Sport Fishing June 2018

Odds are most of us have seen the license plates: “Louisiana, Sportsman’s Paradise.” Or should that be: “Louisiana, Sportsmen Unwelcome”? That sure seems to be the message delivered by the state House of Representatives when, in mid-April, it voted that landowners who control 80 percent of the state’s productive coastal marsh can tell recreational fishermen: Stay out! From the perspective of coastal sport-fishing enthusiasts, Louisiana is unique in many respects. On the plus side, there’s the mind-bogglingly vast productive coastal marsh, 3 million acres of it. Some of the best fishing in the world for redfish, seatrout, flounder, largemouth bass and other game fish attracts anglers from all over to these estuaries. But it turns out there’s a monster in this marsh that has recently begun rearing a very ugly…

On my very first trip out an inlet to fish, I rode aboard an old, single-engine charter boat running from Morehead City, North Carolina. I quickly found the downside to trolling along a beachfront (whether within casting distance of the breakers or a few miles out): You fish beam to the seas pretty much all the time. The net result? For me, at age 7, it meant depositing my breakfast into the nearshore Atlantic Ocean, followed by lunch, followed by anything else I tried to eat or drink, until my feet were once again planted firmly on land. No matter. I managed to tough it out long enough to take several turns in the fighting chair, cranking hard on footlong Spanish mackerel — my first pelagic big-game conquests. Looking back,…

At first glance, it might seem like a beach reduces an angler’s options, but trolling along one is still a three-dimensional game, just like trolling in open water. To maximize the catch, many of the same lessons apply. • Once you locate an effective depth, stick with it. Often this means shadowing contours in the shoreline. • Points, outcroppings, sloughs and other interruptions in the beach are like structure within the structure. Consider any variation that continues out into deeper water as a potential fish magnet. • Most seasoned beach trollers agree that slow-trolling live baits results in more strikes, regardless of target species. However, you have to know where and how deep the fish are holding. Trolling lures fast often helps locate fish because you can cover a lot more ground.…

LITTLE GIANT Q While fly-fishing recently in Thailand with Capt. Jean-Francois Helias (Fishing Adventures Thailand), I caught this lovely grouper at a saltwater lake close to the sea, located in the southern part of the country. I learned from Helias that the fish’s local Thai name is pla mo talay. I’d love to learn more about this fish, in particular both its common and scientific names. Leonard Kouba Chicago, Illinois A That’s a great fish on fly, Leonard. It’s an adolescent giant grouper, also known as the Queensland groper (as some grouper are referred to Down Under), Epinephelus lanceolatus. This species is the largest reef-dwelling bony fish, and has been reliably recorded to 9 feet long and nearly 900 pounds. Indeed, they grow big enough to attack divers and are…

THE HUMAN HAND has 27 different bones, 29 joints and 123 ligaments. Your fingers have more sensory receptors than your eyes. The muscles that move those fingers are all located within your palm, are driven by some 200,000 neurons, and some scientists believe that as much as one-quarter of the motor cortex — the part of your brain that controls voluntary movement — is dedicated to manipulating your hands. And the one most important task that the brain can ever direct your hands to do is, of course, wrapping them around the grip of a fishing-reel handle. Well, OK — I’ll admit that picking up the rod and casting it might be just as important as turning the crank. But there’s no doubt that you can’t catch a fish if…

TWO-IN-ONE Simrad’s new, free 18.1 software update for NSS evo2 and evo3, NSO evo2 and GO Series displays includes a number of enhancements, including the new feature FishReveal, which makes fish easier for anglers to see on DownScan Imaging screens. Previously DownScan views showed photolike images of bottom and structure while depicting fish targets as tiny dots. FishReveal’s Smart Target Viewing now combines the best data from DownScan together with chirp sonar views, which offer well-defined fish arches, eliminating the need to use split-screen viewing for proper interpretation. The update also adds auto routing functionality, C-MAP charting improvements and touchscreen control of MotorGuide Xi5 trolling motors. MODEL MAKEOVER Shimano has announced an evolution for its Stella reels in the new FJ series of five spinners. Ranging in size from 1000…