Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Marlin

The White Marlin Open, a giant among tournaments, attracted 353 teams and offered a total cash prize purse of $4.97 million in this year’s 44th annual event, held August 7-11, 2017, in Ocean City, Maryland. A forecast for rough seas the first two days meant that most of the fleet took their mandatory lay days early in the week, yielding some late heroics for several participants. Mike Donahue’s 86-pound white marlin on Griffin held the lead for several days, which had the team eyeing a possible $2-million-plus windfall. However, when Wire Nut pulled into the Harbor Island weigh station in the tournament’s closing hours, they put an end to those dreams. Wire Nut’s Glen Frost weighed an impressive 95.5-pound white marlin, which led to a throaty roar of approval from…

Understanding billfish stock structure is fundamental to managing them sustainably. For example, biological or genetic evidence of multiple stocks in a given species might indicate that multiple reference points like maximum sustainable yield and different management approaches might be warranted. Unfortunately, actual stock status is poorly understood in many billfish species. Nadya Mamoozadeh, a doctoral candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is investigating the stock structure of striped and white marlin as part of her graduate research. The goal of her work is to reduce uncertainties currently associated with the management and assessment of billfish by providing information on genetic stock structure and connectivity among stocks, including the geographic location and number of stocks in an ocean basin, and the degree of genetic connectivity among stocks and between…

Jon Gonsoulin, Capt. Jason Buck and the team on Done Deal, a 70-foot Viking based in Houma, Louisiana, have an enviable record on the Gulf of Mexico big-game tournament circuit. They’ve won and placed in numerous events and were repeat winners of the Gulf Coast Triple Crown Championship in 2012 and 2013. They raised the bar yet again with a 600-pound blue marlin in the winner-take-all Blue Marlin World Cup Championship, earning a tournament-record payout of $1 million for the largest fish in the worldwide event. A total of 144 boats were competing in the eight-hour contest that’s held every year on the Fourth of July. Gonsoulin shares the story of this amazing catch. We were pre-fishing near the Elf platform in 2,500 feet of water, fewer than 25 miles from…

The most elite of the IGFA Slam Clubs is the Billfish Royal Slam on Fly, and it currently has just a single member: Dr. Martin Arostegui, of Coral Gables, Florida. The criteria for membership: Catch all nine species of billfish on fly as defined by IGFA regulations, meaning just 12 inches of shock leader and a tippet of 20-pound-test or less, among other specific rules. Rufus Wakeman made a run at the slam in 2015-16, managing to catch eight billfish species within one calendar year, but the ninth eluded him — the swordfish. Only three people in the world have caught a swordfish on fly: Two were caught in Africa, but Marty Arostegui is the only one to catch a swordfish on fly in the United States. Wakeman sought out…

Every captain turns to radar when the weather sours or if they need to make a new port overnight. And, when on the hunt, nothing gets you to the fish faster than a good bird-tracking radar array. Your radar also has tricks to spy on competitors too, and it’s a seldomdiscussed fact. But if you aren’t using your unit to its fullest capability, you’re already behind the eight ball. NEW-AGE RADAR To gain a competitive advantage and learn more about potential seaway traffic problems, you need two things: one of the new digital radar sensors, which will likely talk to the multifunction display you already have, and a heading sensor to allow your radar image to be overlaid on the chart plotter. The heading sensor tells your chart plotter the…

editor@marlinmag.com A DAY TO REMEMBER I enjoyed the article about Blue Bird setting a release record with 23 Atlantic blue marlin in one day [Field Notes, March 2017]. It brought back memories of a day about 10 years ago when I was fishing on a friend’s 55-foot Viking out of Los Sueños, Costa Rica. It had been an afternoon bite all week, so we didn’t even head out until noon. The three of us caught and released 19 Pacific sailfish that afternoon. It was truly a day to remember! David Pallies Mantua, New Jersey WHO KILLS MORE?!? One thing that everyone leaves out when the discussion of Who Kills More [From the Bridge, April/May 2017] comes up — and it really bugs me — is when taking the fish out…

Were you born and raised in Florida? Nope, I was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and moved to Gulf Breeze, Florida, in 1999. My father grew up in Pensacola, and I’d been going down there ever since I was a kid. I liked that area — it gave me access to do the things I wanted to do outdoors, like fishing. You played baseball at a high level, right? It feels like a lifetime ago now, but I played through college at NC State and UNC Charlotte, which led to pro ball for a couple of years after college. Then I blew out my shoulder for the first time in college and dealt with it again my second year of playing professionally. And you had planned on making baseball a…

The bump on the rod tip was so subtle, it could have been easily dismissed, but everyone on board jumped to attention. Even though we had been staring at it intently for hours on end, that one little bump was exactly what we had been waiting for. It may have been slight, but it could mean only one thing: a swordfish strike. Capt. Ritchie Abela jumped on the rod and cranked the handle of the Shimano Talica, ripping the bait up through the water column. The theory was the old cat-and-mouse analogy, trying to get the swordfish fired up. It worked a treat, and the rod tip bounced again, signaling an angry swordfish; seconds later, the rod loaded up under some serious weight. As I struggled to get the bent…

+ Check out videos from the adventure at marlinmag.com/bluewaterchronicles. THE WEATHERED OLD CAPTAIN, ROLLY PIERRE, HAD FISHED OFF DENIS ISLAND FOR MORE THAN FOUR DECADES, LONGER EVEN THAN THE FRENCHMAN, THE ISLAND’S PREVIOUS OWNER. LEAN AND WIRY, PIERRE SPOKE WITH A SOFT PATOIS — I HAD TO LEAN IN CLOSE TO UNDERSTAND HIM — BUT HIS TONE WAS STRONG. “I GREW TIRED OF THE KILLING,” HE SAID FLATLY. We ordered another round of local Seybrew beers from the Indian bartender; Pierre continued: “The first time I met your friend Henry, I thought he was crazy. He got on my boat with two 20-pound-test rods and a tag stick. I asked, ‘What are you going to do with all that?’ He said that we were going to catch some sailfish and…

There are a lot of companies riding the wave of demand for sport-fishing yachts, and then there are others who maintain a lower profile in the market. Thanks to a highly loyal customer base, Bayville, New Jersey-based Henriques Yachts is a prime example of the latter, and it has been doing business that way since 1977. FOR COMPLETE SPECS AND ADDITIONAL PHOTOS OF THE HENRIQUES 50 XP HT, VISIT MARLINMAG.COM/HENRIQUES-50-BOAT-REVIEW. Henriques owners — such as Sandy Will, whose 50 XP HT we had the opportunity to test — remain the brand’s best salesmen. “This is my fourth Henriques and the culmination of the three I owned before it,” Will said proudly. “I just took delivery of the latest Susan Nancy, the first 50 Express Hardtop.” The 71-year-old avid fisherman said…

THE SHREDDER Every so often, anglers encounter a blue marlin that is especially pugnacious. When Chad Damron, owner of the 75-foot Weaver Sodium, hooked this blue on 30-pound-class tackle, he knew the battle would be a memorable one. The fish launched itself repeatedly across the wavetops in a series of gravity-defying jumps. Photographer Richard Gibson was there to capture the action. LOCATION Damron released the marlin while fishing off Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. TECH SPECS CAMERA: Canon EOS 1-DX Mark II LENS: Canon 100- 400mm L IS II USM ISO: 2000 APERTURE: f/8.0 SPEED: 1/8000 sec…

JR. ILANDER DREDGE HEADS One of the best ways to add a little billfish-attracting color and flash to your dredge baits is with a small skirted lure, but you need one with a larger-than-usual leader hole to easily slip over the wire. The Jr. Ilander Dredge Headis perfect for this application. The Jr. Ilander is 63∕ 4 inches in length and weighs in at a half-ounce. The rigginghole is slightly offset to keep the lure tracking straight rather than spinning, and it’s available in eight head coors and all the popular skirt combinations. ACCURATE VALIANT BVL-600 Anglers fishing for white marlin and sailfish need four key features in a reel: line capacity, high-speed retrieve, a strong clicker and a smooth, consistent drag curve. Accurate took those points into consideration with…

I was walking around the King Kamehameha hotel in Kona, Hawaii, 25 years ago, looking at fiberglass mounts of a big marlin with some skipjack tuna on the wall and thinking how one of those skippies might make a pretty good teaser. Since then, I’ve always played with the idea, looking for the perfect application. Ten years ago, I brought one of those small fiberglass tuna down to Guatemala and asked my crew to rig up one on a spinning rod to use as a retease for marlin. They thought I was crazy, but when a 300-pound marlin lazily teased halfway to the boat and sank out of sight, I called for the Charlie Tuna. The mate made a long cast, the fiberglass fish hit the surface, the bail flipped…

With the rising popularity of “expedition fishing” to distant waters, such as the offshore seamounts in the Pacific, more prospective boat owners are turning to hardcore fishing machines that are economical to maintain and yet offer plenty of accommodations and amenities for multiday trips. FOR A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE MAVERICK 50, VISIT MARLINMAG.COM/MAVERICK-50-BOAT-REVIEW. The vast majority of boats that we review in Marlin are built for private owners. The average person doesn’t have much chance of even stepping aboard one of these technological masterpieces, much less fishing on them for a few days in some exotic tropical destination. Heads-up: This one’s a little different. The newest and largest build from Maverick Yachts in Herradura, Costa Rica, is Open Fly, a beautiful 50-footer that is home-ported in Los Suenos Resort…

I often get questions regarding the ability of foreign citizens to document their boat with the U.S. Coast Guard or title and register their boat under the laws of a state within the United States. Generally speaking, the response is “maybe,” but the exact answer depends on the specific scenario. That being said, the rules vary between Coast Guard documentation and state registration, so it’s important to know the difference. ONLY U.S. CITIZENS CAN DOCUMENT A VESSEL Coast Guard documentation is a national form of registration. It affords conclusive evidence of the boat’s nationality for international purposes, provides for unhindered commerce between states, and admits vessels to certain restricted trades, such as coastwise trade and fisheries. A vessel must be at least 5 net tons to be documented and wholly…