Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Salt Water Sportsman

On the East Coast, we call them dolphin; from Hawaii to California (and coast to coast on restaurant menus), they’re known as mahimahi; and in Latin America and adjacent regions, dorado is the preferred term. Every dolphin fisherman has dealt with the confusion of nonanglers when you mention the name. We’re accustomed to patiently explaining, before we can go on with the story we’re telling, “No, not Flipper. Flipper is a mammal. This is the fish dolphin.” By whatever name, they strike readily at natural and artificial baits, both cast and trolled, fight spectacularly, and provide top-rate table fare. They also happen to be beautiful. Found in all the world’s warm oceans, they reproduce fast enough to remain abundant throughout their range. They are so prolific that they’ve been referred…

Tucker Cullen 11, Georgia A veteran angler on the beaches and piers of both Florida and Georgia, Tucker recently made the jump to bluewater fishing off Palm Beach, Florida, where he landed his first offshore fish, this 20-pound dolphin. Alex Young 12, Maine Alex started fishing as a toddler and has checked quite a few species off his bucket list, which he is constantly upgrading. This 46-inch striped bass caught in southern Maine eclipsed his previous personal best, a 44-incher. Pearce and Lane Ford 7, North Carolina Twins Pearce and Lane love fishing with their dad off Morehead City, North Carolina. Last October, they doubled up on gaffer dolphin, caught their first-ever sailfish, and followed that with a wahoo doubleheader. NOMINATE A KID: SWS recognizes kids who represent sportsmanship, passion and…

Yellowfin 54 Yellowfin Yachts again raises the bar on boat-buyer expectations, with a sleek-looking, new 54-foot center-console with a high-performance stepped hull designed for quadruple or quintuple outboard setups. Aside from delivering serious speed and the brand’s legendary ride, the Yellowfin 54 features a spacious, well-appointed cabin area beneath the console that houses a full queen berth, fully equipped kitchenette, wraparound seating, and a head compartment. Built with the hardcore offshore angler in mind, this superlative fishing machine incorporates a wealth of angling attributes, like a huge transverse fish box in the cockpit sole, with over 800 quarts of capacity to ice down the catch; 150 gallons of livewell capacity, which can be configured as a massive single well or twin 75-gallon wells to carry different baitfish; extensive rod- and…

“DOLPHIN ARE READY TO REPRODUCE AT JUST THREE MONTHS OF AGE, SPAWN MULTIPLE TIMES PER YEAR, AND GROW TO 40 POUNDS OR MORE IN ONLY 12 MONTHS.”—DON HAMMOND, DOLPHIN TAGGING PROJECT FOUNDER AND FORMER MARINE BIOLOGIST FOR SOUTH CAROLINA�S DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES Present in most oceans, these remarkable pelagic game fish respond well to a variety of tactics, including trolling with rigged baits or artificials, live-baiting, and casting lures or flies. However, success usually depends on finding the fish, which entails covering water and looking for telltale signs, such as frigate birds hovering, or gulls or terns diving and dipping, and also locating weed lines or other floating debris dolphin seek for cover and foraging options. Life in the Fast Lane “Dolphin are the most fascinating animals I’ve ever…

South Florida dolphin hunters await that first push of migratory fish to kick off our season. But exactly when is this most likely to occur? Dr. Wess-ley Merten, head of the Dolphinfish Research Program (dolphintagging.com), says that 17 years of tagging dolphin indicates progressively later arrivals. March is traditionally when young-of-the-year dolphin venture into Florida Keys waters. However, in recent years, these early arrivals have lagged into April. The Keys and South Florida experience the heaviest migrations from April through June. Ironically, the Keys sees another uptick in schoolies and larger solitary fish in August and September. Exactly how fast are these fish migrating? “Data indicates, on average, it takes dolphin one and a half months to move up the Eastern Seaboard before entering the Atlantic Ocean from Georgia north…

A TREE THE SIZE OF THOSE FOUND IN THE AMAZON FOREST FLOATED VERTICALLY SOME 30 MILES OFF ISLAMORADA IN THE FLORIDA KEYS, ONE END RISING 3 FEET ABOVE THE SURFACE WHILE THE REMAINING 20-PLUS FEET POINTED DOWN AT THE SEAFLOOR. AND YES, DOLPHIN WERE EVERYWHERE. Jake Roth and I began loading up rods with quality fish by pitching out ballyhoo chunks, squid, bucktails and live pilchards. After boating our share, with a 15-pound bull the largest to that point, we decided to go deep for wahoo or a trophy dolphin. I lowered a live blue runner 100 feet down on a wire leader, put the outfit in a rod holder, and resumed catching school fish. The surface action remained so brisk, the deep rod was ultimately forgotten, until it suddenly…

LENGTH: 27'2" BEAM: 9'4" DRAFT: 20" DEADRISE: 21.5 degrees FUEL: 200 gal. WEIGHT: 6,500 lb. MAX HP: 450 PRICE: $228,444 with twin Mercury 200 FourStrokes BELZONA BOATS: belzonaboats.com UNTIL RECENTLY, MIAMIBASED BELZONA BOATS HAD FOCUSED ON MODELS FOR PLEASURE CRUISING, BUT BREAKING WITH TRADITION, ITS NEW 27CC FEATURES A LAYOUT DECIDEDLY ANGLINGCENTRIC, PLUS A NUMBER OF TRAITS AND SMART APPOINTMENTS WELL-SUITED FOR OFFSHORE FISHING CAMPAIGNS. Belzona’s penchant for comfort and convenience still emerges in the 27-foot center-console. For example, the boat can be optioned with bow seating with removable backrests, which convert the seats into loungers, with dry storage inside the seating pods. The builder also offers various choices of windshields, from none to a three-sided, clear polycarbonate enclosure that provides excellent visibility. Dash-panel styling options range from plain fiberglass…

Last May, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), in charge of fisheries management and conservation in waters from Florida to Maine, determined striped bass stocks along the Atlantic Coast were overfished. To allow the striper population to recover, the ASMFC decided the take of fish must be reduced by 18 percent, and in October it approved a coastwide standard regulation for striped bass that limits recreational anglers to keeping just one fish between 28 and 35 inches in length. Nevertheless, the states were given the opportunity to create their own regulations, as long as those alternatives were projected to reach the target reduction. New Jersey accepted, while Connecticut declined, opting to simply adhere to the ASMFC’s coastwide measures. The rest have until April to decide their course of action.…

1 Scented Swimmer The effectiveness of Berkley Gulp! baits’ water-based scent dispersion is legendary, and now it comes alive in the new Nemesis, which features a baitfish profile and enticing swimming tail action. Available in 11 colors, and 3- and 6½-inch sizes. $6.99 to $7.49; berkley-fishing.com 2 Pro-Grade Kicks The Wheelhouse, a commercial-grade version of Xtratuf’s popular Ankle Deck Boots, incorporates a reinforced toe and heel for extended durability, and features a wider fit for additional comfort, accommodating swollen feet or thicker socks. Available in men’s and women’s sizes, in three colors. $130; xtratuf.com 3 Tough Mission Sticks Shimano’s Grappler Series rods comprise 33 models covering jigging, casting and bottomfishing, with lines ranging from 20- to 100-pound braid, and lures weighing up to 14 ounces. Spiral X and Hi-Power X…

Capt. Arik Bergerman faced 6- to 8-foot seas at the wheel of his Yellowfin Carbon 39 as it rocketed across the wave tops from Key West, Florida, toward a wreck near the Dry Tortugas, 88 miles away, in a no-holds-barred effort to win the Stock Island Village Marina King Mackerel Tournament in January 2016. But suddenly, the run came to a halt as Bergerman pulled back the throttles in response to an alert on one of the multifunction displays. The digital-switching window on the touchscreen indicated that an automatic bilge pump was running nonstop. The alert prompted Bergerman and crew to open the bilge hatch, where they discovered a livewell hose had jarred loose, pouring water below decks and triggering the bilge pump. They got the hose reattached and clamped…

The Jersey coast really blossoms from July through September. “We’re targeting mahi from a half-mile off the beach to 15 miles out, and we’ll run 20 to 30 miles if need be,” Capt. Jerry Malanga says. “It’s all about hopping around the lobster pots to find them.” Malanga watches for 70- to 75-degree, clean and clear blue water loaded with nutrients. “The first week of August is usually peak time to find dolphin around the high fliers,” he says. “I’ll find them in schools of 40 to 60 fish around a pot after an east-northeast blow, when the Gulf Stream eddies push in weeds and floating debris. The dolphin drop off the floating debris, locate a pot line, and hold tight through the summer.” Hopping pots is the key to…

From late April through September, when dolphin action is hot, crews should be prepared to switch from trolling ballyhoo to bailing with cut bait within seconds. Capt. Jimmy Hillsman, manager at Oceans East Bait and Tackle in Nags Head, North Carolina, starts by searching for a temperature change or weed line, and tries to be first on the scene. “Position is everything. You don’t want to be fourth or fifth in line,” he says. Instead of fishing in a crowd, Hillsman suggests finding an unexplored stretch of grass. Once he’s on the scene, he slows the boat to 4 knots. “Dolphin can be lazy,” he says. “Sometimes we have to slow down to get a bite.” Hillsman usually deploys small ballyhoo. “When the fishing is really good, we’ll use a…

To many West Coast anglers, the thought of catching a dorado (dolphin in East Coast angling circles) often means a trip to the Baja Peninsula. But to people who speak the religion of Southern California offshore fishing, the gospel is the anticipation of the midsummer arrival of dorado from those Baja waters, when the local offshore kelp paddies draw schools of these beautiful fish. As surface water temps warm to the lower 70s, reports start coming in from the San Diego-based long-range fleet that the dorado are on their way north. You can almost set your clock to their arrival by mid-July, when dorado come well within the range of smaller craft leaving San Diego, Mission Bay, Dana Point, Huntington, Long Beach, and even Marina Del Rey. At this time,…

Perhaps I should have written about this earlier, but the truth is I have been thinking about it for a while. As we closed out the last decade and looked forward to the next, it became apparent that there are going to be some pluses and some minuses for fisheries that are important to us. To me, one of the major environmental issues that will impact fisheries is the warming of the oceans. If we look back 50-plus years, the ocean has absorbed 93 percent of the temperature increases globally. Because currents mix this temperature increase in different ways in different areas, it makes it hard to say that, due to this heat absorption, the ocean has warmed by X degrees. In general, we know that fish that have a…

Net Gain Furuno’s third-generation NavNet multifunction displays—the TZtouch3 series—come in 12-inch hybrid IPS touch displays, and 16- and 19-inch glass IPS touch displays. Each features a quad-core processor, built-in, dual-channel 1 kW TruEcho Chirp, and a 50/200 kHz fish finder. TZtouch3 displays also have a pin-code feature that helps guard your data and deter theft of the hardware. Price has not been set; furunousa.com Go Getter The affordable Veratron Go is a GPS/GLONASS/Galileo antenna that offers 72-channel reception and a 10 Hz refresh rate. It connects to NMEA 2000 networks for supplying position and navigation data to compatible onboard equipment. It fits Veratron Ocean-Link bezels for mounting on hardtops. The white housing is made of a rugged thermoplastic engineered for continual outdoor exposure. $149.99; veratron.com Evo-lution Simrad NSO Evo3S Glass…

From Florida’s Middle Grounds to waters off South Padre Island, Texas, dolphin are plentiful in the Gulf of Mexico. Bulls exceeding 40 pounds are routinely landed—although, often as an incidental catch—by boats trolling for billfish and tuna. Longtime pros such as Capt. Scott Hickman of Circle H Charters in Galveston, Texas, have honed tactics for trophy fish. The season normally runs from May through September. “Beyond the Flower Garden Banks, the water drops off to 1,000 feet,” Hickman says. “We haven’t had the amount of sargassum we typically get the last couple of years, but we still score some fish by pitching naked ballyhoo and sardines under weed lines. My go-to rig for big fish is a trolled Ilander lure in blue-and-white or chartreuse-and-white, rigged with a select ballyhoo. It’s…

In Southern California offshore waters, patches of floating kelp known as paddies are the key to finding and catching dorado, the West Coast name for dolphin. In summer, schools migrate north from Mexican waters and hang around these golden weeds, but the dorado can sometimes grow skittish and reluctant to bite once they reach California. Productive paddies range anywhere from the size of a trash-can lid to as wide as a garage door. To find paddies, San Diego-based Capt. Barry Brightenburg scans the waters from a tower using gyrostabilized binoculars. “I can spot paddies a mile or more away using the gyros,” Brightenburg says. “Terns flittering above it is a sure sign that fish are feeding below.” With a paddy in sight, Brightenburg resists the urge to rush in. Instead,…

MOST FLY-FLINGERS DREAM ABOUT AGGRESSIVE TAKES, EPIC BATTLES WITH POWERFUL RUNS AND SPECTACULAR LEAPS, AND BEAUTIFUL TROPHY FISH THAT MAKE ENVIABLE SNAPSHOTS. IF YOU ARE AMONG THEM, THEN DOLPHIN SHOULD BE ON YOUR RADAR. Living and guiding in southeast Florida, I have one of the most diverse and prolific fisheries in the country at my disposal. Dolphin are among the many species found on my stomping grounds off Palm Beach, and while they still peak here from mid-April through early July, and again from late August to early November, climate change has skewed their schedule, making them increasingly available year-round. This bodes well for fly-rodders who, with more time to hit the water under the right conditions, get to choose from the variety of tactics dolphin respond to, and select…

LENGTH: 35'10" BEAM: 11'7.5" DRAFT: 20" FUEL: 550 gal. WATER: 35 gal. MAX HP: 1,200 DRY WEIGHT: 10,350 lb. PRICE: $350,000 with twin Mercury 350 Verados INVINCIBLE: invincibleboats.com FOLLOWING THE SUCCESSFUL DEBUTS OF ITS 40 AND 37 CATAMARANS, INVINCIBLE BOATS RECENTLY LAUNCHED A SMALLER 35-FOOT MODEL, THE THIRD CAT IN AS MANY YEARS, SENDING THE UNMISTAKABLE MESSAGE THAT THE FLORIDA-BASED BUILDER IS FULLY COMMITTED TO THE MULTIHULL-FISHINGMACHINE MARKET. The 35 Catamaran was introduced to offer a model that’s easier to handle and fits in smaller dock spaces while still offering many of the advantages of its larger siblings. The design firm Morrelli & Melvin employed computational fluid dynamic computer software to test various running surfaces before tooling up to build the latest Invincible. Unlike many V-hulls that want to decelerate…