Fishing Vacation

A Look at LineGuide Inserts from Alconite to Zirconia

Nanolite, alconite, zirconium, halide.

Although these sound like the names of tribes fighting for independence in an intergalactic turf war, you’re not reading science fiction. The terms refer to materials held captive in a tiny universe: the line guides on your fishing rods.

Guides represent extremely important components on any fishing rod because they must smoothly conduct the line - whether cast freely, retrieved under pressure or pulled out against drag - along a pole’s length. Smoothness, hardness, durability and heat dissipation all rate as qualities that determine a guide ring’s performance and ability to protect fishing line (mono or braid) from chafing and fatigue. In the old days, line guides consisted of metal rings. Stainlesssteel guides remain a viable option: however, space age ceramics now enjoy start is as the material of choice for guide inserts.

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Tags: Line Guides

I caught this fish 45 miles out of Port Aransas, Texas, while fishing in 200 feet of water using cut squid for bait. I’ve never seen anything like it. Any clue as to what it is?

Wesley, you have a sand tilefish,  Malacanthus plumieri, there. Tins species is quite different from the other tilefishes, which are important commercial species. Those live in very deep water and construct burrows.

The sand tile builds its burrows in shallow, sandy bottoms, and it’s quite common in the Bahamas.

 To catch one in the western Gulf is a little unusual. Yours is also quite large, as the world record stands at fust more than four pounds.

Tags: Shallow Water Tile

Having caught many gorgeous, hardfighting gray snapper on trips to various parts of Florida, I’ve noticed that those caught inshore often look dramatically different from those taken offshore. I caught the lighter inshore specimen neat Key West in a 10footdeep channel between flats, while the darker, reddish gray snapper came from the Middle Grounds, some 60 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico in 90 feet of water. Some captains and anglers have told me these are two different species, the inshore ones being the “gray snapper,” while the redder, offshore specimens are classified as “mangrove snapper.” I’ve always known these as two names for the same species. Are they really different species, or do my photos show two color variations in the same species based on different environments?

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Tags: Florida, Gray Snapper

Bucket o’ Line

No matter how nicely wrapped before we left, our anchor rope was always tangled after rolling and bouncing on the way to the fishing grounds. I bought a 3- by 4-inch round closet flange (available for about $4 at any home-improvement store) and slid a piece of 4-inch PVC pipe over it (which was cut so that it was about two inches below the mouth of a five-gallon bucket).

Put the setup inside the bucket, flange-side down, and coil your rope around it with the anchor eye going in first. Simply flip the bucket over when you’re ready to use the anchor, and you’ll always have a nice coil.

In the Bag

Use 4- to 6-inch cotton teabags filled with local beach sand for nontoxic drift weights. Rig them below your favorite bait or lure, and wet them before casting. The wet sand will provide the added weight you need.

If the bag snags on a sharp rock or coral head, it will rip open and dump the sand without polluting the ocean with another lead weight or damaging coral. You may need to do a little Web searching to find a supplier.

A Bobbed Plug

Instead of reaching down to the veiy bottom of your livewell to pull the plug at the end of the fishing day (and getting your sleeve wet in the process), simply attach a length of 50-pound fishing line from the plug to a inch bobber. A strong yank on the bobber will pull the plug.

Tags: Fishing Tips, Rigs and Tips, Tips

Feb. 4-7 Bahamas Wahoo Championship, Leg II, The Bahamas. Contact Raul V. Miranda at 954-456-1840, or visit www.bahamaswahoo.com.

Feb. 5-8 Fort Lauderdale Billfish Tournament & Seafest, Las Olas Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Contact Mark Constantino at 954-786-4778, or visit www.lauderdalebillfish.com.

Feb. 5-8 Marlin Masters Mauritius, Black River, Mauritius. Contact Albert d’Unienville at 230-483-5038, or visit www.blackriver-mauritius.com.

Feb. 6-8 Islamorada Women’s Sailfish Tournament, Islamorada, Florida. Contact Tammie Gurgiolo at 305-852-9337.

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Tags: Fishing Events, Fishing tournaments

March 79-22, 2009 Charlotteville, Tobago, West Indies www.tgft.com

Founded: 1997

Claim to Fame:

• The Tobago International Game Fishing Tournament (TIGFT) started as a fun fishing event with five boats - three from Tobago and two from Trinidad. Each team wagered one case of Carib beer, winner-take-all following the two-day competition.
• At the 2002 event, angler Nick

Telfer caught a 649-pound blue marlin just 15 minutes from tournament headquarters; it stood as the Trinidad and Tobago blue marlin record for six years.

• In 2008, the TIGFT had record participation in both local and international divisions, with 55 boats representing several Caribbean islands as well as anglers from North America, South America and Europe.

“From November through June, Tobago offers excellent game-fishing opportunities for blue and white marlin, sailfish, yellowfin and blackfin tuna, dolphin and wahoo,” says tournament director Ramona Pazos. The TIGFT is a modified release tournament, with a blue marlin minimum of 400 pounds and 50-pound minimums for white marlin, sailfish and longbill spearfish. Most of the fish caught during the TIGFT are donated to various charities.

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Tags: blackfin tuna, sailfish, TIGFT, white marlin, yellowfin

Apparently, even completely closing a fishery to all harvest can come too late to salvage a stock of fishes. A major population of Atlantic cod will go essentially extinct within 20 years, predicts a recent study in the November 2008 Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.

At least, according to biologists Douglas Swain and Ghislain Chourinard of Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as long as even limited fishing is allowed, the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence cod stock will be at less than 0.3 percent of the species’ original biomass within 20 years; if the fishery is closed, that will occur in 38 years.

The reasons for adult cod dying at an unusually high rate in recent years are not known for certain, but Swain suspects the cause might be increased predation by seals. On the other hand, American scientists say smaller stocks of Atlantic cod in the Gulf of Maine continue to increase, so the outlook there may be more optimistic.

Tags: Atlantic Cod, Gulf of Maine

A fabulous long-range trip to Las Rocas, off Baja, in late November rewarded 22 anglers aboard the Royal Star (www.royal starsportfishing.com) with “the most enjoyable days of cow fishing I can remember,” in the words of skipper Randy Toussaint.

 “It was as calm as the harbor, and the fishing lasted from an hour after dawn to dark.” The result: 12 yellowfin more than 200 pounds, including one potential 130-pound line-class world record for Dennis Williams, a Mercedes mechanic from Carlsbad, California.

He boated the 381.1-pound giant after a VA-hour battle. If approved, that weight, per certified scales at Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego, would easily eclipse the 376-pound, 6-ounce 130-pound-test record caught in 1996.

— Bill Roecker, Oceanside, California (www.fishingvideos.com)

Tags: Carlsbad California, Las Rocas, Royal Star

Pending records

A better than 8-to-1 catch, a (A) 100-pound, 4-ounce bluefin tuna on 12-pound line, kept Saverio Bersanetti of Castenaso, Italy, tied up for well over an hour last October off Italy’s Porto Barricata. Drifting a bonito paid off with the big tuna.

With a weight-to-line-test ratio a bit less than 8-to-1, the (B) 44-pound red drum that Maureen Klause of Ocean City, New Jersey, caught on 6-pound line is pending as a line-class record.

She caught the big redfish on bait while fishing Ocracoke, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, last November, requiring just more than 40 minutes to land the fish - which was successfully weighed and released.

Another pending 6-pound line-class record, this one in the men’s division, could put Robert LaVey of Prince Frederick, Maryland, in the record book for the (C) 27-pound, 8-ounce cubera snapper he caught off Belize last November, fishing mullet in Belize’s Sibun River estuary. The angler spent an amazing four hours and  40  minutes fighting the fish.

Two pending all-tackle records await approval, including the 405-pound salmon shark that Michael Poling of Anchorage, Alaska, caught in Prince William Sound last August while trolling a salmon carcass. The battle lasted an hour and 15 minutes. A deep-water, 17-pound, 5-ounce barrelfish was the reward for Michael   Holley’s trip out to Norfolk Canyon off Virginia last October. The Clinton, Maryland, angler caught the fish on squid.

For 6-year-old Cody Konop of Anchorage, a whopping (0) 48-pound lingcod, if approved, will be the record to beat in the smallfry class. The Alaska angler jigged his home state’s waters of Prince William Sound to make the catch last August.

International Game Fish Association, 300 Gulf Stream Way, Dania Beach, FL 33004; phone 954-927-2628; fax 954-924-4299; www.igfa.org.

Tags: Alaska, Alaska angler jigged, barrelfish, Belize, big redfish, bluefin tuna, cubera snapper, fishing Ocracoke, Italy's Porto Barricata, Maryland, North Carolina, Prince William Sound

A resolution adding new conservation measures to protect sailfish, which appeared to be headed for passage by the Costa Rican government at press time, prohibits the use of live bait on longlines, establishes a 30-mile zone in southern Costa Rica where longlines cannot be deployed January through March and effectively bans the export of sailfish.

 The Billfish Foundation worked closely for more than a year with the board of directors of INCOPESCA, the nation’s fisheries commission, to effect the new laws.

Tags: Fishing Costa Rica, Fishing Sailfish