Sport Fishing May 2019

“MANY RECREATIONAL-FISHING AND CONSERVATION ORGANIZATIONS FEEL THAT INCREASING CONCERNS OVER STRIPED BASS ARE DIRECTLY TIED TO THE INDUSTRIAL MENHADEN-REDUCTION FISHERY.” I’ve just received certification as One of the United States’ Truly Outstanding Editors. Sure am proud of that! This certification came about after I contracted with an independent (can you see my air quotes?) certification body, for a cut of my annual salary going forward, to do a study assessing my suitability for certification. As part of that process, this body had to request public input. Unfortunately, that was largely negative, with many respected organizations and individuals offering solid reasons to hold off on my certification, it being well-known that I’ve actually diminished editorial standards over the years. Fortunately, the independent (air quotes again) body, ignored all that and called…

When anglers anywhere want to catch live bait, they commonly use a gold-hook rig or throw a cast net. But there’s a third option, one that originated among South Florida captains targeting ballyhoo: a hoop net. All three methods carry pros and cons. Catching bait on a gold-hook or sabiki rig, which typically consists of six dressed hooks, can be quite effective, but the process can be painstakingly slow, especially when you’re catching only one baitfish at a time. Cast nets catch bulk numbers in a single throw, but they can be difficult to fully open, and they can damage baits, removing scales and gilling the fish in the mesh. Hoop nets catch fair amounts of bait and, when used properly, they don’t gill or scale bait. On the negative…

IT MIGHT SURPRISE ANGLERS IN THE UNITED STATES TO HEAR THAT LADYFISH CAN EXCEED 15 POUNDS. BUT IN ADDITION TO THE SPECIES COMMON TO COASTAL INSHORE WATERS OF THE WESTERN ATLANTIC THAT SELDOM GROWS LARGER THAN 5 POUNDS, OTHER LADYFISHES INHABITING WATERS AROUND AFRICA AND THE INDO-PACIFIC CAN GROW MUCH LARGER. WHILE NOT HELD IN HIGH REGARD GENERALLY AS FOOD (THE SOFT MEAT IS UNAPPETIZING) OR SPORT, IN FACT, ON LIGHT LINE, LADYFISH FOR THEIR SIZE JUMP AS WILDLY AS TARPON. FREAKY FLOATER Q I found this fish floating 10 miles offshore in the Pacific off the Golfo Dulce, southern Costa Rica. Is it some sort of sea robin? Cory Craig Costa Rica A Hey, Cory — that truly remarkable fish is a deepwater longnose chimaera, Harriota raleighana. Found in…

Probably few things annoy an angler more than perfectly delivering a cast to a spot you know holds fish only to have the hook on your soft-plastic lure immediately snag some sea grass, an oyster bar or rocky bottom. “If you throw a lure out in front of a fish and it gets hung up, you either have to rip it out of the grass and it runs right by the fish, or it’s hung up and a big, ol’ wad of grass spooks the fish,” says professional redfish tournament fisherman Mark Cowart, of Panama City Beach, Florida. To avoid that, top anglers and guides rig their soft-plastic baits on hooks and jig heads to run weedless. The key is to essentially hide the hook point, a goal they achieve…

SMART STEERING Using three FLIR machine-vision cameras, Axiom multifunction displays and video-analytic technology, Raymarine hasdeveloped DockSense, an assisted-docking system that works with outboard and inboard propulsion. The system creates a virtual bumper zone around the vessel that detects objects such as pilings or vessels, and then corrects steering or throttle to avoid collision. Raymarine has tested the system with Mercury Marine on an outboard-powered Boston Whaler as well as on an inboard-powered Prestige Yacht. Raymarine expects DockSense to be available before the end of the year. As a factory-installed option, pricing will be set by the boatbuilder. MAKING MUSIC At February’s Miami International Boat Show, JL Audio unveiled the M6 coaxial speakers (part of a larger series that includes subwoofer drivers and enclosed speaker systems). JL designed M6 speakers to…

For 11-year-old Dylan O’Connell, December 18, 2018, proved a memorable day, when he beached a 48½-pound red drum [a] at Ocracoke, North Carolina. The Mays Landing, New Jersey, angler landed the pending junior-angler record in 20 minutes (the current record is 37 pounds from Virginia in 2001). Another junior-angler record is pending for 9-year-old Juan Felipe Adlum of Ecuador; he landed an 82-pound, 6-ounce roosterfish [b] this past January, trolling a live bait off Salinas. The boys’ junior-angler rooster record currently stands at 68 pounds, 6 ounces from Panama. While fishing the depths of Wilmington Canyon off New Jersey in October 2018, Steven Sirc (hometown unknown) boated a pending all-tackle 38½-pound barrelfish [c]. If approved, it handily beats the 29-pound barrel caught off Big Pine Key, Florida, in 2010. Pending…