NAUTICAL MILE
P U B L I C A T I O N S
Capt. Jack Innis
50 Greatest Catches
On any given day, any given angler can catch a world record fish. It’s a well-known
fact among angling historians that for every angler who spent years in pursuit of
a record fish, another just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than between the pages of “BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches.”
BIG is a stunningly beautiful collection of more than 50 paintings of freshwater, saltwater, and migratory IGFA world records by renowned artist Flick Ford. Each image is accompanied by a short story of when, where, and how the fish was caught.
It’s hard to say what’s best about this book:
The paintings are so masterfully done that they should be required study by anyone
tempted to enter the field of fish illustration. Some of the fish seem ready to jump
off the pages. By way of example, the world record Great Barracuda (85 pounds, 8
ounces taken by John Helfrich in 1992 at Christmas Island) spreads across a double
page (as do all illustrations) to reach more than two feet in length. From the tip
of the barracuda’s jutting jaw to the near-translucent edges of its powerful tail,
Flick Ford supplies an enormous amount of detail from intricate scale patterns to
colorful markings to capturing the precise look predator’s eye.
Flick’s paintings achieve a fine balance between artistry and anatomical accuracy. Where other artists may render fish that look lifeless or cartoonish, Flick in “BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches” manages to capture each species’ true proportion, color, and give readers a sense of what it looked like fresh out of the water.
A collection of Flick’s paintings alone would make for a fantastic coffee table book. But equally interesting are the stories, old photographs, and other images that complement, supplement, and complete the pictures.
Angling historian and avid angler Mike Rivkin uses words to paint vivid pictures that work to place the reader square in the middle of the battle. From Mike’s account of the capture of the world record Great White Shark (2,664 pounds taken by Alfred Dean in 1959 in South Australia):
“The angler was well prepared and ready on his record-setting day. No fancy gear
for him, just two, enormous Mustad 18/0 hooks and Penn 14/0 reel crammed with 130
lb. test line. Dean’s carefully honed technique also included the use of great pieces
of porpoise, seal, or whale meat lashed to the boat as chum. A steady drip of whale
oil or blood over the side further served to bring the great whites around the boat…if
all those aromas couldn’t attract a record shark, then nothing else could!”
With hundreds of possible world record fishes to chose from in the making of “BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches”, Flick and Mike had their hands full shortening the list to 50.
Criterion included sheer size, popularity, beauty, and the story behind the record.
Ford Flick studied art for ten years before diving headlong into the New York indie
film, publishing, illustration, and music scene. A hardcore angler, Flick began painting
fish in the early 1990s and never looked back. Concern about the effects of pollution,
over-development, and acid rain in the Northeast inspired him to begin keeping an
annotated photo journal of fish he caught. This journal inspired Flick’s first book,
FISH: 77 Great Fish of North America (Greenwich Workshop Press), published in 2006,
which won the bronze Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) for best coffee table
book. His detailed watercolor portraits of fish are widely exhibited and sought by
collectors. Today he lives on the Hudson River outside Albany, New York. He ties
his own flies and fishes more than 100 days a year.
Mike Rivkin is a retired catalogue publisher widely recognized for his spirited and
successful copywriting. He is also a veteran offshore angler, Past President of the
venerable Tuna Club of Santa Catalina Island, and has served as an International
Game Fish Association International Representative. Mike has written extensively
on the history of angling, including the widely acclaimed books “Big-Game Fishing
Headquarters: A History of the IGFA,” “Angling and War: The Collision of Big-Game
Fishing and WWII,” and the newly released “West Palm Beach Fishing Club.” On the
water, Mike has caught every type of marlin that swims including a 1,226-pound black
marlin taken off Australia in 1984. Today Mike lives in La Jolla, California with
his wife and three children and plies the nearby Pacific waters on his boat Silverfish.
The book’s forward was written by fishing legend George Reiger, Conservation Editor of Salt Water Sportsman Magazine as well as Conservation Editor Emeritus of Field & Stream Magazine. George has fished throughout the Pacific Basin from Alaska to Australia; and in the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to South Africa. His books on fish and fishing include “Profiles in Saltwater.”
Published by the Greenwich Workshop Press, “BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches” contains more than 50 color paintings plus hundreds of photos. The hardcover, jacketed volume, very reasonably priced at $50.00 ($65.00 CAN), is a must have addition in any serious angler’s home, boat, or office.
To see more “BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches” go to www.greenwichworkshop.com/BIG.
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Fish Hooks - Need-To-Knows
It’s an industry where secrets are guarded more closely than Colonel Sander’s original
chicken recipe. Advanced reel technology? The newest graphite-rod composition?
Naw, we’re talking about fishhook manufacturing.
What’s that, you say? Fishhooks are nothing more than thin pieces of wire: bent, formed, sharpened, tempered, then coated. Why the cloak and dagger stuff?
Fishhooks have come a long way since their invention, at least 9,000 to 10,000 years ago, according to many historians. Our early ancestors most likely created those first fishhooks by snapping suitably angled twigs off a hawthorn or other hard bush. Throw a couple wraps of line around it, and you’re on your way to a nice fish dinner!
Although few well-preserved ancient wooden hooks exist, archeologists digging in
Norway, Czechoslovakia, and the Americas surmise that hooks evolved over the millennia
in lockstep with other technologies. Maybe this is where all the secrecy began. Grok
make better hook, Grok win jackpot.
While the first hooks were merely bent twigs, enterprising anglers discovered they could sharpened wooden hooks with fire. Over the millennia, wooden hooks were modified with barbs, grooves, and notches to hold line. Still later, compound wooden hooks were created. By lashing together one or more notched twigs, our fishing forefathers created stronger hooks enabling them to land larger fish. Larger fish meant anglers could be more efficient. This also provided a good excuse to get away from the cave for the day.
Actually, wooden hooks work surprisingly well. As late as the 1960s, some Swedish commercial fishermen preferred wooden hooks to steel. Burbot (a type of cod) were attracted to the scent of juniper, and would bite wooden hooks more readily than steel.
Of course, not all early hooks were made of wood. Native Americans fashioned hooks with hawk claws and eagle beaks. Collecting claws and beaks required a high threshold to pain, hence the word, “brave.” Tribal members more prone to bleeding contented themselves with using shells, bone, and horn to fashion fishhooks.
It makes sense that the advent of metal hooks closely followed mankind’s use of metals. Copper was first used around 4,200 BC; tin around 1,750 BC; and smelted iron about 1,500 BC (So that rusty old hook that’s been knocking around in the back of your tackle box is probably less than 3,500 years old).
As metal forging technologies advanced, fishhooks became sharper and stronger. Most
modern-day metal hooks are made of high-carbon steel. According to metallurgists,
carbon steel is a metal created by combining iron and carbon. Steel with a low carbon
content has the same properties as iron, soft but easily formed. As carbon content
rises, the alloy becomes harder and stronger but less ductile (easy to bend or form).
Typically, steel is classified by carbon content. Mild steel contains .10% to .25% carbon, medium carbon steel .25% to .45% carbon, high carbon steel .45% to .95% carbon, and very high carbon steel .95% to 2.1% carbon.
Often times, those involved in the manufacturing and sales of hooks will bandy about
phrases such as, “these hooks are 80 - 90% carbon steel.” While it is doubtful those
claims are based in fact, one can never put it past modern high-tech manufacturers
to produce such an oddity — and keep the results hush-hush.
Despite all the zigzags and head fakes one is likely to encounter when investigating fishhooks, basic manufacturing techniques are not all that different.
According to Steve Schreck, product manager at Eagle Claw, all fishhooks begin life as a big spool of wire. “The wire is attached to one end of a machine and travels around a bunch of different heads where they are formed, ground to form a point, cut, and then heat treated.” Schreck has since been reassigned to the Siberia for divulging that much, but word has it he already found a great lingcod hole.
While all companies use wire with high-carbon content, some, especially Japanese
manufacturers, use higher concentrations of carbon than Eagle Claw. Schreck declined
to state the exact makeup of Eagle Claw hooks, and would not estimate the carbon
concentrations of Japanese hooks. “Where a typical carbon content is 80 or 90, and
I’m not sure what those figures represent, they tend to use harder steel,” he said.
“What happens when you’re fishing and get into a bigger fish, ours will tend to bend
and not to break. Harder steel, while it tends to be nice and durable, tends to snap
and you lose a fish. If a hook bends and the barb is still sunk, you have a chance
to catch the fish. If the hook breaks, you’ve lost it.”
Japanese companies also differ in the way the hooks are made, Schreck said. While they usually begin as a wire, the hooks are cut into blanks first, then fed into a hopper where they are manipulated individually.
Owner Hooks are manufactured using an 18-step process — highly secret, of course
— according to manager Dennis Yamamoto. In fact, things are so secret at the Owner
factory in Japan that they won’t share some of their manufacturing secrets with Yamamoto.
Aside from metallurgical differences, low-cost hooks such as Eagle Claw and high-ticket
hooks such as Owner differ in how they are manufactured. From cutting the wire into
blanks to hand honing, each Owner hook is handled individually, rather than as a
mass, Yamamoto said.
By way of example, Yamamoto mentioned tempering. Tempering is technically defined
as re-heating hardened steel to a lower temperature, then cooling it. Tempering reforms
the metal’s structure for a combination of strength and toughness depending on the
temperatures used. Actual temperatures and times are carefully chosen for each composition.
Tempering hooks is normally accomplished by dropping large quantities of hooks into
a hot oil or salt solution. Owner hooks are tempered one at a time, so that no part
of the hook is touching another hook as the process takes place, Yamamoto said.
In addition, there are differences in the way hooks achieve their sharpness, Yamamoto said. “All hooks are ground. You have to grind a point to make a point. Our final sharpening is done chemically. What it does is hone the hook to a super fine point without taking away material from the tip.”
While the term “laser point” often finds its way onto fishhook packaging, it is not
known whether lasers are actually employed in the manufacturing process. Neither
Schreck nor Yamamoto acknowledged knowing anything about the laser points as advertised
on some fishhook packages. Of course, Schreck’s teeth were chattering so hard from
the Siberian cold that parts of his interview were not audible. Yamamoto was so worried
he might have compromised Owner’s integrity by admitting hooks were actually sharpened
that he put entire the fishing public might be on a need-to-know basis.
That being said, technology might exist to use lasers to sharpen or help align hooks for sharpening. Then again, it might not.
Both Schreck and Yamamoto are in positions to foresee new trends in fishhook design, but they are less than forthcoming with details.
“I get an idea or two every day it seems from people out in the field suggesting something new in fishhooks,” Schreck said. “Most of them are pretty wild: multiple moving parts, other things we can’t manufacture. But one in about 1,000 ideas actually translates into a new product. Right now, the major trends in fishhooks are in color and point technology. There are new things on the horizon for us, mostly having to do with freshwater fishing that we’re developing right now, but I can’t talk about them.”
Yamamoto, in what can only be described as a serious slip of the tongue, mentioned
that Owner recently applied for a patent. Although he would not divulge the type
of hook, size of hook, or species intended, he begrudgingly acknowledged that it
was intended for big-game and will be introduced at the 2005 ICAST Fishing Tackle
and Product Show in July.
Or maybe that’s what he wants his competitors to think.
One technological advent that has found acceptance elsewhere in the world but gotten
little play here in the United States is the use of stainless steel hooks. Hooks
made of stainless are stronger, lighter, thinner, and last longer, according to Emperor
Hook’s Marc Penicaud. Emperor is a small company that manufactures gold-plated stainless
steel hooks.
“High carbon steel gets its strength from two percent carbon,” Penicaud said in a release. “Stainless steel gets its strength from 12 percent chromium, which is lighter than iron or carbon. The benefits to using lighter hooks are that artificial baits move more naturally and live baits live longer and swim more freely. These benefits produce more strikes.”
Emperor’s proprietary gold plating adds bright color and attracts fish, Penicaud said. But stainless steel has a downside some anglers find unacceptable.
If a fish is lost with a carbon-steel hook embedded in its mouth or gullet, that
hook will eventually rust out and the animal may survive. Stainless steel hooks,
on the other hand, do not rust and would remain, hypothetically, in fish for as long
as it lives.
Penicaud, a San Diego resident, counters that some research shows that fish can release
stainless steel hooks from their bodies. He further points out that non-corroding
hooks keep fish healthier than corroding hooks, which might introduce toxins and
bacteria.
Emperor, which began existence in San Diego, has recently moved to Florida — possibly to distance themselves from Penicaud, who shares far, far too many secrets!
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Osprey
Osprey are amazing birds to behold!
Members of the raptor family, these seagoing birds have dark brown upper bodies that
contrast with white underbellies. In flight, they are recognizable by the distinct
angle at which they hold their wings. Perched on a sailboat mast, tree, or light
pole, they may be easily identified by their white head with a dark, raccoon-like
band across their eyes.
Seen year around in Florida, osprey, also called see eagles, are fun to watch. Relatives
of bald and golden eagles, these raptors feed exclusively on fish and are generally
most active mid-mornings and late afternoons. Boaters and anglers—often alerted by
the osprey’s distinctive “Cha-ree, cha-ree, cha-ree” vocalizations—spot them hovering
50 or more feet above the water, pumping their wings to hold position, while waiting
for the perfect opportunity to swoop down to snatch fish with their feet.
Once a prey is grasped in the osprey’s talons, the bird rarely lets go as flies back to its perch to consume its meal.
These fish-eating raptors were once somewhat plentiful in the United States. But
that all changed in the late 1940s when the pesticide DDT came into use. According
to the Environmental Protection Agency, the very effective, broad-spectrum pesticide
was used to control insect pests on crop and forest lands, around homes and gardens,
and for industrial and commercial purposes. It also wreaked havoc on certain bird
species that ingested DDT that had worked its way through the food chain and into
their diets.
Partly in response to environmental concerns related to raptors such as osprey, the EPA banned the general use of DDT in the United States in 1972. Many raptors, including osprey, have been slow to recover.
“The osprey’s nesting success has been decreased in many areas because the fish it eats are contaminated with toxic chemicals,” according to the Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Birds.
Today, osprey populations in Florida and across the United States in general are on the rebound. In some areas, mankind has been able to help undo past damages done by building osprey nesting platforms in various locations around waterways inhabited by osprey.
If the platforms succeed in attracting the sea eagles, the hobby of bird watching around these waterways will no doubt soar!
In North America osprey range from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans: mainly in
northern coasts and inland lakes and rivers. Adult osprey generally reach about 21-24
inches in length. These birds of prey have extremely strong wings and can create
rather large nests built out of sticks, tree branches, and any other handy material.
One osprey nest that was examined contained a four-foot-long fiberglass ATV whip
antenna—a stunning testament to the birds’ lifting power.
During nesting season, Osprey lay two to four pink or white eggs with light brown and olive speckles which take about five weeks to incubate and hatch.
So next time you’re down near the waterfront, keep an eye out for these beautiful
sea birds. Easier still, keep your ears tuned for their distinctive “cha-ree, cha-ree,
cha-ree” vocalizations. They are amazing birds to behold!
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PLB’s
It took the fishing public long enough to memorize that EPIRB was an acronym for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. Now there’s PLB.
PLB, short for Personal Locator Beacon, is a relatively new kid on the block. Like its big brother EPIRB, the PLB sends out an automated distress signal to a group of satellites overhead. Should a boater have trouble, either of these dandy signaling devices are designed to make one thing happen: start the rescue helicopter rotors turning.
For EPIRB or PLB, the system works basically like this: In an emergency, the EPIRB or PLB triggers a signal that contains the boat’s exact position and other important information. This signal heads for one of several overhead satellites. The satellites then relay the signal back to earth. Signal received at a control center in the National Oceanic and Aerospace Administration (NOAA) office in Washington DC. are forwarded to the appropriate search and rescue organization.
But there are differences. While EPIRBs are big and bulky, PLBs are slim and sleek.
On average, EPIRBs are about the size of a small loaf of bread and weigh between
one and two pounds. Most EPIRBS are bracket-mounted aboard a boat.
PLBs, on the other hand, are about the size of a cordless telephone handset and weigh
just over one-half pound. PLBs may be clipped to a life jacket or tucked into a pocket,
giving wearers the assurance that should something dreadful befall them, help will
not be long in arriving.
Despite the fact that they can be worn, PLBs experienced lukewarm public reception at first.
“The first year was an educational process, both for the industry and the customers,” said John Bell, spokesman for ACR Electronics, manufacturer of EPIRBs and Personal Locator Beacons. “Year two is where sales began to show.”
Years later, the prognosis has changed.
“They’ve become very popular because they have all the power as the bigger ones,” said a West Marine salesman. “They can be used as a personal device, rather than one for the whole life raft. Although PLBs and EPIRBs are both somewhat pricey, there are significant differences that anglers consider before selecting one or the other.
“While some EPIRBs deploy automatically when they come in contact with water outside of their bracket, PLBs must be manually activated,” said Bell. “In addition, to use a PLB, the antenna must be extended and pointed skyward.”
These differences may not amount to much to a hiker lost in the woods (quite a few PLBs are sold to hikers and campers), but may be significant to boaters.
If an angler falls overboard with a PLB clipped to his or her life vest, he or she must physically activate the device, then extend the antenna and point it skyward. If such an angler were knocked unconscious, injured, or for some other reason could not perform those tasks, the device would never transmit.
The Coast Guard believes that anglers looking at either device are doing themselves a big favor.
“Regardless which one you chose, having an EPIRB or PLB on board is essential,” said Coast Guard spokesman Robert Lanier. “I am absolutely convinced that these are the best tools you can have on your vessel. If most VHF radios get submerged, they quit working. If an EPIRB or PLB gets submerged, it still works. With the digital GPS signal generated by these new devices, Coast Guard notification is almost instantaneous. The a 406 signal gets picked up by a satellite, goes to a command center, then to district headquarters in a matter of seconds.
Some well-intentioned boaters go wrong by selecting or hanging onto an older model
121.5 MHz EPIRB. While the 406 transmits to authorities the boat name, size, owner
name, precise location and other important information, the 121.5 just sends out
a general signal that something, somewhere has gone wrong. Not only is the false
alarm rate for the 121.5 units astoundingly high — some reports say as high as 98
percent, the lack of information broadcast translates into extra time in getting
a search underway.
By way of example, when John F. Kennedy Jr.’s airplane crashed en route to Martha’s Vineyard in July, 1999, his airplane, a Piper Saratoga II, was equipped with a 121.5EPIRB. Sources at the time of the crash estimated it took several hours for authorities to pinpoint even a rough location of the signal source. Even then, they had no way of linking that particular signal with the overdue airplane.
Although sources vary as to the 406’s accuracy, printed information from ACR states
that on a worldwide average a typical 406 MHz EPIRB might pinpoint a position within
a 2.3 nm area in about an hour. A GPS-enhanced EPIRB or PLB will pinpoint a position
within .5 nm in 15 minutes.
EPIRB technology has overtaken the 121.5 units to the point that on November 3, 2000, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that satellite processing 121.5/243 MHz emergency beacons will be terminated on February 1, 2009. All 121.5 EPIRBs will be obsolete on that date. The Coast Guard no longer recommends these EPIRBs be purchased.
But if an angler upgrades from a 121.5to a 406, don’t do what one Oregon man did recently. After buying a new 406, the man sold his 121.5 at a garage sale.
“The new owners, not boaters, had no idea what they were buying,” said Lanier. “They only knew it was bright, shiny, waterproof and had a neat flashing light on the top.”
So the new 121.5 owners did what was logical to them, they plunked it into their swimming pool and turned on the light. Many frustrating hours later, the Coast Guard finally pinpointed the beacon’s source well inland from any possible marine use. The Coast Guard contacted the police department, who knocked on the 121.5 owners’ door and told them to turn off the EPIRB.
“We certainly didn’t prosecute in this instance, because there was no intent,” Lanier said. “But the taxpayers ended up footing a huge bill in time and manpower to make sure it wasn’t an actual disaster. If you need to get rid of an old 121.5, please contact the Coast Guard.”
So what’s in the future for EPIRBs and PLBs? Will they ultimately shrink to the size of a Dick Tracy wristwatch?
“They’re about as small as they’re going to get, unless battery technology changes
drastically,” said Bell. “There’s a certain amount of fine-tuning and sculpting that
can be done, but we’re pretty much limited by battery size.”
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What’s the Point?
Last July I was fishing out of San Diego on my Parker 21 SE “Calafia.” It was one of the most epic solo trips of my life. About 25 miles offshore working floating kelp patties I had scored a huge bull dorado, a nice sized yellowtail, and three nice yellowfin tuna in the 30 pound range. My boat’s 120 quart cooler was plugged with fish. I was headed toward the barn with a huge smile on my face when I noticed an enormous amount of bird activity only nine miles outside of my home port, Mission Bay.
I headed toward the flock of diving terns and seagulls and saw yellowfin leaping out of the water. The school was on the move; a good way to work these schoolers is circle your boat around in front, shut off the engine, and to flyline (toss without weight) a live sardine as far upwind as possible.
Tough Lesson!
I grabbed a 25-pound test outfit—I had already retied a cut off a few feet of line
and retied the Mustad 94150 2/0 hook—and flylined my sardine into the water. Two
seconds later it was fish on! This tuna pulled much harder than the three in my cooler
had! The battle lasted at least 10 minutes. After two failed attempts at solo gaffing
(that’s a whole ‘nuther story), I finally got the fish to lay on its side within
gaff range. Just as I was about to sink the gaff head, the hook popped lazily out
of the fish’s jaw. The tired gladiator swam away in victory.
I, on the other hand, was stunned. Obviously, since I’m writing about it nearly a year later, the sting of defeat of losing that one fish stayed with me much longer than thrill of grilling those I caught.
So I polled my most hardcore fishing buddies to find out what exactly I had done wrong.
They all agreed: Despite 10 minutes of pulling, the dull hook had not penetrated the fish’s jaw enough to bury the barb.
Now I know lots of anglers who use nothing other than $3 laser sharpened hooks. That’s okay, I use ‘em too sometimes. But the art of hook sharpening should not be lost. I vowed to make certain the lesson of that day was not lost on me. Here’s some information on sharpening hooks.
Basic Sharpening Techniques
Pick up at your local bait and tackle store one of those special hook sharpening
stones that have a groove or track down the middle. They come in a variety of shapes
and sizes. For fresh and saltwater fishing in Florida, a Lansky Diamond Fish Hook
Sharpener with three different sized grooves will cover all bases. First, place the
hook in the appropriate-sized groove with the point in the direction you plan to
stroke. With light pressure, draw the hook down the groove. I sharpen hooks on either
side of the barb but not directly across from the barb so that the point is less
apt to roll when it comes in contact with a boney mouth fish; but there seems to
be a lot of different theories as to exactly how hooks should be sharpened.
Most anglers agree that heat and over-sharpening are your enemies.
All sharpening activities produce heat, and too much heat can reduce the strength of the metal and soften the point. Avoid pressing the hook too hard onto the stone and always apply a drop or two of reel lubricating oil onto the sharpener to avoid heat buildup.
For most types of fishing, you want to make the hook as sharp as possible. But be careful not to remove too much metal from the point. The best way to keep yourself from going past razor sharp (to where you’re weakening the hook) is to simply use a gentle stroke and check your progress frequently. Just lightly press the meaty part of your thumb onto the tip of the hook. If it’s sharp, you’ll feel it!
Hone Your Skills
Hooks, like anglers, come in all shapes and sizes. This diversity means that the art of hook honing is one that can be honed with practice. Anglers are not only particular about their hooks, but particular about how they sharpen their hooks. The best way to learn the art of hook sharpening is to practice, practice, and practice some more. Or else do as I did and learn the lesson the tough way.
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Twins or Single
Flight instructors love to ask this question of new pilots: On a small, twin-engine
airplane, what is the role of the second engine if the first engine loses power?
Answer: To fly you to the scene of the accident.
Ah, if it were that easy for boaters to decide, the twin versus single outboard debate
would have ended decades ago. Fact of the matter is; twin-engine boats are not like
twin-engine airplanes. Twin-engine boats don’t tend to act hellishly if one engine
loses power.
Single engine boats, on the other hand, are a lot like single engine airplanes. If power is lost, you’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
So how does an angler decide when he or she is picking out their dreamboat? Flip a coin?
There’s a better way to decide, according to Rob Sanford, general manager of Pacific Offshore Marine in San Diego. But first, it pays to understand the differences.
Negative Spin
First, it costs nearly twice as much money to power a twin engine boat as it does
a single. “Let’s suppose you put a single 250 four-stroke on the back of your boat,”
said Sanford. “That’s about an $18,000 engine. If you put twin 150s back there, they’re
about $15,000 apiece. So you’ve gone up $12,000.”
Beyond original purchase price, feeding twins can be quite expensive. You have twice the maintenance costs, twice the moving parts, and twice the fuel consumption, says Sanford. “You basically double everything you do on a typical annual service, double everything you do at the fuel dock, double everything you’d do on routine maintenance. Obviously, it’s not going to be exactly double, but it’s closer to double than most people think,” he said.
Twins weigh more too. The average outboard weighs in the vicinity of 500 pounds. Double that and you’ve got a half a ton of engines sitting on your transom.
Positive Spin
But twins have their advantages. An outboard powered boat behaves better when it
has two propellers spinning. Twins wander less and with counter-rotating props offer
a better bite in the water. They are more stable when trying to negotiate quartering
seas. When running down swell, they tend to grab better.
Additionally, single engine boats with cable steering may produce “torque steer,” a condition that results from the rotational thrust of a single outboard. A boat with torque steer will pull dramatically to one side or the other unless the trim tab on the back of the outboard’s cavitation plate is perfectly adjusted to counter that.
Close Quarter Drills
Not everyone knows that twin-engines boats maneuver much better in close quarters.
“Some people are nervous when they go from a single to a dual prop boat,” Sanford said. “We try to teach people that the operation of a twin is easier than a single. You can literally spin a twin engine boat around in its own length by putting one engine in forward and the other in reverse.”
But by far, the biggest draw for a twin-engine setup is safety. If you’re out chasing
tuna 60 or 70 miles offshore and hit a pallet, a log, or even a piece of rope on
a single engine boat, you’re stranded. Chances are with a twin, one of the engines
will get you home.
That’s exactly why Jim Sanders decided to buy a twin engine Glacier Bay Isle Runner.
The North San Diego County resident’s 22-footer came with a pair of Yamaha 115-horsepower
outboards.
“I can’t stress how important it is for me and my family to have that extra built in safety net,” Sanders said. “If you’re out to sea and you lose power, sure Vessel Assist is going to come out and get you. But when? How long will it take, and how will that experience effect the people on board or the people waiting at home for you to return?”
The costs involved in maintaining a pair of engines are just about double, but it’s entirely worthwhile, Sanders says. “It’s safety combined with peace of mind.”
1.5 Outboards?
Some people split the difference by purchasing a single outboard engine and then adding a kicker motor. A kicker is a small outboard engine attached next to the main engine. Usually under 15 horsepower, kickers are primarily used for slow trolling, but they’ve brought many an angler back to port when the main engine failed.
The chief problem with using a kicker for backup, is that it can’t move the boat very fast. “I’ve had people say, ‘sure, but I’ve got a little 10 horsepower kicker motor,’ ” Sanford said. “I tell them, ‘just remember, it might take you all night to get back to home.’ ”
It makes sense. On a glassy morning, a kicker might be able to provide a solid six to eight knots. But if the wind is howling and there are sharp head seas, a kicker may provide no headway at all.
Decisions, Decisions!
So what is the best outboard power plant? Well, if money is no object, it seems as though twins get the nod. There are safety in numbers — plus they handle and maneuver better. But those on a budget may discover that equipping a boat with twins may cut deep enough to force them into a smaller boat. Not good!
But for certain anglers, a single is the perfect power plant.
“I’m a big fan of twins for anybody who spends a lot of time fishing way offshore.”
Sanford said. “If he’s fishing ‘way out,’ spending a lot of time in that 30- to 100-mile
zone, I’m a big fan of twins. You have more controllability in rough seas, you have
better efficiency in a following swell, and the safety.”
But ask yourself exactly how you’re going to use the boat before you buy, he says. “If a guy is fishing near the coast, a single is great. You have lower purchase price, better fuel economy, and less maintenance.”
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The Ones that Didn’t Get Away
Anytime an angler begins to tell a story — especially to a non-angler — we get pigeonholed
into one of two categories: If we actually landed the fish in question, we’re braggarts.
If the fish won the battle, the listener assumes it’s one of those, “You should have
seen the one that got away” stories.
But the truth is, on any given weekend, numerous fishing battles occur on the briny seas. Anglers win some fights. Fish win others. Yet because of this pigeonholing, we mope about the office all week long, afraid to share any of our stories, good or bad. To help break this vicious cycle, a few anglers have gone public with stories of “Ones That Didn’t Get Away.” I’ll be the first out of the closet. As anyone who has watched me fish will attest—angling is 95 percent luck. But was this a lucky day for me or an unlucky day for the fish?
Three Strike Rule
I was aboard the Pacific Queen a few years back albacore fishing out of San Diego.
After a slow start, Capt. Mark Oronoz found the hot zone. We spent the afternoon
working schools of 30- to 40-pound albacore. Not wanting to exceed my five-fish limit
early, I ignored Capt. Mark’s instructions and dropped down to 20-pound test.
I cast an unweighted sardine out off the starboard side near the bow and watched it swim merrily along. Suddenly, a longfin tuna slashed through. Bendo! The fish inhaled the bait and immediately dragged me toward the crowded transom. No less than 20 fishing lines were angled out in various directions. A deckhand worked his magic to help me move over, under, and sideways through the snarl.
The fish then dragged me up the portside rail. I nervously eyed the bow, where no less than seven rods were bent in one tight bunch. Two deckhands were working feverishly straighten out crossed lines. My albacore decided to join in on the action. The crew worked like maniacs and managed to untangle every line. A few minutes later my fish swam for clear water off the starboard bow, right back where we started. Man that was lucky, I thought.
Ten minutes later, I laid the exhausted fish on his side just below the water and
called for the gaff. The deckhand swung. The tip of the gaff missed the fish! but
somehow the tight curve of the gaff hooked around fork of the albacore’s tail — like
a shepherd’s staff around a sheep’s neck. The deckhand pulled hand-over-hand and
brought the un-punctured fish onto the deck.
All I could do was think how unlucky it was for the fish to not bust the line amidst
the big snarls on the bow; then to get plucked from the water by the tail! I grabbed
my pliers to retrieve the hook. That’s when I noticed the J hook had bent until it
formed perfect L. Only a 1/32nd-inch hook barb had kept that fish from swimming free.
Million Dollar Fish
For one hour and five minutes worth of work, $1,348,440 is not a bad paycheck. That’s
how much 61-year-old San Clemente-resident Gary Hoertig won the 2005 Bisbee's Black
& Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament with a 531-pound black marlin. Hoertig admits luck
was involved. There were nearly 200 tournament boats and more than a thousand anglers
fishing within 40 miles of Cabo San Lucas.
In addition to overcoming those odds, Hoertig’s fish was taken on a jig. Experts
say big black marlin rarely eat jigs. They’re far more likely to eat a dorado someone’s
fighting. Even though $1.3 million was the biggest payout in the tournament’s history,
Lady Luck had the last laugh. Had Hoertig entered a $5,000 side-derby, his fish would
have been worth more than $2 million! “You never know how these things will turn
out,” Hoertig said.
Breaking Point
In 1984, La Jolla, California resident Mike Rivkin was fishing black marlin off Australia’s
Great Barrier Reef with legendary Captain Peter Bristow. Late on the ninth day of
a 10-eay trip, they had a double hookup. Rivkin grabbed the portside rod. Both fish
jumped, and the starboard fish popped off.
For the next three hours, Rivkin made no progress on the fish. Bristow became concerned that it would become too dark to navigate the maze of coral heads to get inside the reef for the night. Bristow told the angler to either button down the drag on the 12/0 Fin Nor reel or let the fish loose. Rivkin buttoned down, but it made little difference.
Suddenly the fish sounded and both men watched as 130-pound-test line begin peeling
off the spool. The captain reiterated his concerns and instructed Rivkin to button
down the drag again. By now, the angler was straining with every muscle of his arms,
legs, and back.
More than 750 yards of line was out when they noticed a splice; line of a different
color began passing through the rod’s eyelets. Soon, less than 30 yards was left
on the 800-yard spool. Rivkin tightened the drag until he was literally standing
in the chair, straining with every muscle he had. With only 20 yards left, the marlin
stopped and went into its death throes.
It became a test to see whether the winching power of the reel could overcome the
dead weight of the fish. As the captain nervously watching the setting sun, the angler
cranked the handle one half turn at a time.Right at sunset the massive fish popped
up to the surface, stone-cold dead. It took everyone aboard to wrestle the leviathan
into the 44-footer’s cockpit.
With the fish hanging out the transom door, Bristow navigated the coral reef maze and anchored. The next morning, they hightailed it into Cairns and winched it up onto the scale. The fish weighed 1,226 pounds! Curious, Bristow measured the Fin Nor’s drag pressure. It had been buttoned down to 95 pounds. The captain checked his records and discovered the line at the bottom of the spool beneath that splice was no less than 15 years old. Bristow then tested the old line on a scale. It consistently broke at 95 pounds!
In the sport of recreational angling, heroic battles such as these occur on just about any given weekend. Anglers win some fights. Fish win others. But one fear anglers should never have to experience is that their stories will be misconstrued as bragging.
In reality, they’re only stories of the “Ones That Didn’t Get Away.”
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Take a Kid Fishing
Do you remember your first fishing trip? Was it an experience worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting, or did your parents chew you out for doing everything wrong?
Taking kids fishing is an investment that has long term payoffs. If done correctly, you just might develop a partnership that lasts for years to come. Done incorrectly, you might turn the child off from fishing for life.
It may help to switch out of the parent mode, if possible, when you take your child fishing. Instead of “taking your kid fishing,” imagine instead that you’re an unpaid guide and your child is your client. This will be his or her fishing trip, not yours. Sure, you may know the barracuda are biting about 30 feet deep, but if your girl wants to flyline a sardine just so she can watch it swim in lazy circles near the swim step, so be it.
At first, you should probably forego any notion of fishing yourself—you’ll likely be too busy helping them cast and untangle lines. It may seem like a high price to pay, but imagine the joy your sacrifice will bring in years to come as your protégé learns to fish well.
Children’s needs are different than adult’s. As an unpaid guide, try to provide your kids with:
Entertainment.
Children have short attention spans. They will complain if the fish aren’t biting or if the boat trip seems too long. Try to understand the basis of their feelings and don’t force them or use “parental influence” to fish if they’ve grown tired of it. Ask if you can hold their pole for them and let them play with the bait. When you feel that providential tug, hand him (or her) the pole but be there to help reel in their catch. If possible, capture that magic moment on camera. If the fish needs to be released, explain why and make sure the child is has a hand in doing so. It usually doesn’t take much to convince a kid to toss back a fish that’s a kid too!
Patience.
Accept that they may not want to fish for more than a short while. Keep the outing short (under an hour for beginners) and try to end on a high note. Even on a day when the fish aren’t cooperating, an ice cream cone on the way home will often cheer up even the crabbiest junior angler.
Safety.
Young children aboard boats should always wear a Coast Guard approved personal floatation device (PFD). Make sure it fits well and does not interfere with casting and retrieving. One technique that may help reluctant kids want to wear their PFDs is to hand them a felt pen and have them write their name inside.
Simple gear.
Small, light poles and spinning reels are good choices. Take them to the tackle store, if possible, and get them involved in the selection process. Your best ally there is the salesman, who probably has helped dozens of kids learn the difference between a cheap outfit and a decent one.
A tackle box.
Help them feel independent by giving them a small, plastic tackle box. It doesn’t need to be extravagant, even one of those clear, flat, plastic boxes will do. Hand them a few small hooks, a couple of sinkers, and a small lure and let them organize it as they see fit.
Kids love being involved in organized activities. One great place to start is an International Game Fish Association Junior Angler’s Membership. For a few bucks a year, kids get a cool hat, stickers, ID cards, and a great quarterly newsletter to keep them interested in fishing even in the slow season.
Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other organizations have badges and patches that kids
can work for. Boy Scout merit badges include fishing, fly fishing, oceanography and
more. Girl Scout Brownies through Ambassadors may be interested in the Water Drop
Patch Project, co-produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Water
Drop Patch Project inspires Girl Scouts to learn about water quality and to take
action in their communities to protect and restore local water resources.
Young anglers’ fishing derbies are another great way to get kids interested in angling. Check at your local bait and tackle store—often the kids tournaments are free, and there are usually plenty of volunteers around to help untangle lines and tie hooks. Try not to place too much of an importance upon winning. Rather, adopt the attitude that “whoever has the most fun wins!”
The key to getting kids interested in fishing, and keeping them interested, is to relearn the art of thinking like a kid.
Sure, the day you spend fishing with the young ones will likely be different than if you left them at home. You might not land as many fish, but with a little luck you’ll hook something even more important!
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Going Overboard for Tuna
Charter boat Capt. Mark Oronoz is serious about not letting bluefin tuna get away. Unlike other schooling species, when a bluefin tuna gets off the hook it may spook the school, Oronoz believes.
That’s why the Pacific Voyager captain was determined not to lose a bluefin hooked
on a memorable two-day trip out of San Diego. On day one, albacore tuna went off
and the boat picked up near limits. But dwindling bait supplies and skittish bluefin
schools on day two meant that no fish could be wasted.
Good friend Kathy Gillon had already had lost two bluefin that day. After receiving
a second “keep your drag loose” lecture from Oronoz, Kathy took the message to heart
and set her drag to about one-third the 25-pound line weight. Under watchful and
envious eyes, she hooked into her third bluefin of the trip.
The fight occurred at the end of a stop, and the feisty fish took Kathy around the
boat four times in 40 minutes. Perhaps due to the camaraderie that developed during
the charter, or perhaps due to the fact most everyone had near-limits, nobody seemed
in a hurry to get underway. In fact, those who were soaking live bait on the rail
lifted their rods high and cheered (did the wave) every time the petite woman passed.
Then the bluefin wised up. It began a fifth trip around the transom toward the bow on the downwind side. But that was a head fake. As Kathy raced toward the bow, the fish doubled back and wrapped around both rudders.
Kathy brought the rod back to the transom and tried to work the fish free. She couldn’t find an angle to clear the fouled line. Putting the reel out of gear didn’t allow the fish to unwrap itself either. The deckhands tried to free the fish to no avail.
Fearful the line would saw off on the rudders, fearful she’d finish the trip 0/3
on bluefin, and fearful she’d return home without her first-ever bluefin, Kathy begrudgingly
handed her pole to the Pacific Voyager crew for elective surgery.
With a deckhand holding the rod and burly passenger John Tapio holding Capt. Oronoz by the feet, the skipper leaned waaaayyy over the transom and used a spare rod rigged with a lure to snag the line between the rudder and the fish.
Nearly completely upside down, the 29-year veteran very gently pulled the line to
within grasp and wiggled himself back on deck. He immediately handed the line to
a bare-handed deckhand with the instructions not to yank on the fish, but pull very
gently to somehow gain an extra 10 feet.
“Half the time, these fish are only pulling back because you’re pulling on them,” Oronoz said. “If you stop pulling, they stop pulling.”
Knowing that any run of more than 10 feet would lose the fish, Oronoz told Kathy that he was going to cut the line.
“I was scared and couldn’t watch,” Kathy said. “I’d seen glimpses of the fish at least six times, but every time I brought him to the surface, he’d take off around the boat again.”
Using deft hands honed by year of practice, Oronoz snipped the line and spliced it back together—sans the section wrapped around the rudders.
Luckily, the tired fish cooperated by not tugging on the line during the procedure.
“A dropper loop is the quickest and strongest hitch to tie in situations like that,” Oronoz said. “You simply tie a traditional dropper loop and cut the loop.”
With the game back on, Kathy landed the exhausted bluefin a few minutes later.
Total time spent fighting the fish: 55 minutes.
Fish weight: approximately 35 pounds.
Watching Kathy fight back tears of joy: priceless.
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Keeping Trimmed
Ever have a hankering for a perfect boat? Big boats are great! They’ll take nearly any type of seas without rattling the dishes or subjecting passengers to endless streams of salt spray coming over the gunwales. They’re roomy, great for overnighters, and don’t seem to strain if you bring a few big friends along for the ride. But big boats can be terribly expensive to buy, maintain, and operate.
Small, fast, trailerable boats are great! When the ocean’s smooth, they can zip around from launch ramp to fishing spot faster than most freeway commuters. They’re good for sneaking into tight spots in the kelp beds. They’re relatively inexpensive to buy and operate, and don’t require monthly slip payments.
But load up a small boat with big friends, ice chests, and tackle boxes — especially when seas are steep and the winds are high — and many deliver a wet ride and struggle to get on a plane.
In many angler’s minds, the perfect boat would be one that could change with the conditions. When the seas are flat and the winds are calm, the perfect boat would act small. When the weather turns, the perfect boat would somehow act larger.
Some knowledgeable boaters take a cue from aviation builders. Aircraft designers
face the same problem when trying to create a perfect aircraft wing. When a wing
is shaped to operate at high speeds, it doesn’t perform well at low speeds. Low-speed
wings create a lot of lift, but are inefficient at high speeds. In an effort to create
a perfect wing, designers incorporate adjustable flaps into the wings — extendable
control surfaces that can mimic low-speed, high-lift wings when extended, yet offer
high-speed profiles when retracted.
How does this translate into building the perfect fishing boat? Several equipment
manufacturers have torn a few pages from aircraft designers’ books to come up with
boat trim tabs — small airplane-flap-like appendages attached to the bottom of the
boat’s transom.
Adjustable trim tabs help get the hull on plane more quickly, keep the boat on plane
at slower speeds and provide a softer, drier ride. They can increase seaworthiness
in rough water, top speed, and fuel economy. While owners of boats in need of trim
tabs sometimes complain they have only two speeds: trolling and full throttle, owners
of trim-tabbed boats often boast that their boat feels longer than it really is.
Trim tabs effectively tune the hull’s shape for optimum performance in a variety of water, load, and speed conditions. Here’s how:
Most boats ride at their best attitude (fore and aft level) when running at or near
full speed and lightly loaded. When boats slow from high speed, they begin to settle
at the stern. Added weight such as passengers, fuel, and gear can add to this “squat.”
This bow-up position decreases fuel economy and visibility, and causes engines to
work harder.
Uneven side-to-side weight distribution usually results in listing to port or starboard.
This too can make boats harder to handle and get up on plane.
Large and small boats receive benefits from trim tabs for the same reasons — they help the boat get onto a plane quickly, correct for uneven weight distribution, improve speed, safety, and overall boat performance.
How Trim Tabs Trim
Most trim-tab systems are electro-hydraulic. Hinged trim tabs (made of stainless-steel
plate, cast of aluminum, or other alloy) are controlled by hydraulic rams activated
by electric rocker switches at the helm. When a rocker switch is depressed, relays
and solenoid valves tell the hydraulic pump how much fluid it needs to move from
the reservoir to actuate the rams, which in turn to move the hinged tabs mounted
along the transom bottom.
To Trim, or Not to Trim
Most boaters use trial and error to develop a feel for how their boat’s trim tabs should be set during varying speed, load, and sea conditions. By adjusting the tabs as the boat evolves through a range of speeds, experienced operators can get the boat up to speed quickly by lowering the trim tabs, then help the boat find an optimum planing level.
A boat out of trim may ride in a bow-high configuration or have a propeller so close
to the water's surface that it ventilates, losing thrust. Symptoms of an out-of-trim
boat include wandering — when the bow continually pushes and pulls to port or starboard,
and chine-walking — when the transom doesn’t seem to hold the boat’s course.
In following seas, proper trim-tab usage can help keep the bow high, which may deter
plowing the bow.
“Typically in following seas you want to keep the bow up.” Says Bennett Trim Tab spokesperson Mike Thorpe. “A low bow can be dangerous in following seas because when the stern lifts and the boat surfs down the wave, the bow may try to plunge. So you might fully retract the trim tabs to make the bow ride higher, depending on the configuration of the hull.”
In a beam sea, many operators like to adjust the trim tabs individually, so that the boat’s windward side rides slightly higher out of the water, which may make for a softer, drier ride. “You won’t be running level, but you can sometimes keep yourself and your passengers dry. A lot depends upon the boat hull and the load, but if you raise the gunwale to the windward side, the spray will shoot out instead of up and over and into your face.”
Most savvy skippers operate tabs in short bursts of about half a second. They continue
until the desire attitude is achieved. Caution must be exercised in all seas, load,
and speed conditions to not exceed the safety guidelines published by trim-tab and
boat manufacturers. Incorrect or excessive trimming may lead to unstable and dangerous
conditions.
Buy, Install, and Drive
Purchasing undersized trim tabs is one of the more common mistakes. A too-small trim
tab will need to be deflected too much to produce sufficient lift and will actually
create more drag than a set of larger tabs.
Some manufacturers suggest installing the largest set of trim tabs that comfortably
fit on the boat’s transom. Others suggest one inch of trim tab (linear, not square
inch) for every foot of boat length. So a 21-foot Parker SE would need a pair of
21” trim tabs. Most trim tabs have a cord (depth) of about nine inches, although
some are 12.
Proper trim tab placement helps ensure optimum performance. Trim tabs should follow
the “V” where the transom and boat bottom meet. For maximum side to side control,
trim tabs are generally mounted 3-4” from the chine and run towards the keel. Protrusions
such as strakes may be bridged. Most manufacturers recommend trim tabs not be placed
closer than 8 inches from inboard/outboard units to avoid disturbing the water flow
to the propeller.
Unless you are very handy with tools and extremely comfortable with drilling holes
in your boat, installation should be left to professionals. Although do-it-yourselfers
will be following specific manufacturer’s guidelines, basic trim tab installation
begins with positioning the trim tabs on the transom slightly up from the bottom
of the transom. Next, drill holes and install the trim-tab bracket. Mount upper bracket,
ensuring that fuel, water tanks, hoses, or electrical systems are not damaged, and
that they do not prevent the actuator wire from entering the hull through the upper
mounting bracket. Drill a larger hole behind the upper actuator and pass the actuator
cable through. Use a template to cut a hole in the console for the actuator switch.
Draw the wires from the actuators to the actuator switches, being careful not to
knick the wires on sharp edges. Use a suitable marine quality sealer and tighten
everything down.
If in Doubt, Accessorize!
Some boaters opt for accessories that enhance trim tab performance or make them easier to use.
* Trim-tab indicators help skippers keep track of where their tabs are set. They
can come with digital LCD readouts and are said to be very accurate.
* Automatic tab retractors automatically raise the trim tabs when the ignition is turned off. Boat trailers can cause damage if the tabs are left in the down position.
* Automatic tab retractors are easy to install and should pay for themselves by preventing
only one tab-down trailer encounter.
* Automatic tab control is the cruise control of trim tab operation. Set the desired boat attitude and the automatic controls adjust your trim to fit changing sea conditions or shifting weight. Like the rotisserie salesman on TV says, “Set it and forget it!”
So if you’d like more oomph out of the hole and to plane at slower speeds; if you’d enjoy a softer, drier ride with better seaworthiness in rough water; and you’d appreciate more top end and better fuel economy; think trim tabs. Sure, there’s no such thing as a perfect boat, but you can always make a good boat better!
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Dumb Fish
You dedicate your entire life to becoming a better angler.
You shirk work and household chores every chance you get to practice your craft.
You spend nearly every free moment reading up on fishing-related topics ranging from
knot tying to casting techniques.
You’ve blown a small fortune on all the latest gear from GPS chart plotters to color fish finders to Kevlar rods to fishing reels with gears so finely crafted they could be used to help a Rolex keep better time.
All this dedication to find out that fish are getting dumber? Yup!
According to a 20-year study on largemouth bass conducted by the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, some fish are more genetically programmed than others to get
caught. Not only that: but anglers who catch and release such fish helping dumb down
the gene pool!
To prove a point that many anglers have thought all along to be true, Urbana-Champaign
researchers created a small lake and stocked it with largemouth bass. Then, in keeping
with their secondary goal which was to have as much fun as possible on taxpayer dollars,
they went fishing!
Each fish caught was tagged.
"We kept track over four years of all of the angling that went on, and we have a
total record – there were thousands of captures," said David Philipp, ecology and
conservation researcher at Urbana-Champaign.
"Many fish were caught more than once,” Philipp said. “One fish was caught three times in the first 2 days and another was caught 16 times in one year."
Then researchers did something completely unexpected, at least from the fishes’ point of view; they drained the lake and counted all the fish.
What they discovered was that a small portion of the 1,700 total fish had never been caught. And apparently the smart fish weren’t mingling with the dumb fish, at least not in a romantic sense.
So what was happened over the course of 20 years was that the large group of dumb
fish grew faster than the small group of smart fish. Urbana-Champaign researchers
also had a bunch of fish fries in the name of science, but that’s another story.
Anyway, the selection process was repeated for several generations over the course
of the 20-year experiment.
"As we had predicted, vulnerability was a heritable trait," Philipp said. "Most of the selection is occurring on the (dumb) fish. We actually saw only a small increase in angling vulnerability in (smart) fish."
So what does all this mean? Well, Nautical Mile conducted a scientific survey of
anglers to determine what they thought the Urbana-Champaign research meant.
A very small group of anglers with rather large foreheads seemed to think the research
warranted further investigation into the evolutionary impact of catch-and-release
angling as a subset of recreational angling.
But the behavior of the larger body of recreational anglers was quite interesting indeed. Many anglers in the large group inadvertently completed the survey more than once. One angler completed the survey three times in the first two days and another submitted the survey form 16 times in one year!
This author completed the survey, but forgot to write his name at the top of the form.
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Crabby Lobsters
Apparently, misery does not love company after all.
So says a team of scientists who discovered that lobsters, like some cranky old writers, prefer to be alone when they’re under the weather.
It seems a certain species of lobster found off the coast of Florida are normally very sociable. According to an article published in Nature Magazine, “healthy Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) normally share their dens with other lobsters.”
This alone can be considered breaking news, since nobody seems to know exactly what
it is that lobsters “do” in their dens. Some believe these crusty crustaceans enjoy
lounging around in smoking jackets drinking 20-
But back to the research: Donald Behringer and Mark Butler, marine biologists at Old Dominion University in Virginia, teamed up with Jeffrey Shields of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point to study the social behavior of lobsters.
It should be noted that while Behringer and his cohorts used the words “study lobsters’” to obtain their federal grant, they obviously employed very strict scientific protocol while conducting research aboard their vessel anchored in the Florida Keys.
One evening, while taking an after-
Now the scientific world is divided into two camps regarding lobster illnesses. Some believe lobsters get sick just like human beings.
“How you doin’, Mort old buddy?”
“Miserable. I can’t seem to kick this stinking cold.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“Not with my co-
So Behringer and his team isolated what they believe is the world’s first known lobster disease—which they named PaV1. Then they came up with a theory to explain why sick lobsters avoid social situations.
"Avoidance of diseased lobsters is likely to be chemically mediated, given that olfaction mediates dominance hierarchies, mate choice, foraging and aggregation," they told Nature Magazine.
In understandable words: healthy lobsters sniff out sick lobsters and avoid them.
“You kids have been lying around the house all summer. Why don’t you go play with Uncle Mort?”
“Aw mom: Uncle Mort has that old man smell. Can’t we go just to the mall?”
But some scientists doubt that lobsters can contract and transmit communicable diseases.
Rather, they believe these sensitive crustaceans are vulnerable to psycho-
But what could trigger such strong emotional feelings in otherwise healthy lobsters?
A separate team of researchers is focusing on ultra-
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A Fish to Die For
The chance to catch, cook, and enjoy a delicious seafood dinner is part of the reason recreational angling ranks as America’s most cherished pastime.
Savory trout, full flavored tuna, and delicate flounder are often called “fish to die for.”
But there’s a certain fish to which those words may be applied literally—a fish that will kill you.
Puffer fish are among nature’s oddities.
In the wild, slow-
Puffer fish have one last line of defense. Many contain potent and deadly toxins (tetrodotoxin, saxitoxin, or both) which can cause severe illness and death when consumed by human beings.
These central nervous system toxins are 1,200 times more deadly than cyanide. Symptoms normally begin between 20 minutes and two hours of ingestion and include: tingling lips and mouth, dizziness, tingling extremities, problems speaking, loss of balance, muscle weakness and paralysis, vomiting, diarrhea, and in some cases death by respiratory paralysis.
Lord knows how or why, but centuries ago chefs in Japan discovered a way to prepare
puffer fish that made it safe to eat. Today, it’s considered a delicacy that fetches
around $300 (U.S.) per plate, usually served as a thinly-
But since eating puffer fish (also called fugu, bok, blowfish, globefish, swellfish, balloonfish, or sea squab) may have deadly side affects, Japanese law states that whole fish may be purchased only through highly regulated sources and prepared by highly trained chefs licensed by the government. It takes two to three years training to learn how to carefully clean fugu without allowing the liver, ovaries, testes, intestines, and skin to contaminate the flesh of the fish.
These tremendous downside risks have not stopped some illicit American restauranteurs
and well-
The FDA’s message to those who might be tempted?
Don’t!
Obvious cleaning challenges notwithstanding, there are 249 different species of puffer fish worldwide counting 38 species in U.S. waters including Florida. Not all 249 species of puffer fish can be successfully cleaned, says the FDA. Deadly toxins will remain.
The FDA also warns that tetrodotoxins and saxitoxins cannot be destroyed by cooking or freezing. In fact, freezing and thawing product prior to removal of toxic organs sometimes helps toxins migrate into the fish’s flesh.
Because incorrectly prepared puffer fish may be deadly, the FDA only allows puffer to arrive in the United States through JFK Airport. Since the FDA does not issue such licenses, only Japanese licensed “fugu” chefs may prepare puffer fish in the United States.
Is it worth $300 to eat a plate of properly prepared puffer fish? To some, it’s the ultimate meal. Maybe, as the saying goes, “it’s to die for.”
But in 1958, the year before Japan began regulating preparation of fugu chefs, 176 people died from puffer fish poisoning. To them, apparently, it was a meal worth dying for.
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Fishing vs Angling
California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) of 1999 was designed to create a network of Marine Protected Areas along the coastline that protect and conserve marine life and “improve recreational, educational and study opportunities.”
As many anglers know, the MLPA initiative in California was borne out of Executive Order 12962, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, which called for states to “conserve, restore, and enhance aquatic systems to provide for increased recreational fishing opportunities nationwide.”
Through concerted efforts of a handful of well-
With the Golden State rushing headlong and headstrong to establish marine protected areas, anglers in other states are growing increasingly worried about the future of their fishing rights.
One thing recreational anglers should know is that many well-
Therefore, when debates such as those in California begin to heat up in other coastal states, recreational anglers might find it helpful to be able to succinctly state the difference between recreational angling and commercial fishing.
Recreational Angling
The art of recreational angling is easily explained: Anglers go out with a limited number of rods and reels and catch fish generally one at a time. Anglers are licensed, governed by state agencies, and must adhere to bag limits, season limits, and closures that generally work well to maintain fish stocks.
Commercial Fishing
Commercial fishing is fishing done at a wholesale level. Commercial fishing is an extremely valuable industry that feeds a nation very hungry for seafood. That being said, most sources agree that recreational angling accounts for only a small percentage of fish caught worldwide. In discussions regarding possible closures, it is important that all parties know how commercial fishing works as opposed to recreational angling. For the purposes of this article, we’ll stick to fin fish.
Commercial fishing may be divided into two categories. Hook and line commercial fishing and net commercial fishing.
Hook and Line
Most commercial hook and line activities revolve around what are called longlines. As the name implies, longlines are long—sometimes miles in length and containing 2,500 or more baited hooks. They may be set out on the surface supported by buoys or on the seafloor balanced by buoys and weights. The longlines are then allowed to drift for days, attracting swordfish, tuna, halibut, cod, sablefish and other species including bycatch.
Commercial Net Fishing
The three main commercial fin fishing methods are drift netting, trawling, and purse seining.
Drift nets are basically panels of nets that hang vertically in the water. Suspended by floats, the nets work when schools of fish swim into them and become trapped. A popular net configuration is called a gill net. Gill nets with meshes of various size work by snagging the fish by the gills after the head passes through.
Trawls are large, conical nets pulled behind boats or ships. The trawls are usually dragged near or on the bottom and scoop up huge schools of fish. By law, most trawl nets are equipped with escape slots so that undersized fish may swim free. When the trawl net becomes full, it is hoisted onto the boat or ship.
A purse seine nets may be described as a long panel net supported by a string of
floats. When a purse seine boat spots a school of fish on the surface, it draws near
and sends out a small speedboat to encircle the fish with the panel net. After the
school is circled, the speedboat returns to the ship and the panel ends are brought
together. Then, the bottom of the net is drawn together—like the drawstring of a
purse—to prevent the fish from escaping downward. The bowl-
MLPA: Coming to a State Near You!
California’s MLPAs will undoubtedly act as a template for other states, which are
being forced to comply with former-
The trend to highjack the MLPA process is so prevalent that in 2008, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13474 amending Clinton’s order, “Ensuring that recreational fishing shall be managed as a sustainable activity in national wildlife refuges, national parks, national monuments, national marine sanctuaries, marine protected areas, or any other relevant conservation or management areas or activities under any Federal authority, consistent with applicable law.”
One thing fishermen and women need to be clear about in discussions with non anglers is that there is a distinct difference between angling and commercial fishing.
IGFA Helps Grandson
It was the kind of telephone call International Game Fish Association Representatives live for.
A central-
No date. No weight.
Not much to go on, but since his grandfather taught his father how to fish, and his father subsequently taught him, Rob thought it worth investigating. He picked up the phone and called me.
“I want to see if my grandfather actually caught a world record swordfish, and if so, would like to see about ordering a duplicate IGFA world record certificate,” Rob said. “I want to use the certificate to help memorialize my grandfather’s love of fishing.”
I called World Record Coordinator Becky Wright at IGFA headquarters and gave her the grandfather’s name, M.M. Culver. Nothing came up.
We were beginning to think that the world record fish might have been taken before the IGFA officially began its role as world record keeper in 1939. It’s not hard to imagine how some world record fishes could be lost or forgotten in the haze of time before the IGFA took on its official recordkeeping role. At that point, it looked like Rob’s quest might be futile.
But my good friend and IGFA Trustee Mike Farrior made an astute observation. Mike is an avid antique tackle collector and fishing historian. He took one look at the words, “World record, 50 pound” and made a brilliant deduction.
“Record fish caught before the IGFA was created would not have the line strength listed in pounds,” he said. “The line strength would be listed in threads.”
Great point Mike!
Prior to the advent of monofilament fishing line roughly during WWII, Dacron and linen lines were used. These woven lines were rated by thread count—each thread having an approximate wet breaking strength of three pounds. Thus, a “16 thread” line would have a theoretical breaking strength of 48 pound.
“Unless there’s a mistake in the note that Rob is using to track down this record, Mr. Culver’s fish had to be taken after WWII,” Mike said.
Armed with this new information, I called IGFA librarian Gail Morchower, who was
happy to break out the physical record books and begin scanning entry-
Two days later, Gail called.
“We’ve found it,” she said. Here’s the archive listing:
Species: Broadbill swordfish
Weight: 302 lbs
Length: 9'8"
Girth: 45"
Location: Dana Point, CA
Date caught: Sept. 2, 1948
IGFA record: 50 # line class
Name of angler: M.M. Culver
Date on Record Chart (in IGFA library) Aug. 15, 1949
I called Rob and gave him the good news. His grandfather had caught an IGFA world record fish! Rob was ecstatic—in fact, he immediately applied for a personal IGFA membership. He’s also submitting a request to see about getting a duplicate world record certificate to accompany his grandfather’s fishing memorabilia.
Then Rob gave me even better news. He had managed to locate a photograph of his grandfather
with the fish! He scanned the image and e-
Sure enough! There, all smiles, was the man who introduced Rob’s dad, and ultimately Rob, to the sport of fishing!
For sure, Rob’s was the kind of telephone call International Game Fish Association Representatives live for.
Top of Page
14,582 Miles
One of the staples of Southern California recreational fishing is the highly sought-
Southern California anglers have always wondered where they spent their winters.
After all, who would not like an off-
Now, science has taken a bit of the mystery away.
The story begins on Aug. 21, 2007 on a recreational fishing boat 100 miles southwest of San Diego. Bill McMahan, a realtor from Santa Ana, California caught a 31 pound albacore with a long slender piece of plastic sticking out its back right behind the dorsal fin.
This piece of plastic turned out to be a “spaghetti tag” with information that the lucky angler could earn $500 by phoning the 800 number etched in plastic and turning over the fish for scientific study. Bill made the call, a pickup person came by the following day, and 10 days after that a check for 500 bones from National Oceanic and Aerospace Administration (NOAA) appeared in his mailbox.
Bill was a very happy man.
Recently, NOAA contacted Bill and informed him that numbers had been crunched and asked him if he’d like to know more about the travels of the particular albacore he’d caught.
Sure, Bill said, and they e-
On August 6, 2006, what would a year later become Bill’s albacore was caught by hook
and line off Oregon near the mouth of the Columbia River. During a very brief operation
on deck, Bill’s fish-
A year later off San Diego, Bill caught his fish.
Using data from the archival tag, NOAA scientist recreated Bill’s fish’s footsteps.
Bill’s fish wandered around the Pacific Northwest for a while before swimming west all the way to Hawaii. After Hawaii, the tuna headed southeast about 500 miles, reversed his course northwest again for approximately 200 miles, then swam due east toward the Baja Peninsula off Mexico’s west coast. The fish leisurely swam more than 300 miles north before eating sardine with Bill’s fishhook embedded within.
At the NOAA lab, scientists determined the male albacore swam 14,582 miles in 380 days. During that time, he grew five and a half inches in length and gained more than 12 pounds.
“Aha!”, anglers in Southern California say when Bill tells his story. “Now we know where albacore spend their winters!”
Not so fast, Bill replies.
Three fish tagged off the Oregon coast in 2006 were subsequently captured. One roughly followed Bill’s fish, except that it traveled a bit past Hawaii before ultimately returning to Southern California waters. Total: 14,272 miles in 329 days.
But a third fish caught the same day made a beeline for Japan, jogged south. He was free 293 days and traveled 8,484 miles before meeting his fate in a Taiwanese commercial fisherman’s net.
So as luck would have it, from the albacore’s perspective at least, anglers now know that there is no secret spot off the Southern California shoreline where albacore spend their winters. So anglers will simply have to wait for next season and dream of catching a tagged fish; the reward has since increased to $1,000.
For those interested in learning more about the albacore migration, visit NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center at
http://swfsc.noaa.gov/albacore_tag.aspx, or American Fishermen's Research Foundation at www.afrf.org.
The world’s oldest active sailing ship Star of India was towed from its San Diego Embarcadero berth and hauled out for inspection, maintenance, and new bottom paint.
Guided by three tugs, the 146-
Initial plans included high-
In order to help stave off corrosion on a ship hauled out only once a decade, the
Maritime Museum has opted for a high-
When Berkeley was hauled out, marine growth proved too stubborn for high pressure
water blasting; but that was to be expected. Being a non-
Few non-
“We need donations,” Davis said.
A donation barrel has been placed in front of the San Diego Maritime Museum at 1492 N. Harbor Drive. Online donations may be made at sdmaritime.com.
The barque-
A barque is a sailing vessel with at least three masts, all fully square rigged except
the mizzen, which is fore-
Stanley Meltzoff Picture Maker
Those who love and admire game fish art should have no difficulty recalling Stanley Meltzoff, whose paintings graced the covers of Field and Stream, Scientific American, The Saturday Evening Post, and many other publications. Meltzoff was the first artist to realistically portray all major game species in their natural habitats, and his body of work remains widely recognized as the finest of its kind.
The first comprehensive book on Meltzoff’s art, his vision, and his life was well
underway when the artist passed away in 2006. Now, amid a surge in popularity of
Meltzoff original paintings and limited edition prints, the oversized-
Brooklyn born in 1917, Meltzoff received a classical education in the arts before joining The Stars and Stripes army newspaper as an illustrator during WWII. He later taught at the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York before becoming one of the leading commercial artists in the country.
Meltzoff then switched gears and embarked upon a second career in which he crafted intensely realistic renderings of billfish, bonefish, tarpon tuna and other fish in their natural habitats. So fanatical was the artist about faithfully reproducing fish in the wild that he hired divers to suspend mounted fish underwater so he could study the play of natural light on their skins.
“I began to realize I was not manipulating paint on a (canvas) surface but trying to make cues for perception in a picture,” Meltzoff wrote in the book’s introduction. “My working palette began to consist of visual cues rather than squeezes of paint. You cannot make a copy of the real world in a picture or even a photograph, but only mimic some of its visible qualities and the feelings it provokes,”
In 1960, Meltzoff capped this effort with a groundbreaking series on striped bass for Sports Illustrated that made him an instant celebrity in the sporting press.
Recently, acclaimed author and IGFA historian Mike Rivkin (Big-
This beautifully bound and exquisitely formatted volume is available directly from
Silverfish Press for $50. A deluxe edition ($89) is limited to 500 copies and includes
a signed-
For more information contact www.silverfishpress.com, (858) 625-0220.
Seasickness Cure
Forget seasick pills, Scopolamine patches, and those elastic wrist bands that squeeze pressure points. The newest Rx for seasickness comes in a round capsule you take only once.
Of course, that capsule is three feet in diameter and weighs half a ton. Thankfully, your boat actually takes it.
Seakeeper Gyroscopic Anti-
Unlike fin stabilizers that rely on forward motion to work, Seakeepers work at all speeds—even when the vessel is completely stopped.
Gyroscopic stabilizers have been around a long time, but they’re bulky, heavy, noisy,
power hungry and often must be shut down in high seas. Seakeeper engineers set out
to improve upon the basic gyro concept by enclosing the top-
Gyros work like toy tops. The faster they spin, the more righting force they create.
In the language of physics, each Seakeeper unit produces 7,000 Newton meter seconds
of angular momentum. In simple boating terms, the smaller, faster-
In addition to shrinking down the gyro from washing machine-
Seakeeper engineers also made sure the gyros operate throughout the broadest possible operating range by outfitting them with motion sensors and computer processors so that the gimbaled units move with the fore and aft motion (pitch) of the boat. This increases efficiency by keeping the rotor properly oriented toward the horizon and keeps the units from potentially damage themselves in heavy sea states—an improvement over passively controlled gyros.
Seakeeper gyro units are typically mounted within existing machinery spaces. Even with the main engines off and the generator running sound should not be a problem as the units produce only 70 to 75 dB when measured at a distance of one meter.
So forget getting queasy. Forget having fishing gear tossed around. And forget watching
your guests look longingly toward land. Simply take one Seakeeper Gyroscopic Anti-
For more information contact:
Seakeeper, Inc.
14528 South Solomons Island Road
Solomons, MD 20688
(410) 326-
www.seakeeper.com
When San Diegans in the 1930s wanted to gamble, odds are they headed 3.1 miles off shore to the floating gambling palace Monte Carlo.
During that era, floating gambling palaces were all the rage along the Southern California
coastline. With gambling illegal in the Golden State but not regulated by federal
law, entrepreneurs in 1928 began operating floating gambling ships just outside state
jurisdiction—three miles offshore. Dozens of floating casinos offered patrons a chance
to play games such as craps, roulette, blackjack, chuck-
California’s flirtation with floating casinos was brief. By 1939, all gambling palaces that constituted Gambler’s Row disappeared from view. Most were closed down by police. But San Diego’s Monte Carlo suffered a different fate.
The 300-
Kitchens and bars were installed. Slot machines, roulette wheels, card tables and other appurtenances were brought on board. No expense was spared. The dining saloon, called The Mirror Room, was surrounded by hand crafted mirrors.
Water taxi service provided hourly service during peak summertime operation hours. One advertising poster read, “Dine and dance in the beautiful new Mirror Room! Thrill to one of the coast’s biggest name floorshows! All the appeals of the South Seas, New York, Paris and Monte Carlo! Come!”
Such alluring advertising fueled patronage (including Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, according to Ditler) but irked San Diego moralists. So while those who wished to do so gambled, danced, and dined aboard Monte Carlo, others plotted its demise.
But what mankind couldn’t halt, nature did on January 1, 1937. A violent storm blew down from the Gulf of Alaska with high winds and 20 foot seas.
The strain proved too great and the Monte Carlo broke free and began drifting toward the pounding surf off of Coronado’s sandy beach. The floating casino hit the shore with such force that the entire deckhouse launched forward and crumbled in the surf.
“The police and fire department came down and cordoned off the beach mid-
Today, little remains of the wreck of the Monte Carlo. At low tide, surfers, swimmers, divers, and an occasional kayaker splash near the wreck site. Every year at the lowest of tides, City of Coronado workers trudge down to the wreck site with acetylene torches and burn, hammer, and pry what they can.
Some believe bounty from the Monte Carlo still exists buried under the sand offshore,
and that such treasure could be found with modern-day salvage equipment such as side-scan
sonar and metal detectors. But so far, no finds have been reported.
Sea Turtles Fly
Two sea turtles recently flew first class aboard a Coast Guard C-
The flight was part of a complicated mission to move the ailing animals from an aquarium in Oregon to an advanced care facility at SeaWorld San Diego. The reptiles were discovered languishing on Pacific Northwest beaches in November.
Myrtle, an olive ridley sea turtle, washed up Agate Beach, Oregon. Maude, a Pacific green, beached herself at Long Beach, Washington. Both creatures were trucked to the Oregon Coast Aquarium where they were triaged and stabilized; but it was obvious they needed more care than could be provided at the aquarium.
SeaWorld San Diego veterinarians agreed to take the unwell animals, but transportation posed a seemingly insurmountable hurdle; the turtles would likely not survive a 1,000 mile road trip.
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service contacted the Coast Guard to see if Myrtle and Maude
could somehow be flown to San Diego. The agency decided to piggyback the humanitarian
mission with a training flight; a C-
“We received the request for assistance earlier in (January) but we were unable to support this mission until recently due to other operations,” said Cmdr. Todd Lightle, assistant operations officer at Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento. “But flexibility allowed us to pair this important environmental mission with a more routine training mission. The pilots were exposed to a new airport, and the crew was exposed to the unique challenges of loading marine wildlife.”
Both sea turtles are native to the Eastern Pacific but typically live in warmer waters off Mexico and Southern California coasts, according to Tim Downing, a SeaWorld marine life specialist who helped transport the reptiles. He suspects the animals were swept north into cold water by currents possibly associated with El Nino weather pattern.
Downing, the flight crew, and Oregon Coast Aquarium President Gary Gamer checked the critters frequently while the plane was airborne.
“They didn’t really like the flight at all,” Gamer said. “Maude moved around in her
crate through the entire flight. But crews from the aquarium and the C-
A SeaWorld truck met the aircraft at North Island Naval Air Station and transported the turtles to the advanced care facility. After the animals are nurtured back to full health, they will be released back into the wild.
All six species of sea turtles found in U.S. waters (green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, loggerhead and olive ridley) are listed as either endangered or threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Backlash Blues
Backlash is a nightmarish tangle of line atop a fishing reel. This tangle typically happens as the line is leaving the spool when casting. As the angler casts, the weight or lure causes the line to pay out at a certain rate of speed. The line in turn pulls the spool, and it begins turning at an equivalent speed.
Especially on long casts, air friction begins to slow the weight or lure but the friction doesn’t transmit backward through the line to the spool. (Hey, you can’t push something with a piece of string, right?).
Since the spool is now travelling faster than the line paying out, the extra line begins forming loops, the get wrapped around other loops and the whole mess comes slamming to halt. The reel now has quite a few loops—some that somehow diabolically tuck under one another—that are wrapped up tight with a few winds of line for good measure.
The key to avoiding backlashes is to use your thumb to slow down the spool before a backlash can occur. But even the best casters miss with their timing once in a while and voila! A nice backlash!
The old way to deal with a backlash was to begin picking at the loops, in hope of finding THE loop that holds the key to loosening all other loops. It’s a tedious process that takes an angler out of action for five minutes or more.
But a new way to remove backlash is making the rounds. Legendary angler Bill Dance is one of its proponents.
Rather than picking at the line, try this::
1) Put the reel in gear and tighten the drag to the max
2) Place your thumb on the spool as hard as you can
3) Crank on the spool a few times
4) Disengage the reel and pull the line out
5) Repeat if necessary
Although many anglers are rightly skeptical about even giving this method a try—it does seem as though it would make the problem worse—it works much more quickly than the picking method.
Now there is no known method to cure every backlash created. Some are so nasty the angler has no choice but to start cutting line, hoping to find the good stuff. But this method is a quick and easy cure for most cases of the backlash blues.
1,000 Miles
San Diego is home to the world’s largest long range fishing fleet, with boats to 120 feet routinely setting sail for fishing grounds hundreds of miles to the south. But the fleet is about to be trumped by a man in a kayak.
David Kalwick, a 48-
“I've fished and surfed many beaches in Baja,” says David. “But this is Pacific Ocean survival. Aside from a few protein bars, I’ll be living off what the ocean provides."
David’s talked with sailors who have made the same ocean journey and has decided to stay real close to the shoreline except to visit offshore islands. In case as storm comes up, being near land will allow him to quickly paddle out of harm’s way.
David’s main fears are getting lost, towed out to sea by a big fish, and running out of water. To avoid getting lost, he’ll take along a bevy of electronics including a GPS and a PLB, which alerts authorities via satellite in case of an emergency. A pocket knife to cut the line will be his only safeguard against being towed too far from land. But for water, he’ll have to rely on a
hand-
While most open ocean rowers and kayakers would likely need to train for such an undertaking, David’s got all his muscle groups well aligned. The fitness buff is an avid ocean kayaker who works out, swims, or surfs daily. He recently purposely took his Trident kayak out in 16 mph winds to test his endurance. He paddled furiously against the wind for 18 miles with only a sore arm to show for his efforts.
Along the way, David hopes to enjoy some of the world’s finest fishing along Baja
California’s West Coast. Yellowtail, tuna, marlin, barracuda, bass, and bonito are
all topnotch fighters, and should give him a welcome break from the protein bars
he’s packing for sustenance. David’s kayak fishing experience includes landing a
35-
David originally hatched his plan in 2009 and began putting things together in early April.
Since then he’s picked up a ton of waterproof photo and high-
So far David’s signed up manufacturers of clothing, kayak sails, and fishing accessories. Naturally, he’s working hard to find more sponsors in advance of his projected departure time in July.
In the meantime, he’s posting preparation efforts on his blog, http://wavster.blogspot.com. When his voyage begins, he’ll post text, photos, and video clips as he is able.
California Yellowtail
Summertime means yellowtail fever for California anglers.
Yellowtail are highly sought-
Anglers aboard kayaks, private boats, six-
Anglers catch 15-
Fishing inshore generally involves working the outer edge of kelp forests in 90 to
120 feet of water. Try trolling feathers or Rapalas about four boat wakes behind
the boat. While cast-
For live bait fishing, try green or Spanish mackerel (these West Coast bait mackerel are about six inches long). Yellowtail readily bite commercially available live squid, sardines, and anchovies. While fishing the kelp forest, also glance offshore periodically for diving terns, seagulls, and pelicans that may indicate marauding schools of yellowtail feeding below.
Tactics change when fishing yellowtail offshore. The action generally starts out by using binoculars to locate floating kelp patties. These patties, broken off from nearshore kelp forests, harbor bait fish and attract yellowtail.
Trolling patties involves dragging feathers or Rapalas at six knots while keeping
about 75-
Yo-
Flylining is the most popular way to present bait to yellowtail. Simply tie an offshore
hook (No weight, Mustad # 94150 2/0, four-
The three-
Beach Boozin
San Diego never had a problem with people drinking on public beaches—until a handful of problem drinkers sparked beach riots in the summers of 2007 and 2008.
The riots, televised on a nationally syndicated reality show called Beach Patrol, gave “America’s Finest City” a black eye.
In response, San Diego City Council initiated a beach booze ban that went into effect January 2009. It didn’t take long for partiers to find a loophole.
The ordinance to prohibit people from having open containers of alcohol on beaches was written in a way so as not to hamper drinking aboard recreational vessels. But language in the ordinance was so vague it didn’t cover people on flotation devices. Revelers quickly discovered that, while they couldn’t drink on the beach, they could drink in the water on an inner tube, raft, or other device as long as their feet didn’t touch the sand. Constant surge and breaking surf made this impractical on ocean beaches, so they took to the bays.
To underscore that it’s no fun to drink alone, and possibly rub city councils’ collective
noses in the floatation-
According to Wikipedia, Floatopia is an event centered around “floating on rafts
and other home-
The first event in San Diego’s Mission Bay drew more than a thousand revelers, causing lifeguards to scramble a bit to find extra personnel to monitor the event. Despite chilly water temperatures (mid 60°F is all you get in spring) the young partiers held their first event without a problem. They even picked up their own trash on the way out.
Subsequent Floatopias grew in size—the last one attracted more than 6,000 partiers—and attracted problem drinkers, some from out of state and a few from different countries.
Lifeguards made more than 20 water rescues at the latest event. Several participants
were taken to hospitals. One man was so intoxicated that he almost drowned because
he couldn’t stand up in knee deep water. The big fear is that someone passes out
and slips underwater unnoticed. Then when lifeguards try to clear the water to conduct
a search, the alcohol-
“Crowds have their own personalities,” Diego City Lifeguard Chief Rick Wurtz told city council as they met to discuss closing the beach booze loophole. “Some are more friendly than others. Some, you have pubic drunkenness, urinating in public, and drunk driving when leaving event. People may drown and crowd control is very difficult.”
And expensive. According to estimates, the city spent about $20,600 for safety personnel for two most recent Floatopias.
San Diego City Council is currently weighing whether to scuttle future Floatopias by closing the beach booze ban loophole. As council deliberates, they are keenly aware that San Diego never had a problem with people drinking on public beaches—until a handful of drinkers created major problems.
One could only imagine....
Imagine owning one of the world’s largest megayachts. Five-
Plain folk in San Diego were inspired to imagine such a life recently when a futuristic,
somewhat odd-
The A is reportedly owned by Andrey Melnichenko, a 36-
According to published reports, A sports two swimming pools, a helicopter pad, and a six guest suites that can be morphed into four larger suites by moving the walls. The vessel operates with a crew of 42.
The 2008 German-
Seeing the success of Fort Lauderdale, San Diego waterfront business leaders and
the Unified Port District began wooing the megayacht industry in 2000. Several marinas
added longer slips and boosted shore-
Worldwide, thousands of yachts over 100 feet in length crowd the seas. Among the
largest: Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s 414-
But topping the list is Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s 557-
Wooing megayachts may bring rich rewards. A rule of thumb for megayachts is that owners typically spend 10 percent of the yacht’s initial hull value per year in expenses, upkeep, and upgrades. It wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine Melnichenko dropping a quarter million dollars or more to top off A’s 211,000 gallon tanks.
The thought of a quarter million dollar fill up would certainly serve as a pinprick to those who imagine such a life.
Top of Page
Capt. Jack Innis
www.defishingsoap.com
Capt. Jack Innis is a well-known fishing and boating writer. The San Diego resident’s
love affair with fishing began in the early 1960s when he became a Junior Oceanographer
with Scripps Institute of Oceanography. As a high-school youth, he worked summers
handling and filleting sport-caught pelagic species such as albacore, yellowtail,
tuna, and marlin. In the 1980s, he owned and operated Crystal Pier Bait & Tackle
atop a 1,600-foot-long fishing pier in San Diego. In the early 1990s, Innis kicked
off his writing career with fishing articles in Charter Industries Magazine, California
Game & Fish Magazine, Motorhome Magazine, and Saltwater Sportsman Magazine.
In 1999, Innis became a reporter, covering waterfront and fishing activities for The San Diego Log Newspaper. In 2000, his newspaper article “City Makes Island Grow Under Light of the Moon” earned 1st place award at the San Diego Press Club. Innis later became editor of all five Log Newspapers and oversaw the development of FishRap, a separate fishing section within the publication that is going strong to this day.
In 2001, Innis authored “Catalina Island, Historical Tribute to Recreational Boating,” a magazine/book hybrid that includes segments on the Catalina Island Tuna Club and fishing history. In 2004 he authored “San Diego Legends” (Sunbelt Publications), which enjoys continued success its second printing.
Innis is an International Game Fish (IGFA) International Committee member, very active over the past seven years in organizing free fishing derbies for disadvantaged youth. He also works hard to promote ethical angling and has been visible in trying to ensure that California’s implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act and other laws governing fishing are based on good science, not guesswork.
In 2003, Innis and his wife Michelle, a master soapmaker, created De-Fishing Soap ®,
a biodegradable hand soap guaranteed to remove the toughest fish and bait odors from
hands.
