Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Sport Fishing

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…

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 50-pound Atlantic halibut [A] that Sergey Prachik of Russia bested this past March could potentially earn him the new 16-pound line-class record. The halibut hit a dead fish off Soroya, Norway, and required 30 minutes to subdue. The current 16-pound-class world record stands at 35 pounds. Young Emmi Roberts (age 11) of Weipa, Australia, fished her home waters this past February to land a 22-pound, 8-ounce talang queenfish [B] after a fight of nearly an hour on 6-pound line. If approved, it would defeat the current line-class record of 17 pounds, 11 ounces, caught just to the west, near Groote Eylandt in 2000, and become the female junior-angler record. French angler Anthony Guenec’s 92-pound, 9-ounce cobia [C] caught on 20-pound tippet this past March in the Bijagos Island, Guinea…

Tubular rod holders are not limited to boats. Thanks to a new rod-rack system for the bed of a pickup truck, you can carry your rods to and from the marina or launch ramp without risking scratches or breakage. The pickup-truck rod rack from Boat Outfitters (about $472) fits the beds of Chevy/GMC, Ford, Honda Ram and Toyota trucks to let you conveniently carry eight large outfits. The rack attaches to existing hardware in the bed of the pickup, so no drilling is required. The angle of the tubes lets you carry other gear such as coolers and tackle bags under the rods. A special lock (about $35) is also available for securing the outfits.…

Nine billfish in 11 months made Amanda Sabin a member of the vaunted IGFA Billfish Royal Slam Club. Technically, IGFA rules say that Sabin, 33, had her whole lifetime to catch the slam, which includes all five marlin species, Atlantic and Pacific sailfish, a swordfish, and a spearfish. But the fishing-community manager for Costa sunglasses chose to do it all in one epic fishing year: 2017. “The quest to chase down those fish was one of the most amazing and challenging adventures of my life,” she says. “I lost sleep deciding when to go, where to go and who to fish with. I had limited free time and resources, and had to maximize every single trip to make sure we caught the target species.” From her Daytona Beach home, Sabin…

“YOU’VE GOTTA TRY fishing our inshore reefs!” Capt. Sonny Schindler had told me, months before I traveled to the Mississippi coast to do just that. “They’ve really been complete game-changers for inshore-fishing guides in this area,” added Schindler, based in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, just west of Gulfport. And that’s how I came to be on Schindler’s Avenger AV26 bay boat, anchored in about 8 feet of water in the Gulf of Mississippi just around the corner from Bay St. Louis, on a breezy August morning. As I worked a white 3½-inch Z-man ElaZtech GrubZ tail on a quarter-ounce lead-head back toward the boat, out of the corner of my eye, I noted the line of the angler to my left begin to tighten when something picked up her shrimp.…

Kite-fishing and big-game angling were born in the waters off Southern California around the turn of the 20th century, pioneered by members of the Avalon Tuna Club, most notably George C. Farnsworth, who targeted big bluefin tuna (then known as leaping tuna) with rigged baits such as flying fish. It was a Farnsworth-rigged bait, trolled by a kite, that led William Boschen to angling history’s first broadbill swordfish in the early 1900s, according to the archives of the tuna club. Anglers in South Florida were smart enough to capitalize on kites in subsequent years, refining the technique to a fine art while targeting sailfish and other species with live bait. But kite-fishing did not become popular in Southern California until recently, although some captains such as Billy Miyagawa Jr., who skippers Gambler,…

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,…

I’d like to think I’m following in the footsteps of Dame Juliana Berners, credited in 1496 with writing the first fishing essay published in English. However, I won’t be titling any of my articles “Fysshynge with an Angle,” as Berners termed her Middle English piece. But I am a female fishing writer, as was the dame and a handful of others before me. I am also a fisherman, participating in and loving a sport dominated by men. Toward that purpose, I am definitely among many, many friends. While much has been written over the past 65 years about men and fishing, and most articles focus on men and techniques and tackle designed by men, a good number of women have fished in the background — and yes, often as girlfriends…

Thanks to its inshore reefs, fishing just off the state’s beaches can be productive along the length of the coast, and at any time of the year. Summer is hot but generally calm. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms are the norm, with the threat of tropical weather increasing as summer progresses. Winter months can be ideal between fronts, if a bit chilly. (High-pressure winds from the north might be brisk but also blow offshore, making for flat water off the beaches.) MULTIPLE FISHING OPPORTUNITIES Fishing the Louisiana marsh is a very different experience from that offered over artificial reefs, requiring a bit more commitment in time and expense, but worthwhile when world-class action for big bull reds in the shallow water is on. On the outside, nearshore coastal pelagics such as…

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.…

A sociological study of five freshwater-fishing magazines from 2009 to 2012 by University of Louisville husband-and-wife researchers Robert Carini and Jonetta Weber showed striking female underrepresentation relative to a national estimate of women’s participation in fishing. Women were often sexualized or portrayed as obstacles to fishing for men, the researchers say in their study, titled Female anglers in a predominately male sport: Portrayals in five popular fishing-related magazines. Weber says the two were compelled to investigate the issue after B.A.S.S. female anglers Kim Bain Moore and Pam Martin-Wells broke the Bassmaster Classic gender barrier in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, though, the B.A.S.S. canceled its women’s tournament trail, citing declining participation. “We were surprised at just how traditional women were pictured [in the magazines],” Weber says. Carini says the portrayals…

One of the most common themes I heard from everyone I spoke with concerned last-minute lead changes in the final moments of the tournament — changes that broke some hearts and made others race with exhilaration. In last year’s Los Sueños Signature Triple Crown in Costa Rica, Xta Sea didn’t touch the leaderboard for more than two and a half days. Then at 2:01 p.m. on day three, the crew made their presence known, and during the next hour and 59 minutes, clawed their way into first place with a final tally of five marlin releases. In the 63rd Stuart Light Tackle Sailfish Tournament out of Stuart, Florida, at 1:37 p.m., with less than two hours to fish, three boats were tied at 13 sails apiece. The radio fell silent…