throughout the week, ending on April 10. The Awards Gala at Marina Pez Vela will be April 11, which will honor the top teams, boats and anglers.

The post Offshore World Championship Anglers Set New World Record with 2,314 Billfish Releases in Three Days appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

(Be sure to click through all the photos in the gallery above.)

What would you do for $1.2 million?

If your answer is “just about anything legal and ethical,” then consider this: That’s how much an 83-pound white marlin won for a crew of anglers at last summer’s 40th Annual White Marlin Open in Ocean City, Maryland. I’m not good at calculating odds, but I would bet that’s a much easier — and more fun — way to become a millionaire than playing the lottery.

Tournament fishing carries that windfall anticipation above and beyond the usual perks of fishing — camaraderie, strategy and adventure. Into that mixture I flew last August, on the invitation of Team Contender, to compete in the White Marlin Open.

First Steps

Contender principal Les Stewart, his son Les Jr. (Contender’s marketing director), Tony Novelli (Northeast sales manager) and New Jersey Capt. Mike Sisto (jerseykeyfishing​.com) formed the team’s nucleus. About two weeks out, we began talking strategy, and I started blogging in an online journal.

Although I was new to the team, Contender had supported and fished the WMO on several occasions. As a sponsor, Contender secured prime real estate in the home port — Harbour Island Marina — where we could quickly leave the inlet each morning and watch the weigh-in each afternoon. We fished Les Sr.’s Contender 39 ST with triple Yamaha F350s, Helm Master controls and an eye-catching Guy Harvey wrap.

Les Jr. and Novelli arranged for prime trolling baits from Baitmaster, including 48 select ballyhoo to build dredges and four dozen peewee, four dozen small, another four dozen select and one dozen horse ballyhoo for bait. Sisto rigged about 40 lures, and respooled his 30-pound and 50-pound Avet reels with hollow-core braid. He tied the main line into 200-yard top shots of 60- and 80-pound-test Momoi Diamond leader and set the strike-drag pressure to 19 pounds. He removed the roller tips from his Bar-Bar custom rods and loosened them up with WD-40 before reinstalling them.

Sisto dialed into reports from buddies fishing from Wilmington to Baltimore canyons (60 to 70 miles from shore). About a week out from the Aug. 5 kickoff, Novelli said white marlin had started showing up in the Washington Canyon; anglers also reported a few bluefins but a meager bigeye tuna bite.

Party Atmosphere

The crowd grew at Harbour Island by Sunday afternoon, Aug. 4. Vendors arranged their booths and tournament organizers checked the weigh-in gantry and the sound system — all pressed into a thin stretch of green space between condos and the marina boardwalk.

Music echoed through the buildings, and sightseeing parents pushed strollers over the grass. Captains and anglers tinkered with tackle in their cockpits, rigging dredges, tying leaders and testing connections.

Inside the marina’s Reel Inn Bar, servers mixed Ocean City’s signature drink: the Orange Crush — orange- or tangerine-flavored vodka, triple sec, ginger ale or Sprite, orange juice, and sugar to taste.

Late in the day, tournament organizers called captains from the 262 teams together and detailed important rules for the event. Teams could choose three of the five days to fish; they had to report a lay day to tourney headquarters before 8:30 a.m.

Everyone listed on the entry form was considered an angler. Prize categories included weighed white marlin, released white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, dolphin, wahoo and shark (with minimum weights required). Teams could also win daily prizes, bonuses, top captain, top mate and many other categories.

Novelli showed me the Team Contender entry form after registration. He tried to decipher it for me. But the list looked like some health-care cafeteria plan, and my eyes glazed. Suffice it to say that depending on which categories a team enters, the total fee varies. Our card totaled $1,200. (Yeah, that does cost a little more than a lottery ticket.)

Fish or Sleep

Despite the calendar, an early August front blew us off the water on day one, although 199 boats fished. Sisto brined more ballyhoo, and rigged another full ballyhoo dredge and more than 50 ballyhoo baits, bridling all for circle hooks (tournament rules), weighting some under the chin. He built more unbaited, double-hook stiff rigs using 200-pound fluorocarbon beneath bigger trolling lures.

Day two promised perfect conditions. Sisto had studied Terrafin SST-View satellite imagery and talked to several captains. We would head to Washington Canyon for bigeye tuna and blue marlin; our buddy boat, Rock Doc, a Contender 39 ST captained by SKA pro Bob Wiggins out of Charleston, South Carolina, would try the Baltimore Canyon. Even though white marlin take the top prize, a hefty bigeye scores serious money — and more tuna had been reported the first day than whites.

Knife-edge eager, we idled out of port. Although tournament rules stipulated lines in at 8:30 a.m., we left at first light. The 39s, which top out over 70 mph, rode through the nuisance chop like Cadillacs. Within an hour — at 40 to 45 mph, achieving 1 mpg — we caught up and passed the bigger battlewagons that left before dawn. About 78 miles off Ocean City, we throttled back.

At 8 a.m., our crew readied the baits as we motored over steep canyon walls, studying the water, looking for bait and birds. Sisto’s satellite maps had shown an upwelling with a 2-degree temperature change in the region. The cobalt water clearly held marine life as pods of pilot whales surfaced off our port aft corner. “The fish have been in 75-degree clean water,” Sisto said.

“Lines in, guys,” the radio finally chimed.

Slow Rush

Tournament anglers can’t be the only ones to know the feeling of a “slow rush.” That’s what I call a constant, heightened sense of adrenaline subdued by the droning tick of the clock.

We set out eight rods, including two with teasers, and tapped the throttles to 6½ knots. Six of the rods carried numbered labels so Sisto could assign rod duties. Baits were arranged into a compact pattern. “You want to keep a tight spread because the bigeyes come up in packs and can attack all the lures,” he said.

Les Sr. set the Garmin GPSMAP 7215 to show a depth range from 50 to 200 feet. Sisto tweaked the gain to best pick up fish marks.

Within 10 minutes, the tournament’s VHF channel advertised success somewhere inshore of us: “Boat 120 released a white marlin.” Cloud cover brought a slight chill to the air. 8:57 a.m.: “white marlin release.” 9:01 a.m.: “white marlin release.” Misty rain fell.

Suddenly, a reel screamed. Hoping for tuna, Sisto shouted: “Keep going forward. Let’s see if we can get multiple hookups.” The fish spit the hook almost as quickly as it had hit.

9:19 a.m., the radio chimed: “white marlin release.” Stupid VHF.

Our crew continually scanned the water. We saw a shape near the surface that initially tricked us into wishful thinking. But it was a blue shark. An hour later, a bait school popped at the surface; an anonymous fish whacked the port daisy chain.

“I think it’s going off over there,” Sisto said, pointing to the rest of the fleet of 30 or so boats.

At the weigh-in, we heard that 113 white marlin had been released, with six boated. A 77-pounder took the day-two top spot. Six blue marlin and one sailfish had also been released, bringing the two-day total of billfish released or boated to 233. Numerous bigeye in the 250-pound class came to the scales.

Always Opportunity

The weather declined on day three, but we chose to fish. Both Contenders planned a run to Wilmington Canyon with a strategy change to target white marlin. We took on fuel and ran 87 miles; the first 50 miles challenged us, but the big center-console skipped over the crests and remained dry. We passed a 30-foot walk-around trudging through the seas under dark skies.

Near the canyon the clouds parted, and we saw a whale blowing off the port bow. “The water is 72 degrees,” Sisto said, frowning. “The SST chart said 78 this morning.”

We set out a range of ¼-ounce chin-weighted ballyhoos and two long baits — ballys with circle hooks rigged like traditional J hooks, out through the belly — and began to troll. “We’ve caught some and we’ve lost some that way,” Sisto said of the circle-hook rigs, “but if a tuna hits, it will bite off the back of the bait otherwise.”

Wiggins, aboard our buddy boat, called to tell us he had a white marlin hookup, but the fish jumped off — one of four he would see throughout the day. We spotted small black petrels the guys called “tuna chicks.”

Les Sr. traced a pattern along the canyon wall, trolling between 500- and 800-foot depths. “Whites are tricky,” Sisto told me. “You don’t even see them. They slide in and swipe at the bait. They have small mouths, so they’re hard to hook.”

About noon, we took a hit on the port flat line. The reel clicker shattered the quiet. Novelli picked up the reel and fed the fish. Nothing.

Sisto spotted some flying fish. Something crashed and missed the long bait. Moments later, a rod doubled. “Here we go. Here we go,” Les Jr. yelled. As soon as Novelli reached for the rod, the fish was gone. “I bet there are a lot of little dolphins hanging around,” he offered.

Hours passed and the crew decided to move south to the Baltimore. The temperature gauge read 75 degrees. Hope soared again.

At 3 p.m., the port long rod went off. Sisto reeled in the bait, which was scaleless. “He had it all the way down,” he said. “Damn circle hooks.”

Back at tournament HQ, a total of 83 whites had been reported, with four of those boated — one claimed the top weighed-white spot at 83 pounds. More bigeyes hit the scale — cookie-cutter fish, hovering in the 250- to 260-pound range.

Determined Desperation

With plans A and B dismantled, our crew waffled about a day-four strategy. And while our fishing spirits had dipped, the team humor had not. Novelli, who slept poorly in the team’s shared condo the first two nights, finally took some cough medicine and plugged his ears. As he was soundly sleeping, his teammates strategically placed leftover blue crabs from dinner on his pillow, his body and his bed, and snapped some iPhone photos.

I know you had to be there, but it was hilariously funny the next morning as we motored out of port into a windy, partly cloudy sunrise. Plan C: more bigeye fishing in Washington Canyon.

By the time we reached the deep water, the winds had gone light. Sisto — who has fished the canyons for 19 years — kept schooling me on the bigeye routines. “The bigeye like lures 3 to 4 feet below the surface; usually the bigeye fishing is better around full moons,” he said, and noted the moon was new and the water temperature still just 74. He let the long baits out farther. “I know it’s not anything we’re doing wrong. The spread is good. We’re just not running over fish.”

The Garmin showed clouds of bait at a depth of 400 feet in 800 feet of water as we zigged and zagged from 500 out to 1,200 feet — for hours. I joked with the crew after a long day of semi-silence punctuated by an assortment of rock and hip-hop music from the stereo: “Perhaps we should call in this ‘skunk?’”

As we neared lines out, the radio came alive with supposed last-minute hookups as some crews sought to fish a tiny bit longer. We pulled in lines and ran back to port.

A 261½-pound bigeye energized the weigh-in crowd. Ninety-one more whites had been caught, with three weighed in. With one last day of fishing, the leaderboard remained open; however, only 39 boats were still eligible to fish — Team Contender was not one of them.

Tommy Jones and the Maryland crew of Kingfisher/OdinSpear won the top prize of $1.2 million with the 83-pound white marlin. Overall, 426 billfish were released; 19 boated. The final day of fishing did see the winning bigeye weighed — a 276-pounder that earned James Czaban and the Sushi crew out of Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, a whopping sum of $573,850.83.

The Open paid out $2,475,034 in prize money. Novelli says Team Contender will be in the money next time. That certainly seems worth the gamble.

Ocean City, Maryland

Most of Team Contender’s group stayed at a condo near the tournament site. The area offers many rental opportunities (ococean.com), but those who prefer a little more privacy and perhaps a family environment can choose from a slate of hotels, including the Francis Scott Key Family Resort (fskfamily.com), where I stayed.

The FSK features several pools, a watery playground, choice of cabins or rooms, basketball court, game room and an on-site diner.

The beaches draw vacationers throughout the summer regardless of the tournament timing. And the nearby Assateague Island National Seashore offers beautiful dune topography, miles of white sand and common glimpses of the region’s famous wild horses.

Be sure to top off any visit to the Delmarva Peninsula with a fresh boiled-crab dinner, available at most local seafood restaurants.

Getting to Ocean City usually means flying in to a nearby city such as Philadelphia (my choice) or Baltimore, and renting a vehicle for the roughly three‑hour drive. Ocean City and Salisbury share a regional airport as well.

41st White Marlin Open
Aug. 4-8 (2014)
Harbour Island Marina
Ocean City, Maryland
410-289-9229
whitemarlinopen.com

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The post White Marlin Open 2013 appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Fighting Chair

As I’ve mentioned in some of my other blogs, IGFA Angling Rules are easy to follow and not particularly onerous for anglers. However, a couple of our rules have been hotly contested over IGFA’s nearly 75 years of existence. And at the very top of the list are IGFA’s rules regarding the use of safety lines. Prior to IGFA’s January board meeting, IGFA’s rules related to safety lines said:

_ A safety line may be attached to the rod provided that it does not in any way assist the angler in fighting the fish, and A harness may be attached to the reel or rod, but not to the fighting chair._

As such, there was no provision for physically tethering the angler to the fighting chair or any other part of the boat, for that matter. During my 10 years at IGFA, I don’t know how many letters — several from famous captains, anglers and crew members — I’ve received wanting to change this rule. As per IGFA protocol, these requests were channeled up to the IGFA Angling Rules Committee for deliberation. However, until recently, the IGFA Rules Committee always chose not to change this rule because of concerns that anglers may use safety lines to transfer the burden of the fish from themselves to the boat.

Probably the most adamantly against any change to the rule was former IGFA board member, record holder and legendary angler, the late Stewart Campbell. Many thought it was strange that Campbell was so strongly set against changing this rule because he, himself was once pulled overboard while fighting a large blue marlin in Madeira. The whole episode was caught on camera and the video instantly went viral.

However, in late 2013, another request for a rule change was sent to the IGFA Rules Committee and, after serious deliberation, a motion was made and approved at the 2014 board meeting to change IGFA’s rules for safety lines to: A safety line may be attached to the rod, reel, or harness provided that it does not in any way assist the angler in fighting the fish.

The intent of this rule change is to allow the inherent safety associated with physically tethering the angler to the boat, but at the same time to not allow the safety line to go tight during the fight so that the strain of the fish is transferred from the angler to the boat thus assisting the angler in fighting the fish. Let’s face it: Lots can go wrong when you’re big-game fishing. Sportfisher cockpits are replete with hazards such as big, sharp hooks and knives, as well as the occasional marlin that jumps in for a visit. But at least now you don’t need to worry about being yanked overboard while fighting a monster fish.

The post IGFA Changes Long-Contested Rule appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Looking back, 2013 proved another great year of fishing for Tropic Star Lodge. Terri and Mike Andrews and their staff have worked extremely hard to maintain the very high standards set by the lodge for the last 50 years. I have been going there for 22 years, but I had not been for the last two years. I have spent a lot of time recently on shark research projects in Bermuda, Mexico and in the Bahamas which ate up my fishing time.

However the weekly catch reports and photos published by the fishing director, Albert Battoo, are like a carrot to TSL clients, most of whom are repeat customers. They know that Tropic Star Lodge is the best big-game fishing location in the western hemisphere, and they return time and time again, just like I do. They were back in force for the torneo and the start of the new season.

Sebastien Guilbard and I went from the Air Panama flight from Panama City landing at Piñas Bay straight to the dock, jumped on board the Miss Texas and were off to sea within minutes of arriving. Fellow torneo anglers from Canada — Mike Kelly, Dave McBain and Greg Speers — plus a cohort of other Canadian regulars also hit the calm seas for a warm-up day of spectacular offshore fishing.

The weather was beautiful, with cloud-capped mountains in the background. Birds and bait were everywhere. Offshore, we found a wonderful trash line with lots of big logs and of course mucho dorado! We caught four good ones before a 300-pound blue showed up on the left long, tracking it for what seemed like forever, then spurning a fresh dorado belly strip before turning away. It crashed the right-long lure 30 seconds later, and we had a couple of great jumps before the hook came out. Great start!

There were more big logs, and our skipper Gavilan found one with lots of juvenile bonito near it. We set up with live bait and promptly scored two more big dorado. I was tight on one dolphin when a blue marlin came up and chased the bait on the right rigger out of the water — what a sight! It seemed hesitant and then committed to the bite but dropped the bait shortly afterward. Gads! Who could resist such tempting morsel! In one hour we were zero for two!

Later that afternoon Gavilan spotted an area of foaming activity** —** tunas and dolphins again? No way! As we got closer, I could see it was a school of about a hundred blacktip sharks and a thousand or more jack crevalle tearing up a bait ball of cavajitas or green jacks. Bait balls in Panama are usually created by a yellowfin tuna/spotted dolphin combination. None of these species were involved, just sharks and jacks. Of course I did not have my dive gear or my underwater camera. Aaaaaaargh! It was the first time in dozens of expeditions to the eastern Pacific that I had seen this combination at work on baitfish. We stopped by the white water and watched them feast until they charged down the last bait.

The party broke up and the predators all went on their way 10 minutes later, leaving a wide slick of calm water where we’d watched the turmoil moments before. I am always learning something new in the ocean.

For our second day out, we got some live bonitos for bait at the Piñas Reef before heading offshore to the hundred-fathom line. Gavilan found us a blue in quick order, and Sebastien settled down to fight a 500-pound blue marlin that did not jump. We had leader in 20 minutes, sending the big girl on her way.

We then stayed with a school of spotted dolphin for most of the day, and caught a variety of dorado and skipjack as well as a the only sailfish we saw for the trip. Later that afternoon, we shadowed another lodge boat with angler Jim Nagy hooked up a 400-pound blue next to us. We stayed to watch the release. The marlin went ballistic on the leader. What a dramatic display by this acrobatic blue! I love capturing boat to boat action like this when such opportunities come along.

The two-day torneo began in earnest on Saturday, with nine private boats from Panama City making the trip down and eight lodge boats fishing. Unfortunately the water conditions had changed, the current slacked off and the bait fish were gone! Only four marlin were caught by the fleet all day, but two blues were caught by the team from Australia on the Australia with Capt Candelo. So they jumped into first place. Cayman team members Sebastien Guilbard, John Crimmins and myself, fished with captain Masso on the Spain and didn’t see a billfish all day.

The last day was wide open; anyone could win, but again, it was off to a slow start. We had drawn Australia with Candelo, who’d caught two blues the previous day. We quickly got live bonito on the reef and headed out to the hundred-fathom line. Here we saw some fast moving schools of skipjacks and not much else. Candela pulled lures for the first two hours and then ran another five miles to find a bigger school of skipjack and other boats working the area. There had been several marlin bites on lures but just one blue caught all morning.

Just a couple of minutes after noon, a 300-pound blue crashed the right rigger lure and danced its way across the wake before I could even lift my camera up to get the shot. I stood mesmerized. This is what it’s all about! The blue reversed direction and charged off to the right, grey-hounding all the way, and then ran out of gas. John did great work and we had the leader in the next 15 minutes, removing the hook and setting her free. We were on the board!

Out went the lures, and we had just got the pattern organized when a big fish slid up behind the right teaser. The dorsal looked like a periscope it was so tall. I fired out a small dead bonito, and the shadow sat there looking at it and then flipped its tail, dorsal up and bill out, mouth wide open and coming on the skipping bait as if in slow motion. The bow wave from the broad head pushed the bait aside and the marlin missed in a cloud of spray. My legs were shaking. This fish was over 700 pounds.

It came up a second time and got the bonito, and I came tight after a two-second drop-back. She pushed her head out, shaking, and went jet-skiing away across the surface. Then she went down for several minutes. I did not know how long this fight would last on 50# line so was ready for the long haul.

The big marlin popped back up and we spun around and chased her down, getting close right away. I could see her massive form gliding along with her pectorals spread wide, vivid electric-blue stripes down her body and massive tail weaving back and forth. She darted away with a couple of lazy sweeps of that blue tail but we got back over her and the leader was there right away and touched the rod tip. We had two releases in 30 minutes to propel us from the outhouse to second place.

She then took off again half out of the water going to the right leaving a boat wake behind her. I could not see her full length until we had her on the leader again, and Candelo said the marlin was 750 to 800 pounds. She was released, colors glowing, and dashed off like a jet ski on steroids with a final series of jumps. We had two and half hours left to fish but did not raise another billfish. The Australians survived our late charge to take top team and Cayman Islands came second, with the Panama City boat Pescalo placing third. An amazing statistic was that Candelo on “Australia” caught four of the seven marlin caught in the two day event. On the last day out of 20 recorded strikes from the fleet, three blue marlin were released.

Tropic Star Lodge has just celebrated its 50th anniversary and is looking forward to another half century of world-class big-game fishing action. If you’ve never been there, then you need to book soon. If you have been, you need to return soon. The marlin fishing is good year round with peaks January through March and again August through September. The average size of the blue marlin and black marlin is 300 pounds, but 500-pounders are common. The inshore fishing can be spectacular, and the hospitality, in my second home, is simply the best. Good luck and tight lines.

A 400-pound blue on the wire!

Get Ready … Get Set …!

Early Start

Tight-Wire Act

The Spectacular Coast of Panama

Explosive Power

Raging Blue

Ready for Release

The Cayman Island Team

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