Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2015 i Sport Fishing

Visit sportfshingmag.com/fshing-girls to see this month’s photo gallery of women who love fshing, tackle and boats. WANT TO BE FEATURED? Submit your best fishing photos to sfgirls@sportfshingmag.com for a chance to be a monthly winner of $100 worth of clothing from Salt Life and a $100 assortment of Yo-Zuri lures FACEBOOK FAN POLL Q:What’s the most outlandish fishing bait that you’re glad you tried? I trolled a lure I made out of a Dr Pepper bottle cap, a Doritos bag, and egg sinkers. Dolphin tore it up. Not very durable, but it worked. — Jimmy Snedec Jersey bluefish smashed every drop of an arrow-shaped cutout of a shiny Doritos bag. — Jeffrey Reynolds While fishing on the north tip of Anacapa Island off Ventura County, California, we had live squid…

JUST LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE with a lot of sky pieces, fishing-boat design can be quite tricky. The length, width, weight, center of gravity, and other factors must combine with the running-surface strategy and power requirements to achieve everything an angler might want. Talk about your impossible dreams. Enhanced beam can be one of those desires. Beamy, wide boats create stable platforms for anglers. But if not designed correctly, they can deliver a rude ride. To look at the benefits and requirements of beamy vessels, I identified several wider-than-the-competition models and asked those builders what elements they combined to create these very popular boats. (Boats are listed by LOA from shortest to longest.) SPECS: LOA: 28 ft. 6 in. BEAM: 10 ft. 6 in. TRANSOM DEADRISE: 22 deg. DRY WEIGHT:…

EDGEWATER FIRST introduced the 280CC for the 2014 season as a fishing and family-fun vessel with cleverly designed features like the integrated hardtop with its Clear Vision glass windshield, specially molded to create an unobstructed sight line. The center-console interior provides a double berth, head and pullout shower. The leaning post abovedecks can be configured in several ways — with a cooler and prep area, with a livewell and tackle center, with a sink, shower and storage, or with a kitchen setup. The vessel comes standard with a windlass, two in-sole fish boxes, midship fender lockers, a 28-gallon transom livewell, and stainless-steel cockpit toe rails. A Yamaha performance bulletin on the 280CC with twin F250s (the vessel can handle twin F300s) shows a top speed of 53.8 mph at 6,000…

Gently, I nudged the outboard into gear and turned the Pathfinder bay boat in a wide circle. The three anglers on deck crouched, and we all whispered. “Yeah, I still see it. It’s still up,” I murmured. A south Georgia spring breeze rustled the shirt back of the designated angler, now poised on the foredeck, spinning-reel bail open, live shrimp dangling at the water’s surface. The wind was behind him; the fish in front. The tripletail swam lazily on its side as if transformed into the flotsam it mimics. The angler cast the shrimp and cork toward its path — 15 feet ahead of it and 15 feet beyond — then slowly reeled the bait. If his geometry was correct and the fish stayed its course, the bait and tripletail…

Marlin! Marlin!” Capt. Christian Lopez yelled from the bridge of the 48-foot Bertram Don Luis, pointing to a striped marlin streaking into the trolling spread from the starboard side. You could see the marlin’s dazzling bars radiate and its pectoral fins glow as it darted between the two squid teasers in the clear waters off Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas. Before the first mate could drop back a live bait, the striper sank away. Yet moments later, the fish reappeared behind a rigged ballyhoo trolled on a long centerline from a rod holder on the bridge. The marlin’s tail and dorsal carved a wake as it launched an attack, lifting its bill high and inhaling the bait. The trolling rod arced over hard, and line melted from the reel. One-hundred-and-fifty feet…

Mention “bay boat,” and most anglers think small center-console. But there’s nothing miniscule about the Scout 251 XS. A proud bow and expansive fore and aft decks make a striking first impression. With a Yamaha F350 on the transom, the 251’s stylish lines are punctuated with sheer power I boarded my test boat in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina’s famed Shem Creek, a working waterway since the 1700s. The creek quickly empties into Charleston Harbor, where my captain for the day, James LaVanway (Reel Fish Finder Charters), turned the 251 east. A serene sunrise promised to make this early-December day pleasant. Soon we were snaking through fast-moving tidal creeks, banking easily in tight turns before slowing near a set of wooden docks opposite a sprawling salt marsh. ANGLER READY LaVanway uses…

ROBALO SAYS it built the R242 center-console for anglers who want to navigate big water but need a trailerable boat. The 24-footer features high offshore-style freeboard and the company’s HydroLift hull design. With a single 250 hp outboard, it weighs 4,800 pounds, and the variabledeadrise running surface terminates at the transom with a 22-degree angle. The R242 incorporates Kevlar in its construction; its cockpit layout combines tournament-fishing amenities with cruising comforts. Anglers will find three insulated fish boxes, two livewells (an 18-gallon well in the leaning post and a 20-gallon well at the bow), toe rails and 14 rod holders. The bow platform — a broad enough surface for sure-footed castnetting — converts to U-shaped seating with a removable fiberglass filler. Capable of carrying twin outboard engines up to 400…

FISH FACT ARCHIVES INSIDE: A JAW-DROPPER OF A JACK 20 NOT CUDDLY: RED-TIPPED FIRE WORM 22 NOT CUDDLY: RED-TIPPED FIRE WORM 24 TREVALLY’S A REAL JAW-DROPPER I saw this photo in the great French fishing-travel magazine, Voyages de Pêche, and was immediately intrigued to see a trevally with a prognathic lower jaw. I’ve never seen the like, and am wondering if this is an aberration or in fact an actual species and, if so, I would like to know more about it. Paul Sherman Anacortes, Washington What you’ve found there, Paul, is not a deformed individual but a prime specimen of the longrakered trevally, Ulua mentalis. This fish, also known as the cale cale trevally, is one of the more enigmatic members of the family Carangidae. They’re occasionally encountered by…

FOR MOST OF US, CATCHING A 20-POUND FISH OF ANY SPECIES ON 4-POUND-TEST LINE WOULD QUALIFY AS JUSTIFICATION FOR BRAGGING RIGHTS. AND WHY NOT? THAT MAKES IT A 5-TO-1 CATCH (I.E., FISH WEIGHT TO LINE STRENGTH). THAT’S NO MEAN FEAT NO MATTER WHAT LINE SIZE YOU MIGHT BE USING. And keeping in mind the considerable challenge a 5-to-1 ratio represents, welcome to the surreal world of big-game fishing on ultralight lines. It’s a world where — while following all International Game Fish Association rules to the letter — one angler and his team landed on 4-pound-test (actually 3.55-pound) not an impressive 20-pounder, or even a 200-pounder, but rather a ginormous 573-pound marlin, for a mind-boggling 161-to-1 ratio. The catches listed below in these four most sensational light-line conquests range from…

SUBSEA CANYONS FORMED OFF THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES WHEN SEA LEVELS WERE HUNDREDS OF FEET LOWER THAN TODAY, AND GREAT RIVERS CARVED VERTICAL WALLS DEEP INTO WHAT’S NOW CONTINENTAL SHELF. HUDSON CANYON, THE LARGEST NORTHEASTERN CANYON, IS MORE THAN 60 MILES LONG AND 7 MILES WIDE WITH VERTICAL WALLS EXTENDING 3,600 FEET FROM ITS RIM TO THE BOTTOM — A BIT MORE THAN HALF THE DEPTH AND ROUGHLY A QUARTER THE SIZE OF THE GRAND CANYON. The sort of fishing and adventure that awaits out here just can’t be equaled near the coast, yet the canyons are surprisingly accessible. About a fifth of the U.S. population lives within a fewhour drive of a port offering canyon charter trips. Boats cruising 25 knots cover the 50‑ to 150‑mile ride out with…

It was the worst of weeks, it was the best of weeks. With apologies to fans of Charles Dickens, that’s the way I felt about the late November time frame in which I scheduled a Fish Trial of the Invincible 39 Open Fisherman. The offshore forecast in South Florida called for 6- to 7-foot seas, northeast winds to 25 knots and scattered showers — not exactly ideal fishing conditions. “At least you’ll see how well this boat handles big seas,” said Bill Cordes, director of sales and marketing for Invincible Boats, as we met at Two Georges Marina in Boynton Beach, Florida. Joining us for the trip were Capt. Chip Sheehan, mate Mike Risely and Invincible’s marketing specialist, Karim Sabet. STEPPING OUT The 39 complements four other Invincible offshore models…