Innehållsförteckning för June - July 2016 från Marlin

Bill Pino is a lucky man. He transitioned from a successful career in the telecommunications industry to pursue his passion for offshore sport fishing at the helm of Squidnation, a business he founded seemingly on a whim. Along the way, Pino has won an impressive string of tournaments in Central America as part of the Tranquilo fishing team, and he is charting a course as one of the sport’s top innovators. Where do you get the concepts for your new products? Everything comes directly from our customers. The captains are the ones who directly influence how our products are designed and produced. Guys like Jon Duffie, Butch Cox and many, many others tell us what they are seeing out on the water and how we can produce the things they…

MARCH 30 - APRIL 2, LOS SUEÑOS, COSTA RICA Capt. Jon Duffie and the crew aboard the 51-foot Scarborough Agitator added their names to the Wall of Champions in Los Sueños after winning the prestigious Series Champion award for the three legs of the 2016 Los Sueños Signature Triple Crown. Duffie and his anglers, John, Judith and Jeremy Duffie, Danny Gough, and Charles Gerlach, placed second in the first leg and won both the second and third legs to nearly sweep the tournament series. “I was here many years ago as a mate on NuCo2 with Mitch Pierson, when Los Sueños was just a dock with a gravel parking lot, and we caught 52 [sailfish] in one day,” Duffie recalls. “It has been a lot of fun coming back and…

NOAA Fisheries’ Division of Highly Migratory Species, the regulatory body for billfish, swordfish and other highly migratory species, began a twofold survey of both tournament operators and participants in March 2016 that will run through February 2017. The survey is important to the entire recreational-fishing community because it will allow the government to directly attribute the amount of socio- economic benefit generated by tournament anglers. Participation is completely voluntary, but contributing to the survey is vital to its success. Over the years, similar studies by The Billfish Foundation have been instrumental in demonstrating the importance of socio-economic data during management decisions. Ellen Peel, president of The Billfish Foundation, says, “Survey results should verify what we have told the government for years: Billfishing is a strong industry, which contributes substantial economic…

SEVERAL FACTS ABOUT FISHING HOLD TRUE NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO OR WHAT SPECIES YOU CHASE. LEAVE BEHIND, STAY BEHIND: TRUE FOR YELLOWFIN AND BONEFISH. YOU GOTTA DRIVE OVER THEM: HOLDS WATER FOR PACIFIC BLUE MARLIN AND TARPON OFF ISLAMORADA, FLORIDA. ELEPHANTS EAT PEANUTS: IT’S THE GOSPEL AT NORTH CAROLINA’S BIG ROCK AND UP ON THE HALIBUT GROUNDS IN ALASKA. HERE’S ANOTHER: TOWERS MOSTLY JUST LOOK GOOD. I can already hear the cries of protest from our friends in South Florida. I must admit that they, of all the fishermen, would be justified in saying towers also look good. To a South Florida captain, the tower is his bread-and-butter. When someone mentions a “good tower man,” he sees himself high above the deck, not a skinny kid with a good…

My first real taste of Louisiana was a long way from the water. I was kind of a nerd as a kid, so I spent a lot of time watching TV when I got home from school. We had only three channels and the PBS station to watch, so I soon found a new friend in Justin Wilson. Wilson hosted a Cajun cooking show on the regional station, and I quickly became enamored with his humorous stories of rural Louisiana — and his delicious-looking food. His wit, charm and ease in the kitchen inspired me to start cooking; to this day, I do all the cooking at home because of his influence. He made me fall in love with Louisiana long before I ever stepped foot there. My first fishing…

BITE TRACKER Stay current with the best bites from the top billfish destinations around the globe at marlinmag.com/travel. WHERE JUNE/JULY The dog days of summer are upon us, and the marlin fishing is excellent in many destinations. Cape Verde is a top choice for both numbers and size; during this time of year in 2015, Big Oh released 17 blue marlin in one day and weighed a 1,254-pounder on another. It’s remote and windy, but the fishing can be well worth the journey to this hot spot.…

When you’re mesmerized by sonar blips and split-screen Fathometers, it’s easy to overlook the most obvious signs of a bite in this high-tech world — namely, the seabirds circling, dipping and diving in the distance. But whether you’re fishing off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Cape May, New Jersey, or Ocean City, Maryland, seabirds can mean the difference between a multimillion-dollar payday and going home busted. Gannets, terns and other seabirds are unique because they can see parts of the UV-light spectrum that humans can’t, says oceanographer Mitch Roffer, a birder specializing in seabirds. It’s as if they have polarized vision. “Depending on the species, marine birds have either red or yellow oil droplets within their eyes’ color receptors that improve their distance vision — especially in low-light conditions, like haze…

So much success in big-game fishing directly depends on keeping a sharp eye out on the water and reacting quickly to a fish in the spread. About a year ago, Marlin had a chance to look at Garmin’s somewhat quietly introduced Panoptix sonar, designed to give a real-time view forward for navigation or sideways for shallowwater fishing. Panoptix has a range of 300 feet from its 417-kHz transducer, which immediately got my gears turning. Could a tool like this be useful for monitoring a spread of lures or natural baits behind a battlewagon to give a heads-up on any billfish approaching from below or behind the spread? REAL-TIME SONAR During a recent offshore trip off Miami, we watched both our CHIRP sonar for a chronological view of the water and…

It’s the mantra of the company, one that permeates every aspect of Viking Yachts: “Build a better boat every day.” From the executive staff to its visionary R&D department and right through to its craftspeople on the line, the company is relentless in its quest to fulfill the needs of its owners and their families. “When we looked at how we could improve on our popular 46C, we discovered enough to bring out the one we’re on right now,” says Capt. Ryan Higgins, Viking’s Southeast sales manager, at the company’s service center in Riviera Beach, Florida, where the brand-new 48C sat amid her big-sister 80, 82, and 92C models. She is one of four new models in this size range: the flybridge convertible; the Sport Coupe with a threesided hard…

BALLYHOO BLISS Austin Coit shot this unique underwater perspective of the ever-important ballyhoo. Coit jumped in with his Ikelite housing to join the frenzy and comments, “They were feeding so voraciously that I couldn’t scare them away if I tried.” LOCATION In the Florida Keys, catching ballyhoo is just another part of the daily routine. After the crew made quick work of the ballyhoo, they were processed for future dead-bait fishing trips this summer. TECH SPECS CAMERA: Canon EOS 5D Mark II LENS: Canon EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye ISO: 100 APERTURE: f/7.1 SPEED: 1/250 sec…

Where western Atlantic bluefin tuna spawn, as well as the size and age when they do so, has been an oft-contested subject in how it relates to the management and rebuilding of this severely depleted stock. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences is pouring more fuel on the fire: It reports on the discovery of a new spawning location and a smaller size of maturity for fish that are spawning there. ICCAT manages Atlantic bluefin under two separate stocks: western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic. The assessments for eastern Atlantic fish assume spawning occurs primarily in the Mediterranean, with fish becoming reproductively mature somewhere around age four. The assessments for western Atlantic fish are based on spawning occurring in the Gulf of Mexico at…

How to take a personal boat to Cuba is a common topic infiltrating the sportfishing industry. Traveling to Cuba is now doable, but you must follow rules to do so legally. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on this subject, and one thing has not changed: Traveling to Cuba strictly for tourism is not allowed. POLICY CHANGES PROVIDE EASIER ACCESS On January 16, 2015, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets amended the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to implement policy changes, which facilitate travel to Cuba for authorized purposes. The amendments disposed of the need to have a specific license issued by OFAC; additionally, they authorized travel through 12 preapproved general licenses, such as professional meetings, athletic events and religious activities. The general licenses do make traveling…