LOS CABOS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT: OCT 16-20. 2012

Pro video of the 2010 Los Cabos Billfish Tournament, scheduled this year for October 16-20.  Good action footage through about 7:57!

For more tournament info, click here!

GREEN-STICKING FOR TUNA: Sportfishing Mag

A top captain offers tips for using green sticks to target yellowfin tuna

By Capt. Vincent Daniello

The V of the idling boat’s wake fades into the oily flat sea. Just beyond, two acres of porpoises break the calm as they blow before heading back down to their feast on opelu — Hawaiian mackerel. Between the boat and the porpoise, 150-pound ahi tuna leap from the water, sometimes twisting in midair with acrobatics more common to sailfish than tuna.

Only one thing could provide a much more exhilarating show: yellowfin leaping from the sea to eat trolled artificial squid.

“The yellowfin are competing against porpoises, not just other tuna, so they’re really aggressive,” says Capt. Russ Nitta, owner of Lepika Sportfishing in Kona, Hawaii. “They’re moving 35 mph when they blow up on our squid. It’s spectacular!”

Nitta is green-sticking — the term given to trolling artificial squid from the top of a fiberglass pole more than 30 feet in the air. The plastic squid spend more time out of the water than in, which he says is as effective as it is exciting.

Nitta shares his 10 years of green-stick experience with Sport Fishing readers.

The Stick & RigNamed for the greenish tint to fiberglass poles made in Japan, green sticks are sold in 11-foot, hollow tapered sections. The outside diameter of the base of one nestles within the inside ­diameter of the top of the section below it, overlapping 12 inches at the joint. Nitta secures joints with strips of rubber and hose clamps.

Some captains fasten only one section high on the tuna tower. Nitta uses three sections, setting the base section (about the size of a softball) into an aluminum socket on his flying bridge. Another bracket clamps around the pole six feet higher, fastened to his half-tower. This puts the tip 36 feet above the water.

Nitta crimps 700-pound monofilament to a ring at the tip of the green stick. He crimps a loop in the other end, making it just long enough to reach the tip of his trolling rod.Nitta fishes four squid from 100 yards of 400-pound Momoi X-HARD monofilament atop 400-pound spectra braid spooled onto a Fin-Nor 130 reel. He divides his main line into sections with simple crimped loop-to-loop connections.

From each connection, he attaches a longline clip with several yards of 530-pound Momoi X-HARD monofilament. At the other end of each of these drop lines, Nitta rigs 9-inch Mold Craft artificial squid with 11/0 Dozer hooks. “I tie a Flemish knot with the mono where it passes through the hook,” Nitta says. “That keeps the squid from traveling up the drop line, away from the hook.” (See this knot below courtesy of YouTube member chainheart3)

Up in the AirFirst in the water goes Nitta’s three-foot-long bird, designed both to attract tuna and tension his whole rig behind the boat.

Forty yards up from the bird, he attaches his first drop line and squid. The next three squid are spaced 18 yards apart. “Tuna think the bird is chasing the squid,” Nitta says. He trolls the closest squid 34 yards from the boat.

These distances vary with each green stick, but Nitta says the length of each squid drop line takes the most tweaking — even changing with a new bird.

With the rig deployed, Nitta attaches the last loop-to-loop connection to the 700-pound monofilament line coming off the tip of his green stick. “I use 200-pound Dacron. That’s what breaks when fish are hooked,” Nitta says. He ties the Dacron to the green-stick line with an improved clinch knot, and attaches the other end of the Dacron to the main fishing line with a longline clip. Letting line off the reel shifts tension to the green stick, raising the rig.

Thin nylon rope attached to the green-stick line at this intersection allows Nitta to retrieve the green-stick line once it breaks away, and also allows him to jig the squid down into the water. “Use anything that’s light and comfortable to hold in your hand,” Nitta says.

Showtime“I like to troll my bird right at the front of a pod of porpoise,” Nitta says. At 5 knots, he angles ahead of the predictably moving pod using his fish finder to ensure that tuna are present. “Porpoises usually stay within 120 feet of the surface,” he says. “I’m looking for marks from 150 feet down to 400 feet.”

“My drop lines hold my squid about four feet in the air while trolling,” Nitta says. He pulls down on the jig line every few seconds to bring the squid down to the water, allowing them to touch the surface only briefly. “You can put the fish off by dragging those squid in the water. Yellowfin are used to tracking things in the air. They hit as soon as their prey hits the water,” Nitta says. “They don’t miss often.”

Once hooked up, the angler reels while Nitta detaches unhooked drop-line clips as they come in, ready to leader hooked tuna to the gaff. “I like to fight them off the side of the boat from a dead boat,” Nitta says.

“It’s not unusual to have multiples,” Nitta says, recounting a memorable triple. “One fish took the squid closest to the boat. It jumped 10 feet in the air. Another took the squid closest to the bird. As those two landed in the water, a third fish blew up in the middle.”

With three ahi hooked, the mainline broke — normally drawing the curtain on any fishing show — but Nitta rigs a couple of two-foot-long bullet-shaped fishing floats about eight feet behind his bird, providing an encore by retrieving the other end of the line.

What tops such aerial acrobatics? Fresh sashimi with the show!

About the expert: Russ Nitta grew up fishing with his father offshore of Oahu. He’s since fished both coasts of North America but prefers Kona’s calm waters and big fish.

Tuna photo by Capt. Josh Temple

Guy Harvey Promotes Conservation With All-Release Fishing Tournaments

Reprinted from Fly Fishing in Salt Waters, April 11, 2012.

                      Sharks and tarpon are the focus species in combining conservation with sportsmanship

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL - In his mission to inspire scientific research and education while encouraging conservation and best management practices for sustainable marine environments, Dr. Guy Harvey continues to work closely with fishing tournament organizers to support and effect long lasting cultural changes. 

As a result, creators of the upcoming Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge (USC) Tournament and Festival and organizers of the World's Richest Tarpon Tournament (WRTT) have announced plans to strengthen and share their commitment to conservation by cross-promoting their common messages. The Ultimate Shark Challenge Tournament and Festival takes place in Punta Gorda's downtown waterfront at Laishley Park May 4th - 6th followed by the World's Richest Tarpon Tournament in Boca Grande May 17th and 18th and the Downtown Tarpon Festival May 19th and 20th.

Both all-release tournaments feature exciting and innovative high-stakes competitions that also place an emphasis on best practices when it comes to the post-release welfare of their respective target species-sharks and tarpon.

The main attractions at both events are the fishing tournaments, but each will also host festivals that are free to the public and offer family-friendly fun, excitement, entertainment and education.

While their marquis species are indeed very different, event organizers are quick to point out that, "Sharks and tarpon have been coexisting here for millions of years and that their symbiotic relationship is a matter of mutual benefit to a healthy marine and coastal environment.  In many ways, that relationship is a great metaphor for why we're collaborating with our events." 

"Our All-Release, No-Weigh, No-Kill tournaments are an alternative whose time has come," said Lew Hastings, executive director of the Boca Grande Area Chamber of Commerce and Tournament Director of WRTT. "Bringing families together in sport and education strengthens not only our estuaries and fisheries, but enriches our community as a whole.

"USC Creators, Sean & Brooks Paxton add that, "We're extremely fortunate to have this uniquely diverse environmental playground right here in our backyard. The area offers so many choices for not only boaters and recreational anglers, but also anyone interested in an endless list of eco and adventure-based activities on land and sea."

The USC tournament-created as a model for catch and release only shark tournament formats-drew some 3,000 competitors and spectators last year and paid out over $15,000 in cash and prizes. This year's event will feature an outdoor showing of "This Is Your Ocean: Sharks", a documentary created by Dr. Harvey, fellow marine artist Wyland and shark dive operator Jim Abernethy, about sharks in the Bahamas.

"We applaud the tournament founders and directors for their increased commitment to promote the catch and release of sharks and tarpon in this summer's tournaments," said Dr. Harvey. "Our goal is to minimize shark and tarpon mortalities and maximize educational outreach about conservation.

"Following an extremely successful launch of Guy Harvey's new Armed Forces Collection, a portion of the proceeds from this year's USC will benefit charitable organizations dedicated to supporting America's military and their families. There will also be two teams of veterans fishing in this event.

Dr. Harvey, founder of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University and the internationally regarded Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation (GHOF), in recent years has joined the growing ranks of individuals and organizations calling for strict regulations to ban the commercial fishing of sharks in the quest to supply the world's insatiable taste for shark fin soup, an expensive delicacy.

Scientists with the International Union for Conservation of Nature have estimated that 30 percent of shark and ray species around the world are threatened or near threatened with extinction.  The loss of these animals could cause irreversible damage to the ocean's ecosystem and result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in the tourist trade.

Last July, Dr. Harvey, who holds a PhD in fisheries science and biology, helped lead an international effort spearheaded by the Bahamas National Trust to convince the Government of the Bahamas to prohibit all commercial shark fishing in its more than 240,000 square miles of territorial waters.

For more information on the two upcoming tournaments, go to www.UltimateSharkChallenge.com and www.WorldsRichestTarpon.com.

HAPPY ENDING FOR SEYMOUR BUT GOOD REMINDER TO RECYCLE

Reprinted from FloridaGulfVacation.com, March 10, 2012.

A bottlenose dolphin named Seymour is swimming without restraint this morning in the waters near Marco Island. After members of the Ten Thousand Islands Dolphin Project reported seeing Seymour with fishing line wrapped around his tail since late last year, a team of experts and biologists mapped out a plan to untangle him. This is no small feat. It took a crew of wildlife experts from SeaWorld Orlando, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, NOAA Fisheries Service and Harbor Branch, Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the University of Florida to accomplish the task – in all close to 30 people were involved.

Seymour is a regular in these waters so they knew where to begin looking for him. The Dolphin Explorer, a sightseeing boat out of Marco River Marina has spotted him hundreds of times. After spotting him Friday morning, rescuers put out a huge net and once he swam in, the rescuers jumped into the water, carefully cut away the fishing line, and even used a mobile x-ray machine to determine if there was further injury. Lucky for Seymour, he was deemed ok to be released back into the wild, after a satellite tag was placed on his dorsal fin. 

If the story sounds familiar, it’s similar to what happened to Winter the Dolphin who lives at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  Her tail had to be amputated when she became entangled and received the first-ever marine mammal prosthetic tail. The movie, Dolphin Tale, is based on her story.

“Discarded fishing line poses a very serious threat to all marine life, including manatees, sea turtles, and dolphins like Seymour,” said Steve Lehr of SeaWorld’s rescue team. “The easiest way to help is to always recycle fishing line properly in bins found at most docks.” That goes for plastic bags, too.

The crowd of onlookers who had gathered at the boat ramp, cheered as Seymour was released. What a great way to start the weekend.

BAHAMAS BILLFISH TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION IN FULL SWING!

Registration for the Bahamas Billfish Championship's 39th season is well underway with a number of teams taking advantage of the BBC's Early Bird discount. By all indications participation in all five tournaments will be above this past year. There will be many of the 'regulars' back rying to capture the BBC title and there will be some well-known teams returning that have been absent for a few years. Of course you can look for a new crop of anglers and teams ready for the challenges that can only come from the world's oldest billfishtournament series. 

For the 2012 season, the BBC's Steering Committee has instituted some changes to the BBC rules, to the tournament venue and tournament format. These changes reflect the wishes of the participating anglers and are designed to improve the tournament experience and stimulate greater participation.

Although the first tournament is not until April, remember that tournament participation is limited to 50 teams and all tournament Entry Fees are due and payable 30-days prior to the start of each 2012 BBC tournament. The BBCMembership Fee is non-refundable and Tournament Entry Fees become non-refundable 30-days prior to the tournament start date.

Whether you want to fish one tournament or the whole Series, there is no better time to register. Registration is easy and can beaccomplished online, by FAX or by mail.   

To Register & Enter online click here.

To download the 2012 BBC Tournament Entry package,  click here.

You Can't Win If You Don't Enter!  

 

 

TOURNAMENT FORMAT CHANGE for 2012

Captain's Choice Lay Day - All teams will fish any three (3) out of the available four (4) fishing days (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday). Ribbons must be picked-up each fishing day between 6:00 am and 8:00 am from the Committee Boat.

ANGLING RULE CHANGES  (Changes in bold)

Lines in the water at 8:00 am - Lines out of the water at 4:00 on all fishing days.

To qualify as a "released fish" the leader must be brought within the grasp of the mate or the end of the leader must be wound to the rod tip. A 'Billfish Release Affidavit' must be completed for each billfish released and presented to the Committee Boat between the hours of 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm on the same day the fish is caught. These hours can be extended if a team was fighting a fish and reported to the Committee Boat prior to "lines out of the water."

NEW ANGLING RULES

•  Teams fishing the Bahamas Billfish Championship may not include any individual who has been paid to be a captain or crew, fish a rod, feed fish and/or bring a fish to the boat in the last three (3) years.

•  All boats participating in the Bahamas Billfish Championship tournaments must have a valid Bahamas Fishing Permit with a Bahamas Fisheries sticker affixed thereto.

 To view a complete set of the 2012 rules, click here. 

BRAID vs. MONO

"Pros offer tips on when to use braided or monfilament fishing lines", posted at www.sportfishing.com by Chris Woodward.  Its good information that I hope is helpful for you!

Many offshore anglers choose mono for safety because braid can
cut hands and because in clear water, mono is less visible.

Deciding when to use braid or monofilament as a main line might seem intuitive in most cases. But while one pro advocates braid for all bottomfishing, another says it inhibits bites in clear water, even with fluorocarbon leader. One says mono offers more abrasion resistance; another says braid does.

As usual — easy ain't easy. But the nine experts we spoke to agreed on the following basic generalizations for the best fishing line in specific situations — with a few caveats:

• Trolling: mono
  
  
• Live-bait fishing: mono
  
  
• Kite-fishing: mono
  
  
• Bottomfishing/jigging: braid
  
  
• Fishing structure: braid
  
  
• Casting plugs/lures (especially with spin tackle): braid
  
  
• Fishing kelp: braid

MONOFILAMENT MOTIVES    

"From a design standpoint, what mono and fluoro have is stretch, and that can be a positive and a negative," says Clay Norris, senior product manager for fishing line for Pure Fishing (Berkley, Stren, SpiderWire). "If you're not prepared on your end— the drag is wrong, you have the wrong rod action — you'll have issues with braid because of zero shock. The braid will break at the knot nine times out of 10 — something's got to give."

Mono's stretch becomes especially critical when anglers go big-game trolling. "With braid, if you got a direct hit on a big fish, say 600 to 1,000 pounds, I'd hate to see what damage could be done to your rod holders," says Chuck Gerlach, owner of Ande. "If you were not fishing a bent-butt rod, you'd end up with one before the day was over."

Norris says most offshore anglers also use mono for safety reasons. Take a wrap past the leader with braid, and you could lose a finger if a big fish struggles boat-side.

Mono's superior knot strength is another reason
trolling anglers prefer the nylon.

Mono holds knots better and costs less than braid. It also works better on smaller bait-casting reels because light braid can dig into itself.

Bryan Yamane, assistant product manager for Daiwa, says Florida sailfish and dolphin anglers still use a lot of mono on the troll, and it's popular for use with kite lines because it runs through the clips better.

Mono also helps prevent possible cutoffs when using kites, says South Florida captain and TV host Rick Murphy, who uses Sufix line products. "If the middle or long bait goes off and that fish goes screaming through the inside bait or across the down-current baits, a braided line would cut off those lines," he says. "You'd think braid would be perfect with its smaller diameter and less stretch; it puts less weight on the kite. But you run into problems when kite lines cross."

There's still a huge demand for mono, Murphy adds, especially for use in clear water: "That's the common denominator." Murphy uses mono as line for jigging snapper, live-baiting and sight-casting in the shallows when water visibility is crystalline.

"If you're snapper fishing with braid, even though you have a fluorocarbon leader, you won't get a bite," he says. "Same thing with bonefish. You may see hundreds of two- to three-pound bonefish, but if you throw a jig in there with braided line, you won't get a bite."

Murphy says he tested this theory while targeting snapper in the Bahamas. Two of the three anglers aboard his boat used clear mono; one used braid (of the same line strength as the mono, so smaller diameter); all used identical fluorocarbon leaders and jigs. Those fishing mono hooked up immediately; the angler with braid caught nothing. The anglers even switched rods in case one fisherman was imparting a different action.

"The clarity of the water sends up a red flag for me," Murphy says. "If I'm not getting a bite with braid, I'll switch to mono and see if that's the difference."

In some cases, mono isn't quite good enough. Southern Kingfish Association pro Chris Blanton of South Carolina says he uses straight Hi-Seas fluorocarbon for kingfish. "It's costly to do, but fluoro adds a little better feel, and we've found it works," he says, adding that he attaches six inches of wire to the fluoro as a leader. "We've had fish run around a rig in the Gulf, and it frayed up the fluoro, but it still caught the fish."

Fluorocarbon features average tensile strength, but its knot strength rates below that of nylon, Gerlach says. It does offer good abrasion resistance, better than mono, and some say better than braid. "Braid's strength is straight up and down," says John Drouet, sales manager for HiLiner (Diamond Fishing Products). "Braid breaks down when the fibers abrade. Once you breach that finish, the line is compromised."

On the other hand, Pure Fishing's Norris ranks the abrasion resistance of braid higher than mono — of equivalent diameter. "You get some fraying on the outside, but the fiber is so strong," he says. "Let's say 10 percent of the line abrades, but the line is still three times stronger than mono at the same diameter. "

PREFERENCE FOR BRAID
Redfish-tournament pro Bryan Watts says he and brother Greg use only braid, preferring Fireline Crystal and Spiderwire Invisabraid. The reasons: no stretch factor and improved casting distance.

"Being from the west coast of Florida, we still have a lot of fish on the flats that are spooky and wary. The primary reason for braid is casting distance. We want to get the bait as far as possible away from the boat," he says.

With a bait that far away, the brothers need the taut braid to drive home the hook point. "Basically, braid enlarges our fishing zone," Watts says.

Just how much farther braid casts remains debatable, but its smaller diameter compared with mono means it flies through the air and cuts through water more easily.

The brothers use 10-pound braid and spinning gear on the open flats, and then switch to 40- to 50-pound SpiderWire Stealth on bait-casting reels when fishing around mangroves. The stronger braid allows them to pull fish from structure quickly where mono might give the fish time and distance to wrap a few roots.

Braid's thinness allows bottom-fishing anglers
to drop lighter jigs to deeper depths.

Braid's sensitivity makes it a great line for working plugs and lures and for bottomfishing. "It's great for any crank or spinner bait that has movement," Norris says. "If you pick up a piece of grass on the line, you feel it. And it creates more positive contact with the fish."

Braid also offers more strength compared with line diameter, which means anglers pack more line onto smaller reels — an advantage for long-range tuna fishermen off Southern California. SoCal yellowtail anglers prefer braid because it quickly slices through kelp, a favorite hiding place for those Pacific brawlers.

But while braid's strength creates confidence, its knot-failure rate means connections must be tried and tested. When you tie mono and braid together, braid will win. "With some knots, people are getting only 50 percent [breaking strength]," Drouet says.

Pros like Montella know how to make the best connections between braid and mono, and while they use braid for a main line, they also rig long top shots and wind-on leaders offshore to add stretch and subtract visibility.

"When daytime deep-drop fishing for swordfish, I complete my rig by using a 150-foot wind-on leader made from 250-pound Hi-Catch mono connected to a 9-foot piece of 250-pound Hi-Catch X-Hard clear mono to the bait. We've taken two first places and a second place in the last four swordfish tournaments we've entered," he says.

The evolution of braided lines in recent years has all but eliminated early issues with wind knotting and tip wrapping, Norris says. Monofilament has also come a long way, as the formulas now include multiple ingredients to focus on lowering stretch and memory and improving tensile strength. The current manufacturing trend seems to be combining the best attributes of the two.

In fact, at press time, Berkley had just introduced its new NanoFil, calling it a uni-filament — or unified filament — fishing line. NanoFil consists of hundreds of Dyneema nanofilaments molecularly linked and shaped, Norris says. "The fiber is shaped into a monolike structure. It's really cool and super smooth."


SF INSIGHT: FLUORO FEATURES
In salt water, anglers rarely use fluorocarbon as a main line, but the product would make a good inshore choice, says Clay Norris, senior product manager for Pure Fishing. Fluorocarbon features high shock strength and good abrasion resistance. Its primary drawbacks: cost and susceptibility to friction. Anglers must also take extra care when tying knots.

"Some knots don't do well — the Palomar is not fluoro friendly in small sizes," Norris says. "If you tie knots right, fluoro has fantastic knot strength, but it's very susceptible to friction."