I had just cracked open a drink when the fish came up. I set the brew on the bait tank, buckled in as a tuna slurped the bait, lifted the 80-wide Tiagra out of the holder and went to work. My beer was still ice cold when we gaffed the 192-pound yellowfin.

That short, effective fight depended on the 200-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon leader, 40 pounds of drag and a true winch of a reel. But the gear doesn’t matter if you don’t use it right, and that means using its power to hurt tuna instead of yourself. I’m a big guy and I’ve caught hundreds of tuna over 100 pounds, but size doesn’t matter. I’ve seen little old ladies use the right techniques and catch fish much bigger than I ever have. My friend caught a 300-pound yellowfin on stand-up gear when he was 78.

Use a Harness and Pad to Fight Big Tuna

The key is a good harness and pad, and the ability to use it. One of my favorites is from AFTCO, designed by Greg Stotesbury. Stotesbury’s stand-up experience, like mine, is grounded in the San Diego long-range fleet. No offense, East Coasters, but most of you don’t know how to use a harness. Here’s how it works.

If you learn anything here it should be this: When fighting a fish, you should feel all the force transferred by the harness from the point of your hips down. You want the belt around your butt, not the small of your back.

In preparation, wear the harness before the bite. Wait until the fish is solidly hooked and pulling drag before you put the rod in the belt and clip in. Many fish are lost early when folks fumble with their gear instead of fighting the fish. Once you are fastened to the fish, attitude is everything. Stay calm and relaxed. Don’t let adrenaline and bad form hurt you.

How to Fight Tuna in a Fishing Harness

Proper form means good posture: Put your left hand on the reel to guide the line, with your right hand on the handle. Keep your back straight, and bend your knees enough to distribute the pressure across the tops of your quads and your backside.

Modern composite rods do all the work when kept at right angles to the rail. When the tip comes up, wind it back down. If you can’t turn the handle, switch the reel to low speed. Can’t keep up? Go to high speed. Don’t impart wild pumping motions. Instead, focus on the rod tip. Call out deep color when you see it, and wind the fish up to the gaff.

Safety Tips for Fighting Big Tunas

A couple of safety notes should be added. Every tuna is an individual, and where the hook ends up influences how the fish acts. Yellowfin tuna hooked in the upper jaw by the snout are notoriously squirrelly. You have to be prepared to react to the predictable and unpredictable, and that often means getting out of the harness.

Use S-hooks instead of clips to attach the harness to the reel lugs so you can get out quickly if necessary. And remember to back off the drag ­(gradually, don’t dump it into free-spool) when you need to get the rod out of the gimbal pad for maneuvers such as keeping the line out of the props.

How to Gain Line When Fighting Big Tuna

When you sit back and put on a lot of pressure, a fish will often run out high in the water column. Enjoy the fact that now the fish is on the losing end of the energy equation. This is the only time you can take a breather. When the fish stops, bear down on it. Try to get a turn on the handle, going to low gear if necessary.

Tuna will often respond to the ­pressure by diving in the direction of the boat, which provides you the opportunity to win back a bunch of line with no more effort than turning the handle. Be ready to go into high gear when the fish sounds, and take that easy line.

Once the fish goes into the final stage of the fight — straight up and down — it’s time to really put on the heat. Stay in one spot and keep the rod straight out from the rail. The tuna’s tail beats are reflected in the pumps of the rod tip as the fish circles — the more pressure, the tighter the circle. The tip of the rod will come up as the fish leaves the inside (closest to the boat) of the circle. That’s when you get those precious feet of line with several quick turns of the handle to bring the tip back down and keep the fish moving up. Don’t waste energy by stubbornly trying to turn the handle when you stop gaining line.

Most important, stay relaxed so you reserve the burst of energy and sharpness of mind that is usually called for at the end of the fight. Sometimes, a truly mean fish will say to hell with this and bust a big move. The telltale is an irritated shake of the head. You have to be ready to respond and follow. It’s usually over soon after that — one way or another.

The post Tuna Fishing with Stand Up Gear appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The lexicon used to describe where anglers fish is confusing, even frustrating. “Inshore” or “coastal” often describes fishing in estuarine waters, at least in my stomping grounds, where fishermen target species like speckled trout, redfish, and flounder in rivers, creeks, and bays. In the Northeast, an “inshore tuna bite” might be 10 miles offshore.

“Offshore” fishing begins once you leave the inlet and make a run for blue water. However, offshore fishing is not dependent on the length of the run to the fishing grounds or how deep the water is — offshore fishing might start just a couple of miles (at ports such as South Florida, Panama or the Bahamas) or hours off your coast.

Even with those broad designations, the fish don’t always cooperate. There are no fences in the salt, so inshore species often leave inside waters for the Gulf and Atlantic. Usually these movements coincide with spawning rituals, an exciting time of year to target oversize specimens, at least for catch-and-release fishermen. So the next time you want to catch a trophy species, consider heading out of brackish areas and into open waters. Think differently on your next trip — consider it a role reversal — and you could score the “inshore” fish of a lifetime offshore.

Catch Snook on Nearshore Wrecks

South Florida fishermen regularly target snook up rivers, on mangrove-lined flats, and in passes and inlets. But not many know that offshore wrecks attract snook each summer, starting as early as late spring.

“My favorite spots average about 5 miles offshore, in anywhere from 20 to 60 feet of water,” says Capt. Glyn Austin, of Sebastian, Florida. “Most people don’t really target them because it’s all catch-and-release fishing June through August. Most people want kingfish or cobia, something they can take home.” Austin says all the fish are all longer than the 32-inch slot maximum, so the oversize linesiders can’t be kept no matter if the season is open or closed.

“Typically I use the same tackle at the wrecks as at the inlets,” says Austin, “a 7- to 8-foot rod, 20- to 40-pound braid, and baits like threadfin herring and pogies.” Austin fishes mostly from Port Canaveral to Sebastian, but snook exhibit the same behavior farther south on both Florida coasts around barges and reefs. “The snook are definitely attracted to structure and hang on the bottom,” says Austin. “We often catch giant jack crevalle, goliath grouper, cobia, redfish, black drum and flounder out there, along with the snook. That’s plenty of species that we see both inshore and offshore.”

Deep Water Flounder Fishing

Heading north along the Atlantic Coast, a different inshore species replaces snook around offshore structure. And this species is available from Florida to the mid-Atlantic states: flounder.

“In spring and especially fall, flounder are available in 60 to 85 feet of water out of St. Augustine and Mayport inlets, about 6 to 15 miles offshore,” says Capt. Stephen Szczepanik, of Mayport, Florida. “Those offshore fish just taste so much better than the inshore fish; it must be something about the sandy bottom they’re sitting on.”

Szczepanik has learned over the years that flounder are more likely to hang near metal structure, such as barges, instead of concrete rubble. The flounder group together in masses around the base, likely preparing or concluding their spawn. Still, Szczepanik admits that most of the flounder he catches and fillets don’t have roe.

“Offshore, an average fish is at least 22 inches and 3 pounds,” he says, “but 8-pound fish are also pretty common. Inshore, an 8-pound flatfish is an uncommon catch.”

One top tactic is vertically jigging a live mullet with a 1-ounce jig, making sure the line stays tight. He specifically shies away from stinky artificials because they attract undersize black sea bass and beeliners (vermilion snapper). Szczepanik prefers to use 20-pound-braid main line for its toughness and ability to cut through the water. Once you hook into a couple of flounder, chances are there are plenty more in the same spot.

“The best days are when it’s flat calm, and you can use a trolling motor to stay on top of the spot,” says Szczepanik. “Mark the structure with your finder, and then throw out a jug to mark the wreck.”

Stripers Near the Beach

Role Reversals

What happens when the biggest inshore fish are off-limits offshore? Chesapeake Bay captains deal with this every winter when targeting monster striped bass.

“In past years, cold winters pushed the bait off the beaches 10 to 15 miles, taking the stripers with them,” says Capt. Jake Hiles, of Virginia Beach. “But because striped bass are designated game fish in federal waters, fishermen can’t target striped bass, even for catch-and-release, in the Exclusive Economic Zone (more than 3 nautical miles offshore).”

The ocean season for migratory stripers ranges from about mid-December to February. Late February into March, the migratory striped bass head up Chesapeake Bay to spawn in the rivers, says Andrew Turner, a fisheries biologist with NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay office. Late May and June see the fish head north of New York to Maine to summer in the cool waters, usually within 3 miles of shore. Over the past couple of seasons, many Virginia anglers have not seen good numbers of stripers like they used to, whether that’s because of migration changes or increased fishing pressure.

When warm winters bring baitfish schools and mature stripers within a mile or two of the beach, Capt. Herb Gordon fishes the eastern shore of Virginia.

“You have to find the birds to find the fish,” says Gordon. “Finding birds is easy with the use of a good radar, one at least 6 kW. The bottom machine helps, but it’s not as dependable as birds. Some areas with structure always hold bait, which in turn, hold fish.”

Gordon usually trolls just four rods, while some of the other charter boats troll as many as 20. “On our rigs, we use double parachutes, 9 ounces each, with rubber 9-inch shads,” he says. “Our lines are staggered to fish different depths, and we also vary our trolling speeds.”

For anglers fishing in and around the mouth of the Chesapeake, it’s a matter of finding rockfish before they head too far offshore.

The post Where to Catch Trophy Inshore Fish appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Thirty miles off Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, trolling down a weed line in a 50-foot sportfish, we ambushed a pack of big dolphin. The fish attacked our spread, leaping out of the water, slashing behind a skipping bait, greyhounding from one side of the spread to the other.

With outrigger pins popping, rods bending over and lines coming tight, mate William Howell called anglers out of the cabin while Capt. Jason Snead put the teal-green Dream Girl into a tight turn.

Once all the rods were heaving with big fish and the reels losing line, Howell instructed the anglers to grab a gimbal belt and a fishing rod. Snead kept the boat idling forward while the anglers worked their fish to the boat.

Big dolphin don’t come easy. The broad green-and-blue fish streaked side to side and leaped into the air, frantic to escape. The anglers labored over their reels while captain and mate orchestrated a line dance with anglers shuffling around the cockpit to stay untangled.

In short order, Howell handlined each mahi close to the boat, gaffing it and swinging it into the fish box. As the anglers shared high-fives and back slaps, Howell deployed the lines and Snead bumped the boat back to trolling speed. Dream Girl lurched and rolled over waves and troughs and all eyes searched the sea to find the next weed line.

The Spring Dolphin Season

This scene played out a few years ago. These days, Howell runs his own boat. I caught up with him in late spring as he prepared for another season of dolphin fishing.

Howell expects bigger fish to show up off Oregon Inlet in April and hang out all summer. From mid-summer to early fall, the bulls move north. Between June and September, anglers from Virginia to New Jersey see their best big-dolphin action.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to go. The last few years, anglers have seen fewer big dolphin in early summer. So, when the sargassum weed lines up and the dolphin are on the feed, anglers need to be ready to make the most of the opportunity.

Finding Mahi

Howell generally hunts dolphin from 20 fathoms to the edge of the continental shelf. But to find big fish, Howell depends on sea-surface-temperature charts. “Water temperature is more important than depth,” he says. He looks for a substantial change in water temperature and color.

Once the boat crosses the change, Howell searches for floating sargassum that serves as a dolphin oasis. According to Howell, ideal conditions include a southwest wind blowing the weed against the edge of the Gulf Stream current.

Farther up the coast, anglers fishing off mid-Atlantic states don’t have the reliable Gulf Stream current found off Hatteras. Instead, they look for less significant changes in water temperature, clarity, altimetry and plankton levels that help amass sargassum and floating flotsam, which hold dolphin.

Once Howell finds the weed line, he slows the boat to 6 knots and puts out four rods. “I keep the spread limited to four rods to reduce tangles and keep the fish focused,” he says.

Big dolphin play like puppies in a dog park. Fewer baits in the water keep the dolphin on target and improve the chances for a good bite. If a dolphin hits a lure and misses, though, pull the ravaged hook out of the water and drop a fresh bait back.

Tackle and Rigging

Rigging a naked, unweighted skipping ballyhoo takes just a few minutes. In this video, the author walks you through the basic procedure.

Howell targets bulls with a quiver of 20-pound trolling rods paired with lever-drag reels spooled with 30-pound monofilament. To the end of the line, he ties a Bimini-to-no-name-knot connection to attach a 24-foot length of 80-pound mono and ties a 250-pound snap swivel to the end. For the leader, he ties a surgeon’s loop at the end of a 5-foot piece of 50-pound monofilament and terminates that with a 7/0, short-shank, thin-wire J-hook. Slip the surgeon’s loop into the snap swivel to complete the rig.

To add the bait, select a small ballyhoo, thaw it in saltwater and remove the eyes. Squeeze the bait and break its back. Take a 12-inch piece of copper rigging wire and thread one inch of it through the hook eye. Wrap that short end around the hook shank, leaving the remaining 11 inches of wire as a long tag end.

Hold the ballyhoo upside down and insert the point of the hook into the base of the gills. Thread the ballyhoo onto the hook as if threading a soft-plastic artificial onto a jig head. The point of the hook exits the belly and the eye of the hook rides beneath the ballyhoo’s eye.

Pass the long tag end of the rigging wire through the ballyhoo’s eye socket two times. Push the tip of the wire up through the base of the ballyhoo’s bill and then wrap the wire around 1/2 inch of the bill. Break off the remainder of the bill. 

Howell rigs some of the ballyhoo with a chin weight so that they slightly submerge, but he prefers to skip unweighted baits along the surface. 

Expert Tips to Troll for Mahi

To deploy his four baits, he uses a mix of short rigger, long rigger and flat line positions. He keeps four more rods rigged and ready to pitch to dolphin in the spread. “I wouldn’t want more than six dolphin on at once,” he laughs, imagining the chaos that would create. 

He lets the baits drop back in the spread until they skip across the water or swim just below the surface without spending more than a few seconds in the water or in the air.

When a school of dolphin attacks, Howell keeps the boat trolling until all rods host fish. If a dolphin strikes short, he picks up the rod and jerks it, then drops the rod tip to make what’s left of the bait shoot across the water and sink back to the fish. If that doesn’t elicit another bite, he instructs the angler to pull in the bait while another angler drops a fresh ballyhoo into the spread.

Once a fish is hooked, he keeps the boat moving slowly ahead while the angler reels. “The key is to keep the fish behind the boat and the lines untangled,” he says.

When the fish is within 20 feet of the boat, Howell sets the 6-foot gaff in reach and lightly takes the line in his hands. Carefully, he guides the fish by holding the line low to the water to keep the fish’s head submerged. If the dolphin gets its head above water, it jumps into the air and most likely throws the hook.

Once the dolphin is gaffable, Howell strokes it in the back just behind the head. Then, in one motion, he lifts the fish out of the water and swings it into the fish box — where it often explodes in a frenzy of tail whipping, rod-breaking energy.

When big dolphin school up behind the boat, or Howell finds a pack of fish on a float, he slows the boat and drops a rigged ballyhoo to the dolphin. He jigs the bait back and forth to get the fish’s attention. When he fires up a feeding frenzy, Howell can catch big dolphin one after another. “Dolphin fishing is one of the coolest things we get to do,” he says. Fast action, aggressive fish and an explosive fight make dolphin a fan favorite. “People love to catch them.”

The post How to Catch Dolphin in the Mid-Atlantic appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

You know the saying “What’s old is new?” Well, the older I get, the more sense it makes. I see the kids pegging their pant legs like we did in the ’80s. Star Wars is more popular than ever. And certain old-school fishing tactics are back in vogue.

When I was a kid, my dad would load us and his gear into his 24-foot Albemarle, carry us across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to the edge of Inner Middle Ground Shoal and throw out the anchor. He’d break out a half dozen Penn setups rigged with fish-finder rigs. After baiting up with chunks of menhaden, he’d cast the rigs around the boat and deploy a bag of chum. Then, we’d wait.

Fishermen are famous for their patience, but waiting for hours while boiling under the hot sun, all the while swatting flies and listening to the waves slap on the hull, would test the resolve of a saint. Not to mention the weird bycatch fish. Skates, car-hood rays and small sharks were more annoying than the green flies.

In those days, cobia fishermen were a special sort of crazy, suffering the worst conditions to catch one of the biggest inshore trophies. On a hot August afternoon, with thunderstorms on the horizon, the shoals at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay were lined with boats and covered in a sheen of menhaden oil. Many anglers tried to catch these finicky beasts, but few were successful.

Those few had turned cobia fishing into a passion, devoting their lives to the pursuit. The payoff came in one of the largest and most unpredictable coastal game fish. These fish can grow up to 100 pounds, bigger than most inshore sport fish.

No two cobia fight the same. They will run, charge, roll, dive and even jump. Often, a free-swimming cobia will follow a hooked fish to the boat. That’s when real chaos kicks in as the crew scrambles to pitch a bait. Then there are the stories of hooked cobia getting wrapped up in the anchor rope and chum line. I’ve seen guys jump off the boat to free a cobia caught up in bridge pilings. After sacrificing blood, sweat and sanity, they were not about to let a cobia get away.

Chumming for Cobia Lost Favor Over the Last Decade

About 20 years ago, local anglers returning from the fabled cobia waters off Florida brought heavy spinning rods, big bucktails and stories of free-swimming cobia. Within a couple summers, sight-casting towers were popping up like tulips in spring. The chumming hopefuls had become sight-casting cowboys. I was one of them.

If I could catch cobia by driving around the bay at 10 knots, to hell with chumming! The choice seemed obvious. Trade in chum, cut bait, live bait, hours in the sun, no breeze and trash fish for cruising around, face in the wind, a bucket full of eels, a couple of bucktails, two rods and no trash fish. I was sold. So were many, many anglers.

It wasn’t long before I figured out that sight-fishing for cobia isn’t easy either. The sun is just as hot, the fish are just as finicky, the outboard burns more fuel and my success rate improved only slightly. After a couple of summers driving around and going blind staring through the bright sun into the empty water, I was ready to catch a trash fish!

Chumming for Cobia is Popular Once Again

I caught up with my old friend Wes Blow to learn more about chumming for cobia. While the rest of us were sight-fishing, Blow was perfecting his bait-fishing tactics.

“I like the chaos,” he explained to me over the phone. Blow often fishes alone. Juggling a spastic cobia while trying to clear lines, pull in the chum bucket and then land the thrashing fish solo makes his blood run hot. Instead of explaining his methods and madness, he invited me to join him on his next trip.

We met at Wallace’s Marina in Hampton, Virginia, hours before sunrise. Blow loaded the boat with a half dozen three-gallon chum buckets and two dozen eels. He grinds his own chum out of fresh menhaden. His recipe mixes one gallon of menhaden oil with 100 pounds of fish. We ran out of Back River, and Blow stopped the boat in a deep channel. He armed two rods with two-hook bottom rigs baited with Fishbites bloodworm and 2-ounce bank sinkers. We drifted down the channel and quickly added three dozen croaker to the livewell.

By the time the sun peeked over the horizon, we were heading toward the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Blow said he starts cobia fishing as soon as the water temperature hits 68 degrees. “The first fish show up off Hampton, at York Spit and Bluefish Rock,” Blow said.

On this slick-calm August day, Blow motored to the shoals on the inside side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. He anchors on a sharp drop or significant hump so the boat is in shallow water and the chum slick is drifting into the deep. “I like the tide and wind going in the same direction,” he said. “That way the stern of the boat and chum slick are pointing in the same direction.”

With no wind and a morning outgoing tide, Blow anchored along the edge of Inner Middle Ground Shoal so the chum slick trailed toward the bridge. Blow keeps the anchor rope tied to a polyball so he can quickly ditch the anchor when he hooks a big cobia.

As the boat settled in the current, Blow dumped a three‑gallon bucket of chum into a five-gallon bucket with holes drilled in it and diving weights in the bottom. He dropped the bucket over the stern and let it sink to the bottom.

Cobia Fishing Techniques

As the greasy slick snaked its way with the current, Blow pulled out four medium-heavy combos spooled with 65-pound braided line. When I noticed that each reel has a different color line, he explained: “If I get a tangle, I quickly know which line is coming from what reel.” I joked, “They must love you at the tackle shop.”

Each rod is outfitted with a fish-finder rig. Blow threaded a plastic fish-finder slide over the braided line and tied on a 250-pound-test swivel. He attached a 2½-foot length of 80-pound Ande monofilament snelled to a big J hook. “I use an 8/0 hook for eels and a 10/0 for croaker,” he said. He likes a J hook because it improves his hookup ratio. “Big cobia have a hard, bony jaw,” he told me. “And a J hook will stick anywhere.” Because cobia often pick up the bait and charge the boat or jump and thrash, Blow feels the J hook has a better chance of finding purchase. “Very few cobia [that I catch] are deep-hooked,” he insisted.

No one is more concerned with the well-being of these brown bombers than Blow, who serves on the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council subcommittee for cobia. He’s fought for years for sensible regulations to protect both the species and anglers’ rights.

Blow clips 8-ounce pyramid sinkers to two lines. The other two lines get a 4-ounce bank sinker. He drops the heavier sinkers right off the stern. “I catch 75 percent of my fish on the baits right next to the chum bucket.” The other two lines are stationed 20 feet behind the boat. “I catch the biggest fish on the longer lines,” he added.

Blow clears the deck and keeps the menhaden oil scrubbed off. The anchor is ready on the buoy. His rigs are fresh and tackle pristine. “Cobia will test every inch of your gear,” he stressed throughout the day. “You have to be ready when that 100-pounder is on the line.”

Hot Cobia Fishing

With the lines set and the chum flowing, we sat back and waited. The early morning humidity was already sitting on us like a wet towel. It wasn’t long before we got our first bite. I grabbed my camera, and Blow grabbed the rod. “It’s a shark,” he announced even before seeing the fish.

I stowed the camera, and Blow brought the 4-foot biter to the side of the boat. “Hold the rod,” he ordered, and I obeyed. He reached down, took a couple wraps on the leader, threaded the line onto a dehooker and, with a twist of the wrist, released the shark. The dehooker easily grabbed hold of the J hook, although a circle likely would have had similar results.

Blow rerigged the leader and replaced the bait in the spread. “I must catch a thousand sharks each summer,” he lamented. “Maybe more.” According to Blow, trash fish are just part of the fun. The key is to keep an extra rod rigged up and ready to deploy while fighting a shark or ray.

It wasn’t long before one of the rods bucked heavily. Then the line went slack. Blow was quick to react, jumping on the rod and reeling the line tight. A 3-foot brown fish skirted the surface of the water 30 feet behind the boat. When the fish turned to run, Blow jerked the rod tip to set the hook. Then he engaged the clicker on the reel and put the rod back in the holder. We worked quickly to clear the other rods. I pulled up the chum bucket and left it dangling at the surface. “With the clicker on, I can listen to what the fish is doing while I prepare the boat,” he explained.

Once the lines were in and the deck clear, Blow returned to fighting the cobia. Brown bombers are one of the most unpredictable fish on a line. This one pulled all the tricks. Their favorite move is to come to the boat quickly. When I reached for the net, Blow barked, “I don’t even try to land them when they first come to the boat.” He’s wise to their tricks. “I hit the fish on the head with the net and it will freak out and run again.”

I reached in with the net and scooped a 30-pounder into the boat. The fish slithered on the deck while Blow quickly removed the hook and measured it. Then he inserted an orange spaghetti tag and returned the fish to the water. He held onto the lip and let the cobia regain its composure. When the fish gave a kick that covered Blow with green water, he let it swim away.

By now, the sun was up in full force and the heat building. Blow’s open center console offered no place to hide, and my light clothes stuck to my skin. I gulped water and moved around the boat trying to find any breeze. The surface of the bay was slick-calm, and the boat hardly rocked. Luckily, the fishing was just as hot as the weather. We landed a couple more brown fish in the 20- to 30-pound range as the tide ripped toward the ocean.

When the current began to slack, Blow moved the boat to the east side of the bridge, where we rode out the incoming tide. We caught more cobia, including one fish that pushed 50 pounds. All of the fish were tagged and released. Sure, we caught a few sharks and rays, but that didn’t rain on the parade. I considered the day a major success.

At one point, I spotted three cobia swimming along the edge of the shoal, 30 yards in front of the boat. I grabbed a heavy spinning reel and 3-ounce ­bucktail that Blow keeps just for such occasions. With all of my might, I heaved the lure at the idling fish. The bucktail landed with a splash a few feet ahead of the pack. I watched their fins slash the surface, I gave the rod tip a jerk and all three fish turned on the bucktail. I let the lure drop. The fish swam down.

I jigged again, cranked a few feet of line, jigged again, but nothing happened. I did everything right, but sometimes cobia simply won’t cooperate with a lure presentation. All the more reason to chum for them.

After hours of action, we’d released a half dozen cobia. Each fish fought its own fight. With one of us on the reel and the other scooting around the cockpit, we were able to control the chaos. I saw Blow’s point about action. Too many times I’ve gone all day sight-fishing without taking the rod out of the holder. That definitely won’t happen when chumming up cobia.

Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program

In an effort to track fish movements and monitor populations, the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program recruits volunteer anglers to place numbered tags in 11 species of sport fish. Participants are trained on how to insert tags and record data. The resulting information plays a big part in tracking fish numbers and setting regulations. Cobia have been a big star of the program: One fish tagged in Virginia was recaptured in the Gulf of Mexico, off Texas. Wes Blow tags dozens of cobia each summer. Because he receives a notification when one of his tags is returned, the information helps him refine his cobia strategy. To get involved in the program, visit mrc.virginia.gov.

Cobia Fishing Supply List

• Medium-heavy conventional or spinning combos spooled with 80-pound braided line
• 8-ounce pyramid sinkers
• 4- to 6-ounce bank sinkers
• 8/0 and 10/0 J hooks on 80-pound mono leader and
• Fish-finder slide
• Five-gallon chum bucket drilled with ½-inch holes
• Three-gallon buckets of menhaden chum
• Two dozen live eels
• Three dozen live croaker or spot

The post Chumming for Cobia appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

A jack commonly caught in Costa Rica and the Gulf of Mexico was recently landed off the coast of North Carolina. Officials at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries established a new state record for the species: an Almaco Jack (Seriola rivoliana).  

Angler Matt Frattasio, of Massachusetts, caught the 26-pound, 15.6-ounce fast-growing fish near the D Wreck off Morehead City in early November. He was aboard Riptide Charters fishing in 80 feet of water, baiting with a live menhaden on 50-pound gear. There was no previous state record in North Carolina for almacos.

Frattasio’s fish measured 36.4 inches (fork length) and had a 26-inch girth. The fish was weighed and identified by fisheries staff at the Division of Marine Fisheries Headquarters in Morehead City. Almaco jacks are part of the Seriola genus (amberjacks) — not surprisingly, they look similar to an amberjack.

Almaco Jack or Amberjack?

Anglers can have a tough time differentiating the two. Here’s the trick: Almacos are deeper-bodied and less elongated than amberjacks. Also, check the dorsal fins. That second dorsal is higher than the first dorsal on amberjack, but it’s nearly twice as tall as the first dorsal on almaco jacks.

Record Almaco Jack Catches

In Georgia, the current state record almaco is just over 7 pounds, while Florida’s state record tops out at 35 pounds, 9 ounces. The all-tackle world record stands tall at 132 pounds, caught in 1964 in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico. Most IGFA men’s line-class records for the species hail from Costa Rica and Panama.

Still, some almaco jack world records sit completely vacant. Part of that might be because they’re misidentified or possibly it’s that anglers fast-track the great-tasting fish straight into the cooler. At least five women’s line-class records are empty, most of them for fly tackle. The All-Tackle Length fly and junior records are also wide open.

For other instances of warm-water fish catches in states farther north, check out Connecticut’s tarpon, Maryland’s barracuda, New Jersey’s king mackerel and Washington’s dorado.

The post A New Record for North Carolina appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Simply put: I find no greater enjoyment on the water than fishing with other women. When I can combine that with prime accommodations, bragworthy meals, rainforest nature and a pampering massage, sign me up — again and again.

In June, I traveled to Crocodile Bay in southern Costa Rica to test new tackle from Penn Fishing. Also new to me was the recently opened Botanika resort. During the three prior visits I’ve made to this location over the last 12 years, I stayed at Crocodile Bay’s original property — which I would call a nice fishing lodge. It had just enough comfort and amenities to suit groups of guys and even families, as well as some extra perks and options like eco-tours to see sloths, toucans and monkeys, and ziplining through the tree canopy.

But Botanika attains a level of class that’s rare for any location, particularly one that offers the kind of offshore and nearshore fishing available here. Over three days, we encountered acres of spinner dolphin and yellowfin tuna feeding and breaching like aquatic missiles. During prior trips, I’ve caught Pacific sailfish, snappers and groupers and punched a bucket-list ticket by boating a 30-pound roosterfish on a topwater plug.

On this recent adventure, and once about seven years ago here, I was fortunate enough to fish with a group of women. This time, I spent the final half-day aboard one of the resort’s Striker Yachts with two women anglers from Penn — Kimberly Hoffman and Jen Ripple. We asked to fish nearshore to target roosters, so we spent our first hour catching sardines with gold-hook rigs — sublimely simple fun.

As the captain started slow-trolling the livies inside the Golfo Dulce, our mate rigged a popper on one of the new Penn Carnage III rods that was paired with a new Penn Authority spinning reel. Jen and I took turns at the bow with the popper rod and a fly rod. Bait was everywhere. We saw one follower, but found no takers.

The rest of the morning, we slow-trolled just outside the breakers along the ocean beaches, where the bow heaved too dramatically for casting. While the bite proved slow, we spent hours talking about experiences and eating perfectly spiced and blended fresh-tuna salad. No tension. No competition. No comparisons. No bragging.

Toward the end of the morning, our captain — who had been casting the popper from the fly bridge — hooked a rooster and handed down the rod. Kim fought the fish to the transom where the mate brought it aboard for multiple photos before release. You might have thought we’d won the Super Bowl.

Target fish notched, we headed back to the dock for our rendezvous with Gloriana, the massage therapist. One muscle-melting hour later, and I met the others for drinks and fresh tuna sushi for supper.

At dinner, I asked a Crocodile Bay representative if the resort had any package offers for female anglers, so others can experience a getaway that’s unique and special to women. They do. For a limited time, visit this link to see the Girlfriend Getaway Fishing Special. Sign me up.

The post Costa Rica Girlfriend Fishing Getaway appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

What do you get when you gather 16 women to fish and socialize over new tackle, gear, and apparel? A phenomenal fusion of joy, camaraderie, and appreciation and a total lack of rivalry and hurry.

Women do fishing their own way.

Sporting goods retailer Academy Sports and Outdoors brought together this group—which included media like me as well as influencers, pro staff and the company’s own roster of female marketing and public relations specialists — for two days of offshore and inshore fishing in early February out of Jacksonville, Florida. Academy introduced us to its H20 Xpress rods and reels, as well as to its soft-side coolers and a variety of new-for-2022 apparel under the Magellan Outdoors Pro brand. Academy designs its inhouse lines to be technical yet affordable.

The week proved nothing short of revelatory. I never joined a sorority in college, but for those three days in a spacious Airbnb with 15 other females, I think I sampled something similar.

Our first evening, we toured a local Academy store and tried on new technical tees that felt graciously generous in fit (my pet peeve is women’s clothing that fits so tightly that it jeopardizes my fishing focus) yet included features such as mesh paneling, a sunglass wipe; one came with a built-in neck gaiter. The women’s Tidewater boat shoes felt light as a feather, and the Windbreaker quickly became my favorite layering piece. The Pro Angler Shorty shorts and the Pro Pieced Leggings featured thoughtful designs, but for my age and short height, they didn’t quite work. (Petite is my middle name.)

The next morning, we headed to the Mayport boat ramp and boarded six bay boats and flats skiffs captained by local guides. I jumped aboard a Pathfinder 2500 with Capt. Steve Mullen from Fish Hunter Charters and four women with varying degrees of fishing experience. With an unusually calm and mild February forecast, we ran offshore to fish some scattered hard-bottom spots for black sea bass.

Mullen baited up some light H2O Express outfits with dead bait. I asked to use a jig, and he hauled out a heavier rod and tied on a flutter jig. We dropped repeatedly in about 70 to 80 feet of water; the lighter tackle hauled up cookie-cutter-size seabass and grunts, and the jig attracted slightly bigger seabass and loads of out-of-season red snapper.

The mood aboard, you might say, was continually supportive and encouraging yet spiced by gentle teasing. I know various movies, reality shows and social-media posts often expose the cattiness of females, and while I’m sure that can be true, our experience — on a welcoming sea with a kind sky — brought out a more congenial nature.

As the half-day outing waned, we ran a line of buoys looking for early tripletail, which migrate north through this region in spring.

On my second fishing day, I traded offshore for inshore with Capt. Buzz Brannon of Northeast Florida Angling aboard his 18-foot Beavertail Vengeance skiff. I was joined by Academy’s Sophia Clarke, a relative newcomer to the sport.

The morning delivered some cloud cover, and the tide was still a bit high. This region’s inshore fisheries, like those in my own home waters of south Georgia, depend heavily on tide phases. We picked at a few small puppy drum and trout, casting live shrimp and mud minnows, pinned to brightly colored jigheads, toward points and oyster reefs lining the Spartina marsh.

As the day warmed, the tide started dropping. Ironically, the green-brown water grew remarkably clear. Brannon staked us out on multiple spots where the size of the redfish increased as the day progressed. He also provided a sermon of sorts on the natural beauty and productivity of the estuaries.

Clarke told us she was perfectly happy fishing occasionally, and catching two or three fish, while I kept busy casting, my favorite practice. Clearly, we women fit a variety of molds. We don’t demand excellence of each other, and we don’t have to catch a cooler full to enjoy the day. I could get used to this.

Don’t get me wrong: Everyone should enjoy fishing as he or she chooses. Competition can be fun, and there’s nothing wrong with excelling at a sport or bringing home some fish. But watching these female anglers step outside the usual boundaries of fishing convention proved quite refreshing.

Read Next: More Women in Fishing

At the end of the day, we retired to the Airbnb for a surf-and-turf supper and s’mores over the patio firepit. Did I say sorority or summer camp?

The post Angling Evolution: Fishing Northeast Florida With an All-Female Crew appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The hottest type of offshore trolling lure for the new decade goes by a variety of names such as offset spreader bars, side-tracker bars, wide trackers and tracker birds. Introduced about three years ago by Sterling Tackle in Beesley Point, New Jersey, these systems have exploded in popularity, especially among Northeast tuna anglers.

Other companies now offer side-tracker spreader bars as well, including Carlson Offshore Tackle, ChatterLures, and Tournament Cable. As word has spread about the effectiveness of this gear, so has use in other regions such as Florida’s central Atlantic coast, the upper Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Southern California, according to Steve Breunig, founder and owner of Sterling Tackle.

Keel is the Deal

“At the heart of the system is a teaser bird incorporating a bar and an offset keel,” Breunig explains. “This hub causes the spread of lures to track wider and gets them into cleaner water outside the prop wash.” As with conventional spreader bars and daisy chains, only the stinger lure at the very back of the spread carries a hook. Sterling made its stinger interchangeable, allowing anglers to select a lure that best matches the predominant forage at any given time.

Stable and Steady

The concept occurred to Breunig while offshore fishing about four years ago. “Late in season, the bites seem to come from farther back, but the farther back I set the spreader bars, the more they creeped into the center, even when using outriggers,” he says. “We started to experiment with various keels on the birds to force them to the outside.”

Read Next: Six Patterns for Successful Offshore Trolling

Within a few years, Breunig had perfected a system that worked so well that he didn’t even need outriggers to troll the spreads in clean water. Thus, the Sterling Wide Tracker system debuted. But his design involves more than just a keel. Creating the proper weight balance for the bird helps ensure stable trolling speeds, Breunig adds.

Left or Right

Sterling’s Wide Tracker systems come in right- and left-hand versions and range in price from $99 to $145. Other brands also offer side-tracker bird-bar systems with adjustable keels. The directional keel on ChatterLures side-tracker bird, for example, pivots and locks so you can troll the spread on either side of the boat. These products range in price from $129.99 to $149.99.

Quite a Spread

Depending on trolling speed and distance, side-tracker bars such as Sterling’s Wide Trackers expand a trolling spread by 40 to 60 feet. However, don’t allow side-trackers to swing too far out, if you want multiple hookups. “They need to be out in clean water, but not so far out that a school of tuna can’t find other bars or trolled lures and baits elsewhere in the spread, such as down the middle or on opposite sides of the wake,” Breunig says.

Trolling Speed

While the sea state usually determines trolling speed, Breunig likes to run the Wide Trackers at about 5 to 6 mph for bluefin tuna and 8 mph for yellowfin and bigeye tuna. As with any offshore trolling lure, rough seas force captains to slow down so lures remain in the water. To date, the biggest fish caught on a Sterling Wide Tracker was a 440-pound bluefin.

Bonus Fish

Tuna represent the primary focus of side-tracker bar anglers, but a variety of other offshore species bite these lures, including mahi, marlin (blue and white) and wahoo. If you might encounter wahoo, Breunig recommends rigging with wire to prevent the inevitable bite-off from a toothy ‘hoo.

The post Side-Tracker Systems Put Spreader Bars in the Strike Zone appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Deep-drop fishing for species such as longtail bass, queen snapper, snowy grouper, tilefish, wreckfish and vermillion snapper requires a boatload of specialized gear, including leaders with multiple hooks that resist twists and tangles when fishing waters as deep as 1,200 feet or more. Veteran saltwater angler Angelo DePaola of Orange Beach, Alabama, regularly fishes such depths in the Gulf of Mexico. In this video, DePaola shares his technique for creating 6-foot-long, five-hook leaders that resist tangles and have proven effective in catching big groupers, snapper and tiles.

Read Next: Deep-Drop Fishing with Electric Reels

Here’s DePaola’s list of the materials you’ll need to build your own deep-drop leaders based on his video tutorial.

• 400-pound-test monofilament leader material
• 200-pound-test monofilament leader material
• Appropriately sized crimps for the leader material
• Appropriately sized crimping tool
• Line cutters
• Circle hooks, 7/0 to 9/0 (five)
• 2/0 swivel sleeves (five)
• Glow beads (five)
• 2/0 barrel swivel (one)
• 2/0 barrel swivel with snap (one)
• Tape measure
• Sharpie permanent marker pen

Credit: Angelo DePaola

Veteran deepwater angler Angelo DePaola of Orange Beach, Alabama, shares his tips on creating an easy deep-drop leader.

The post How to Make a Deep-Drop Leader appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Until recently, only inshore anglers thought to equip their boats with trolling motors. But as motor manufacturers have rolled out more powerful products with longer shaft lengths, offshore anglers — whose boat bows often rise to imperious heights — have discovered the benefits of electric power.

Trolling motors with shaft lengths of up 87 inches enable offshore anglers to tap advanced features such as a wireless control, virtual anchoring, autopilot and route tracking in the pursuit of pelagic and bottom fish. Minn Kota debuted its 87-inch Riptide Terrova last year, while Rhodan Marine’s 84-inch HD GPS Anchor came out in 2017.

“I use the Minn Kota Riptide Terrova mounted up on the bow pulpit of my Parker 2502 pilothouse boat,” says Jason Arnold, avid angler, freelance photographer and contributor to Sport Fishing. “It works well for vertical jigging for grouper and snapper, as well as kite fishing for sailfish.”

Virtual Anchor

When vertical jigging, Arnold uses the Minn Kota’s virtual anchor mode, call Spot-Lock. The motor’s built-in GPS integrates with the micro-processor to automatically hold the boat in position at the press of a button on the wireless i-Pilot Link remote or, when networked with a Humminbird Solix, Helix or Onix multifunction display, a touchscreen command.

“It’s not only easier than dropping and retrieving an anchor, it’s a more pinpoint way of fishing,” he explains. “I can also jog around to different areas of a wreck and then hit Spot-Lock again for fish each area.”

When kite fishing, Arnold uses the trolling motor in auto-pilot mode to hold the bow of the Parker into the wind, allowing him to deploy kites from the stern. “The first day we used it, we had a quadruple hookup on sailfish,” he says.

High Thrust

To produce the power needed to effectively move or position larger saltwater boats, long-shaft trolling motors all operate on 36 volts DC, which requires a bank of three 12-volt deep-cycle batteries. The Minn Kota produces a maximum of 112 pounds of thrust, while the Rhodan offers 120 pounds of thrust.

How long will batteries last with these motors? That, of course, hinges on initial battery charge, how much thrust you use and for what length of time. But to give you an idea, Arnold has fished with his trolling motor for as long as six hours. “I have never run out of battery power,” says Arnold, who always starts the day with a fully charged battery bank.

Deployment and Control

A drawback to both the Minn Kota and Rhodan models lies in their manual deployment and retrieval. Someone has to go forward and wrestle with the motor. It’s easier on a center console than on a cabin boat such as the Parker 2505.

Once deployed, however, operation is very easy. Most captains employ the wireless function, which allows control of the motor from virtually any place on the boat, such as the helm, the aft deck or even a tower, using a wireless remote.

Dealing with Waves

One other issue to consider when using a bow-mount electric trolling motor in offshore applications: rough seas. While long shafts keep motors and propellers submerged in relatively calm conditions, sometimes the waves lift the bow too high.

When closely spaced waves build, causing the bow to rise and fall dramatically, the motor periodically comes out of the water and the prop loses its bite. “My motor works in winds up to about 20 mph,” Arnold says. “After that, the waves get too high and the motor keeps popping out of the water.”

Reverse Engineering

As trolling-motor companies engineer models for offshore use, some boat builders have designed offshore boats for trolling-motor use. For example, the Crevalle 33 CSF, a new deep-V center-console fishing boat, features a dedicated trolling motor mounting surface on the forepeak, much like that of many bay and hybrid boats.

“We see increasing numbers of anglers using bow-mount trolling motors for offshore fishing,” says Ken Russell, chief operating officer for Crevalle Boats, based in Wildwood, Florida. “That’s why we built the 33 CSF with a trolling motor pad.”

The 87-inch Minn Kota Riptide Terrova starts at $2,999.99, and the 84-inch Rhodan HD GPS Anchor starts at $2,999.

Quick-Release Brackets

Quick-release trolling-motor brackets—known colloquially as pucks—make it easier for anglers to remove bow-mount motors when needed. With the pull of a pin, you can easily clear the forward deck for fly fishing or cast-netting, or remove the motor at home to prevent theft. Re-mounting is just as quick.

Most trolling-motor brands offer such devices as optional accessories, but a new one on the aftermarket from Power Pux includes a water-resistant electrical socket and plug, rated for up to 60 amps, built into the assembly. Everything connects as you slide the trolling motor into the polyethylene base of the puck. A stainless-steel, locking double pin secures the motor.

With the GPS-guided motors that are so popular among today’s saltwater anglers, this completely eliminates any external power cords that can create snags or trip points.

To ease retrofits, the Power Pux bolt pattern matches that of popular quick-release bases currently on the market. The brand also offers an optional cover to protect the base when the motor is not installed.

A Power Pux kit—including wiring pigtails, hardware and padlock— sells for $499.99.

The post Long-Shaft Electric Trolling Motors appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.