Sport Fishing February 2018

“ABOVE ALL, WHEN IT COMES TO ANTIPATHY TOWARD FISHING LAWS, THE GREATEST CONCERN OF ANGLERS IS FAIRNESS. Are we sport fishermen all in need of therapy, or what? Clearly, when it comes to laws regulating our sport, as a group we seem to be conflicted. Many anglers despise “big-government” fisheries laws and have hardly been shy about saying so. For years, comments in forums and on social media having anything to do with NOAA or NMFS (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration or the National Marine Fisheries Service), and often with fisheries laws in general, have been met with, well, the sort of language I’d be ill advised to repeat here. Let’s just say it has gotten pretty ugly. Given the incendiary rhetoric, one could reasonably conclude a lot of…

The latest fishing report said so, right there in print: The hot lure du jour was a white bucktail. This seemed rather hard to believe. Haven’t bucktails been obsolete for decades? If these specks and stripers would hit a white bucktail, wouldn’t they go after a white plastic shad with just as much enthusiasm? Fast-forward a few days: I’m casting to the points and guts of the marsh islands of Tangier Sound in the Chesapeake Bay, with my go-to plastic on the end of the line. Despite the light breeze, promising current and good reports of late, I’m drawing a blank. Then I remember: white bucktails. BUCKTAIL VOODOO Of course I have a few bucktails in my tackle box — most anglers probably do — so I find one not…

• Speed and depth are the keys to presentation. The two factors go hand in hand sometimes, but you might need to vary one without changing the other. Instead of speeding up the boat to get a bucktail running higher when trolling, for example, consider shortening the lines. Or when a slow retrieve is working best in shallow water but going slow would mean hooking bottom, switch to a lighter bucktail so you can maintain that presentation. • Remember that a bucktail in and of itself has very little action. You need to either provide it yourself by giving it hard yanks or adding a trailer that has some wiggle. • For many species, you’ll want to keep your bucktail close to the bottom and/or bounce it off the bottom. On…

INSIDE: DOMINE 18 DOLPHINFISH 18 SWORDSPINE SNOOK 19 DEEP IN THE DOMAIN OF THE DOMINE Q In the southern Bahamas, while deep-dropping off Little Inagua, we caught this fish on the bottom in 1,800 feet of water. I figured if anyone would know what it is, SF’s Fish Facts experts would. Pretty cool fish, though its white meat was soft. It had fangs very similar to those of a speckled trout. Capt. Pat Dineen Destin, Florida A Pat, your photos make a final identification a bit tricky, but based on those, it appears to be a domine, Epinnula magistralis. This rarely encountered species is quite similar to the American sackfish, Neoepinnula americana; both are members of the family Gempylidae, the snake mackerels. A primary means to distinguish the two is…

SPONSORED BY SEND IN YOUR QUESTION and any relevant photos of your mysterious catch or observation for our experts’ ID and feedback. If we publish your question and you have a shipping address within the United States or Canada, you’ll win a 3-pound spool of Berkley Pro Spec ocean-blue or fluorescent-yellow monofilament (1,000 to 10,800 yards, depending on line strength) or a 1,500-yard spool of Spiderwire Stealth braid up to 100-pound-test! Send questions and images via email to fishfacts@sportfishingmag.com(include your hometown) or via post to Sport Fishing Fish Facts, 460 N. Orlando Ave., Suite 200, Winter Park, FL 32789. SF FISH FACTS EXPERTS NORTHEAST Mike Fahay Sandy Hook Marine Lab, New Jersey SOUTHEAST Ray Waldner, Ph.D. Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida GULF OF MEXICO Bob Shipp, Ph.D. University of South…

Requiring 5½ hours to land, a 956-pound bluefin tuna [A] caught on 50-pound line last September offers Glyn Williams a chance to break the current men’s record of 897 pounds, 4 ounces. The angler traveled to Tignish, Canada, from his native Queensland, Australia, to make the catch. Pending as the 2-pound-line-class record, a 15-pound, 7-ounce talang queenfish [B] fought for nearly an hour last September before Vicki Searle, of Karratha, Western Australia, could get the fish into the boat. Searle caught the big queenie near Dampier, Australia. The existing women’s 2-pound record weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce, caught in 2003. Kiwi light-line enthusiast Guy Jacobsen is set to notch another world record to his list if the 65-pound, 1-ounce dogtooth tuna [C] he landed on 8-pound line is approved. He…