Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2019 i Sport Fishing

Fishing: It’s either really fun or really boring. At least, that’s the case for most kids. For seasoned anglers, there’s a whole lot of in between while waiting and trying for that big one. But for youngsters, action rules — and expectation sucks. I wrote in this space years ago that young anglers, particularly those without much experience, just want something — anything (alive) — to make the rod bend that they can pull into the boat to hold (or edge away from). At the same time, probably the quickest way to turn off kids to fishing (for that day and very possibly the long term), is to ask them to wait patiently (or impatiently) for a game fish that you feel is worthy of catching. As experienced anglers, our…

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.…

We had put several miles astern en route to Santa Catalina Island, 26 miles off the Southern California coast, when seas turned nasty, heaved our way by a distant yet powerful Pacific storm. Our westerly heading had turned this fishing trip into a hate mission. “Hang on, we’re changing course,” I barked to the crew, then turned the 22-footer about 45 degrees to port, and began quartering the seas. We now met the waves at a less-severe angle, slicing diagonally over the rollers, for a smoother, faster ride. When we reached the lee of the island, I turned back to starboard, putting us on a course to our fishing spot. I call it tacking — like a sailboat — and it’s just one of the following five techniques I have…

Kyle Kosiba, a top kingfish skipper, offers a short list for four variables of when and where in the quest for success. TIME OF DAY “The early-morning bite for kings is where it’s at,” Kosiba says, adding that during the late afternoon, they can also turn on. But when they’re really thick, the bite can be pretty much throughout the day. CLOUD COVER Doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. WIND This variable is somewhat area-dependent, Kosiba says. In some spots, the fish don’t seem to want to bite when the wind comes up (from any direction), though in other spots, the wind seems less a factor. But wind affects water quality off north-central Florida, so a south wind results in cleaner water, but a wind from the north…

CAPT. BILLY BICE St. Simons Island, Georgia 912-269-9983 billybeecharters.com TACKLE: Ugly Stik rod, Zebco reel, 2-ounce sliding sinker, plastic bead, swivel, 8 inches of nylon-coated 60-pound steel leader, 4/0 circle hook BAIT: whiting chunk CAPT. DENNIS FORGIONE North Miami Beach, Florida 305-582-5445 freespoolsportfishing.com OFFSHORE: Penn Carnage II rod, Penn 30 International reel, 80-pound red SpiderWire braid. Double a section of the main line and slip a swivel over it. Use 12 to 15 inches of 60- or 80-pound mono to tie a 2- to 3-pound sinker to the swivel. Tie a snap swivel onto the end of the main line, then add 20 to 25 feet of 300-pound mono with a crimped end, 6 or 7 feet of No. 12 wire, and a hand-size circle hook. INSHORE: 80-pound mono leader,…

Top captains put a premium on precision when trolling, no matter what fish they target. They fuss over how their lures and baits look in the water, and they deploy each bait a specific distance behind their boats. They maintain their tackle in tiptop condition. They calibrate their reel drags, they test and perfect the knots they tie, and they demand the best line, leaders, hooks, crimps and swivels. In other words, they leave nothing to chance when it comes to matters within their control. Of course, they can’t make the fish bite, but with their realistic trolling presentations, they significantly increase the odds of producing hookups. Here’s how three different trolling experts tackle the details. BLUE MARLIN Capt. Casey Hunt excels at trolling lures for blue marlin, but not…

Electric reels can make quick work of pulling up fish from the bottom in 300 to 1,800 feet of water, but anglers increasingly seek something more sporting. They prefer to hand-crank their fish, especially daytime swordfish. As a result, electric reels featuring a switch to allow instant manual fishing are becoming more popular. Those reels provide the best of both worlds because sometimes an angler needs the power of an electric motor to take over when he gets tired or the bait gets mangled and must be brought up to the boat along with a 10- or 15-pound weight, which might require 20 to 40 minutes or more if reeled up by hand. POWER-ASSISTED POPULARITY Some of the most used reels — especially in South Florida, where daytime swordfishing was…

A whopping 40-pound, 14-ounce red drum [a] caught in Louisiana marsh waters stands to best the existing 32-pound, 8-ounce fly record for women’s 8-pound tippet (also Louisiana, in 2008). Meredith Jane McCord, an IGFA rep from Houston, landed the fish in 15 minutes. While fly-fishing from the shore at Tokushima, Japan, this past October, Takeshi Ihara landed a 13-pound, 7-ounce blackfin sea bass (Lateolabrax latus, one of two species of Asian sea basses) [b] after it struck a streamer fly. The current men’s 20-pound-tippet record stands at 11 pounds, 9 ounces (Japan, 2004). Angler Chip Constantini of Orlando, Florida, required an unusually long time to land the 4-pound, 12-ounce yellowtail snapper [c] he caught while fishing off Key Colony Beach, Florida, this past November. Fishing 2-pound tippet, the fly-rodder needed…

There are plenty of big California halibut to be caught in West Coast harbors and bays, and these flatfish are attracted to many of the same conditions that attract barred sand bass, kelp bass and spotted sand bass. ¶ If you’re fishing a stretch of riprap with a swimbait, it never hurts to turn around and make the occasional cast out to sea. Let the bait sink all the way to the bottom, and do a slow retrieve that allows you to keep bottom contact until the bait is straight up and down. ¶ California halibut, which can reach weights in excess of 40 pounds, often hunt the rock-sand interface along stretches of riprap.…

An option for anglers who don’t have electric reels and want to reel in fish, but not weights, is the Reel Crankie. The shaft of the device is placed in a battery-powered drill, and the fitting at the other end is attached to the spool shaft of a reel to quickly wind in the line. Tom Greene of Custom Rod & Tackle in Lighthouse Point, Florida, and master machinist Rick Herrick came up with the idea for the Reel Crankie, which starts at $169.95 (innovativefishingtackle.com). There are Reel Crankies for Penn International 30s, 50s, 70s and 80s and for Shimano Tiagra sizes 12, 16, 20, 30, 50, 80 and 130, as well as other Shimano models and for Avet and Alutecnos reels.…

Not only do rapid-fire digital innovations give us ever-cooler electronics hardware, but they also create new software programs we never even knew we needed. Witness the rise of alternative charts — such as those by CMOR, Standard and Isla — right now geared toward specialty needs such as inshore marsh navigation and finding offshore structure. “With the technological advances in the past five years, you don’t need a supercomputer to process all this chart data,” Raymarine marketing manager Jim McGowan says. “So it’s possible for a small startup to gain access to NOAA data, see what else is available, and then figure out a niche for the needs in the market.” When Raymarine launched its LightHouse charts in 2012, the company put together a development kit so any entity offering…

COX CXO300 After a decade of development, British diesel-engine company Cox Powertrain has introduced the CXO300 300 hp diesel outboard. The 4.4L four-stroke V-8 offers at least a 25 percent better range than a gasoline outboard, Cox says, and the engine is designed to last up to three times longer with extended service intervals and reduced haul-out costs. The 300 will be offered in three shaft lengths: 25, 30 and 35 inches. It weighs 827 pounds and is expected to cost $50,000. EDSON COMFORTGRIP Edson began incorporating its ComfortGrip material on PowerWheels in 2003; now, anglers can use the cushioned grips to soften any handhold on their boats — from railings to ladders. ComfortGrips come in 8- or 12-inch Santoprene rubberlike strips to fit 1- to 1¼-inch-diameter metal. The strips…

The opportunity to spend a day fishing on SeaVee’s 370Z made its great popularity pretty easy to understand. The beamy center-console offered so much open space fore and aft of the console that even with eight souls on board, six or even seven of them fishing at any one time, things didn’t feel crowded. Particularly impressive was its ride. Most of our day was pretty flat, though a breeze chopped up things a bit in the afternoon. Either way, it was a pleasure to be aboard when Capt. Eric Castillo dropped the throttles and let loose more than 1,000 horses on the transom. The 370Z’s stepped hull features multiple lifting bodies for a fixed running-trim angle. A four-port air-induction system uses a central air-reservoir unit to maintain air cavities that…

Catching sharks can hook youngsters on fishing for life, but seasickness can turn them off, no matter how great the fishing. “I tell everybody, ‘Listen, it’s really not a rule, but no one’s allowed to get seasick,’” St. Simons Island, Georgia, Capt. Billy Bice says. “I say, ‘Mom, if anybody starts to feel sick, you tell me.’” Bice keeps ginger ale on his boat for anglers feeling the initial effects of seasickness. If seas are bumpy, he almost always retreats to calmer inshore waters. If even those back rivers and sounds are bad enough to make people sick, he cancels the trip. Capt. Dennis Forgione fishes offshore of North Miami Beach, Florida, but he quickly heads into the protected waters of Biscayne Bay if conditions start to bother anglers. “If…

The tide changes every six hours in the bay, and conditions turn 180 degrees when it does. By consulting a tide chart before your trip and keeping tabs on what the tide is doing when you catch fish in a particular location, you can make an educated guess as to which areas might produce a bite during certain stages of the tide on future trips, further cutting down on wasting time in dead water. And remember that bass will always have their noses pointed into the current, so adjust your presentations accordingly when the tide turns.…