Innehållsförteckning för October 2016 från Marlin

July 14, 2016, was certainly a memorable day for Bryan Vincent and his family. The Vincents were in Los Sueños, Costa Rica, for a family vacation and went fishing to celebrate Bryan’s birthday. “We decided to try the seamounts for a marlin,” Vincent says, fishing on the 42-foot Maverick Sea Fly with Capt. Carlos Espinosa. Joining Bryan were his triplets: 20-year-old daughters Katie and Allison and son Matthew. Due to fishing conditions, Vincent’s youngest daughter and wife elected to remain ashore and enjoy the resort’s amenities. The triplets had gained offshore fishing experience over the past several years, first in the Gulf of Mexico off Venice, Louisiana, and then on family fishing vacations to Panama’s Tropic Star Lodge. This was their first experience in Costa Rica though. “Will [Drost, owner…

IN 1964, DENNIS SMITHERMAN, THE SPORTS EDITOR OF THE MOBILE PRESS, WROTE I N A COLUMN, “BIG GAME FISHING WAS LIKELY TO DEVELOP INTO THE NEWEST INDUSTRY ALONG THE GULF COAST.” SMITHERMAN ADMITTEDLY WASN’T MUCH INTERESTED I N FISHING, BUT WHEN HE LEARNED LOCALS WERE CATCHING THE SAME BILLFISH OFF THE ALABAMA COAST AS THOSE CAUGHT I N FARAWAY EXOTIC WATERS, HE KNEW SOMETHING BIG WAS POTENTIALLY ON THE GULF HORIZON. Mobile, Alabama, is known for many things, including the original home of Mardi Gras (a hotly debated claim from revelers in New Orleans), Jimmy Buffett’s childhood hometown and who knows how many cusswords for inadvertently importing fire ants into the United States. But biggame fishing? It seems Mobile has always been overlooked compared to other parts of the country.…

I was headed back from the Bahamas when I got the call from John Vance, president of Jim Smith Tournament Boats, that the 60-foot walkaround Dona Re was ready. The summertime sailfish bite off Stuart, Florida, had picked up just a few days before, so we decided to put her through the paces and hopefully see her in action with a billfish behind the boat. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY JIM SMITH TOURNAMENT BOATS FISHABILITY Designed for an owner from São Paolo, Brazil, who loves vertical jigging nearly as much as chasing billfish, the 60-footer incorporates thoughtful features that allow everyone on board to enjoy their day offshore — not to mention the added benefits of 360 degrees of fishable space around the boat. “Dona Re is our first walkaround. We’ve done…

Alhough Marlin University has marlin in its name, the students end up catching a lot of sailfish during most of our sessions. Since our main objective is to get as many billfish bites as possible, we fish in a lot of places where a large number of hungry sails can provide 10 or more bites a day. Destinations like Costa Rica and Guatemala make the perfect places for novice anglers to get over the shock of actually seeing a billfish in the spread — and sometimes the fishing gets ridiculous, with 30 or more sails in a day a common occurrence. Unfortunately, not too many places on the planet can provide those kinds of numbers of blue marlin. Cape Verde can get redhot, but it’s a long way away, and…

editor@marlinmag.com PROUD FATHER I wanted to share this story with you as a proud father of my son, Jack Lefort. We were on our family vacation in Costa Rica and planned on fishing close to shore on the last day of the vacation in hopes of catching his first billfish. Will Drost, the owner of Sea Fly, kept texting me all week on how the marlin bite was on at the seamounts. Much to his mom’s dismay, Jack and I loaded up on Friday night at 6 and putted out all night. We started fishing at 5:30 the next morning, and in 20 minutes, we had our first blue marlin on! Four minutes later, Jack caught his first blue marlin. The bite was crazy, and by 7:30 a.m., Jack caught…

If you take a look at the world’s major tuna and billfish stocks, you can see a broad continuum in terms of their health and how well they are being managed — that is, some stocks seem to be faring pretty darn well in the face of modern, industrialized fisheries, while others are experiencing serious exploitation, verging on the brink of collapse. In the case of tuna species, for example, skipjack tuna — which happens to be the world’s largest tuna fishery — is in pretty good shape globally. Despite being heavily fished since the early 1950s, skipjack stocks are not considered overfished, and current fishing mortality is largely well below the level where overfishing occurs. On the other hand, Pacific bluefin tuna are at the opposite end of the…

If you really want to catch your first blue marlin, the Dominican Republic is almost a sure bet during different times of the year. Blue marlin season runs from March through September, with white marlin also abundant especially in May and June. It’s an extremely interesting location, with dozens of the best-of-thebest sport- fishing boats spending months there every year. I was first there several years ago with Joan Vernon fishing aboard Tijereta with Capt. Bubba Carter. During that trip, we were based out of Cap Cana and caught several white marlin, but we weren’t able to connect with any blues. Fortunately, I recently had a chance to visit the DR again when Rufus Wakeman invited me to join him and Scott Loper aboard the 48-foot G&S Chaser with Capt.…

After taking several years off from boatbuilding, John Whiticar and his team at Whiticar Boat Works have decided to get back into the action. Rather than ramping up with equipment and manpower, Whiticar Boat Works formed a joint venture with Garlington Landeweer to build new custom sport‑fishing yachts. The discussion between the two iconic builders started during last year’s Custom Shootout in the Bahamas, where Whiticar and Peter Landeweer kicked around the idea of building boats together. Whiticar describes the partnership: “We talked about and discussed the future of us building boats. I was talking to him about the difficulties of starting back up again after we shut down that division of our company, especially since things aren’t back to where they were before. So he came up with the…

SPLIT LEVEL Marc Montocchio captured this amazing shot of Michael Posillico’s blue marlin aboard his 52-foot Shearline Boatworks American Beauty with Capt. David Borrack. Montocchio used a Nauticam housing paired with a Zen 8-inch optic crystal dome port to gain a perspective of the action above and below the water. LOCATION The crew hooked this blue marlin on a dink bait while fishing near Columbus Point on Cat Island in the Bahamas. TECH SPECS CAMERA: Canon EOS-1D X LENS: Canon EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye ISO: 400 APERTURE: f/11.0 SPEED: 1/250 sec…

The Billfish Foundation’s most recent International Billfish Conservation Record is now available for free on TBF’s website. The report examines and summarizes all tag, release and recapture data submitted in 2014, providing a breakdown by species reported, maps of top tagging locations by species and oceans, and much more. In 2014, TBF received over 14,000 billfish data reports for fish either tagged and released or released without a tag. There was almost an even split between tagged fish and fish released without a tag. The increased reporting effort represents a large spike in numbers from 2013 data, where 9,000 billfish were tallied. Overall, more fish were tagged and released in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. The most commonly reported billfish species was sailfish (8,464), and the least reported was…

Situated off the west coast of Africa, the Canary Islands are a chain of seven islands that have long been tied to world shipping and trade. Most famously connected to Christopher Columbus, La Gomera was used by the famous explorer as his jumping-off point after loading up with supplies and water on his first and subsequent voyages of discovery to the New World. Since then, the Canaries have had a Spanish influence, remaining a territory of Spain to this day. The islands are some 800 nautical miles north of Cape Verde and 250 nautical miles south of Madeira, which is certainly in the migratory path for not only large numbers of big blue and white marlin, but a spring migration of giant bluefin tuna — a budding and prolific recreational…

+ VISIT MARLINMAG.COM /ELECTRONICS-SUITE TO SEE A FULL ELECTRONICS COMPONENT LIST AS INSTALLED ON JARRETT BAY’S NEW 64-FOOT BUILDER’S CHOICE. Not many moments beat heading back to the marina after a day offshore, your favorite song turned up in the background while you celebrate with the rest of your crew. And the global integration of audio controls through entire navigation suites via the NMEA 2000 backbone might not be the first thing that comes to mind in this scenario, but it sure makes everything easier and more enjoyable offshore. This technology is not brand-new, but navigation-system manufacturers continue to partner with audio-system makers to develop more convenient operation of networking audio equipment. They’ve also built new mobile phone and tablet apps to control entertainment from anywhere on the boat, an…

Buying or selling a boat can be a long, agonizing process. Nowadays, even the cheapest boats are expensive, and there are seemingly endless options of builders, sizes and models. We often deal with brokers in the maritime legal profession, and it is remarkable how much a quality yacht broker can do for his or her client. I am not talking about the brokers from Nevada who see your boat for sale on a forum or Craigslist and then hound you for months about listing your boat. Rather, I am talking about the brokers who properly treat their career as a profession. Whether purchasing or selling a boat, a professional yacht broker can ensure it is a relatively smooth process. LISTING A BOAT The more expensive the boat, the more likely…