Innehållsförteckning för August - September 2016 från Marlin

For all the angler obsession and the glamour billfish generate, they remain a bit of a mystery. And of all the different species, we probably know the least about spearfish. Worldwide, there are four species of spearfish: Mediterranean (Tetrapturus belone), shortbill (Tetrapturus angustirostris), roundscale (Tetrapturus georgii) and longbill (Tetrapturus pfleugeri). Generally speaking, spearfish are considered the rarest of the billfish, but they are fairly common in certain places. They are the most abundant istiophorid in the Mediterranean, and you stand pretty good odds of catching a shortbill in Hawaii if you put the time in. Over the last decade or so, we’ve also discovered a substantial proportion of white marlin caught off the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States are actually roundscale spearfish, which bear an uncanny countenance to whites.…

We left the dock in Mindelo, Cape Verde, at 6 a.m. on May 9, 2016, aboard the 78-foot Garlington Dreamin’ On, heading straight for Capt. Randy Hodgekiss’ favorite spot: the Northwest Banks. In the previous three days, we had great fishing, with catches of 500-, 650- and 750-pound blue marlin in the same area, and we released a 350-pounder about an hour before the big fish struck. We were raising an average of six blue marlin a day, but the smaller fish were hard to keep hooked — Dreamin’ On pulls large lures with pretty big hooks in the spread. At 8:15 a.m., Hodgekiss asked me to take some pictures of the yellowfin tuna jumping out of the water around us. It looked really fishy, and the thought of a…

A tactical look with a direct mission: raise marlin and serve as a test platform for Grander Custom Tackle. This clear purpose is evident in every aspect of Grander, hull no. 61 from Jarrett Bay Boatworks. The eye-catching walkaround will be based out of the British Virgin Islands, where she will chase billfish – and it won’t take long for her to live up to her name with a thousand-pounder in the spread. As the Grander team puts it: “This is a billfish-targeted boat design. It isn’t even fair to simply call this a fishing boat. Grander is the ideal marlin machine.” APPEARANCE If Grander doesn’t turn your head on the fishing grounds or while walking the docks, you’ve clearly missed the clean lines of the walkaround design and the…

A YETI Add a little ice and the Field Tan Hopper 30 will keep food or drinks cold for hours, even in the tropical sun. It can also pull double duty as a carry-on bag. yeticoolers.com B SHIMANO A good reel bag is critical: The Bhaltair has hard-sided construction with plenty of padding. Removable interior dividers mean a custom fit. fish.shimano.com C AFTCO Fishing stand-up? Reach for the MaxForce harness combined with the Socorro fighting belt. Designed for 30- to 80-pound tackle, the combo distributes the load below the hips for comfort and maximum leverage, even under heavy drag settings. aftco.com D WEST MARINE A good pair of binoculars is always a great idea offshore. The Antigua series is compact, waterproof and packed with features, like an internal compass and…

IREMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY: IT WAS JUNE 1993, AND I WAS 9 YEARS OLD. MY DAD, PETER WATSON, ENTERED THE BIG ROCK BLUE MARLIN TOURNAMENT ON HIS 36-FOOT HATTERAS NAMED CORRAL. HE HAD NEVER CAUGHT A MARLIN ON ANY OF HIS BOATS, BUT HE ENTERED THE TOURNAMENT ON A WHIM PRIMARILY TO HAVE SOME FUN WITH HIS BUDDIES. IN FACT, HE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A FULL SPREAD OF MARLIN LURES, SO HE TOOK THE ADVICE OF A MARINA STORE MANAGER AND WALKED OUT WITH A SET OF BLUE-AND-WHITE ILAND LURES. It was the proverbial “pond” on the first day of the tournament. The excitement was high, but expectations were tempered, given the circumstances. We arrived to our spot a few minutes early, and we gently bobbed up and…

There simply aren’t enough superlatives in the dictionary to adequately describe the latest build from Bayliss Boatworks. It’s a vision brought to life by a small army of designers, engineers, technical specialists and a boatbuilder with a can-do spirit and tireless work ethic. “This project pushed our entire team into a realm somewhere between a mega-yacht and a sportfishing boat,” comments John Bayliss. The build began in 2013 and took more than 95,988 man-hours and about 40 months to complete, finishing just in time to fish this year’s Big Rock Tournament. “The hull is similar to our most recent 80- and 84- footers,” Bayliss says. “The 90 is just longer and wider to carry the additional weight of the hull and its contents. At over 180,000 pounds, it is surprisingly…

Saturday is scheduled to be a beautiful day offshore, and it’s all you can do to get through the workweek. You call the marina to have your boat put in the water. You tell your buddies to meet you at the dock to drink some cold ones and get rigged up for the following day. You leave the office with a big smile on your face as you hop into your truck, daydreaming about pelagics dancing through your spread. However, when you pull into the marina, you notice a large group of people gathered around the dry stack. You push through the crowd and see your beautiful boat tilted over on the concrete. Your boat fell off the forklift! Not only is your weekend ruined, you are in a state…

FLIP-FLOP Tom Paul’s acrobatic sailfish was one of 19 he caught aboard Rum Line. Capt. Chris Sheeder captured the lucky shot and says, “The sail was doing that flip-flop, greyhound thing they like to do!” LOCATION “This year was the most consistent redhot bite from start to finish we’ve had in Guatemala — even topping the 2006 season. It was the perfect storm! We fished huge, densely populated areas for days, even weeks,” reflects Sheeder. TECH SPECS CAMERA: Canon EOS 5D Mark III LENS: Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM ISO: 1000 APERTURE: f/7.1 SPEED: 1/8000 sec…

MAY 18 - 22, ORANGE BEACH, ALABAMA The first leg of the 2016 Gulf Coast Triple Crown Championship Series set the stage for the highly anticipated Gulf of Mexico blue marlin season. Live-baiting again proved to be the tournament-winning tactic and paid big dividends for the Louisiana-based Share-E team in the form of a 651.2-pound blue, netting them over $97,000 and the win. A fleet of 31 teams participated in the 18th annual Orange Beach Billfish Classic, held at The Wharf Marina in Orange Beach, Alabama. The team of owner Matt McDonald, Capt. Patrick Ivey and angler Douglas Fletcher on Breathe Easy weighed the first blue marlin of the tournament during the first day, setting the mark to beat at a very respectable 574 pounds. The following day, the crew…

TThe rocky, cactus-strewn landscape of Curaçao looked more like the American Southwest than anything in the Caribbean. The incredibly deep blue color of the water surrounding this idyllic island nation is the reason I visited for the 50th anniversary of Curaçao’s Blue Marlin Release Tournament. Curaçao is similar to Aruba, which lies about 70 miles to the northwest; Bonaire, the smaller of the three islands, is some 45 miles east. There’s a sense of community among the islands because they share a similar heritage and languages, yet they remain geographically separate. And, despite having the second-oldest billfish tournament in the Caribbean, together these islands represent one of the least explored marlin fisheries anywhere in the world. GEOGRAPHY IS KEY Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao are located in the Leeward Antilles, just…

THE WILD WILD WEST: We’ve all seen the same scenario play out dozens of times on the big screen. A modest stranger with an out-of-place derby hat saunters into a dusty Western town and sneaks through the swinging barroom doors. He makes his way to a full table of card players who don’t know his name, his place of origin or his reason for being there. He timidly enters the card game with an impressive pile of chips. In short order, he slaps down a bet that makes the other shady characters at the table twist their mustache ends with glee, thinking about how they’ll spend the pile of chips they’re convinced they will be scraping from this seemingly unsuspecting new player. Just when they think it’s a done deal,…