Table of contents for February 2017 in Marlin

It’s a rare occurrence nowadays to fish a billfish tournament where the focus isn’t about big-money checks or perennial accolades. Long gone are the events where good times and camaraderie are the goal; going to fish a fun event with both angler and boat rotations is more or less extinct. However, the No Sancocho Sailfish Shootout at Casa Vieja Lodge is the exception to the current trend and still has the primary focus of having a good time, with the sole objective to raise money for one of the local schools nearby. The negativity of missing a billfish bite and the dreaded experience of reeling back in only a ballyhoo head after a miss — a sancocho — is actually turned into a positive because anglers must then donate $20.…

Players Shepard “Shep” McKenney is, first and foremost, an entrepreneur. He’s successfully transitioned from lawyer to hotelier to boatbuilder. A stint at the helm of Hinckley Yachts started him down an interesting path: developing a way to make boats more stable and therefore more enjoyable. Along the way, he enlisted the help of John Adams, a naval architect and one of the world’s top experts on motion control. It’s a nearperfect partnership: the energetic, always optimistic leader and the reserved yet brilliant engineer. Together, they formed Seakeeper, and the marine industry will never be the same. How did Seakeeper make the transition from gimmick to a must-have accessory? Shep McKenney: Gyrostabilization is like magic in a bottle. You can’t see it work, but you can feel it. The roll just…

The 2016 Bisbee’s Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament took place October 22 to 24 and fielded 121 teams, all competing in the three-day event off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula for a chance to win one of the most prestigious offshore-fishing tournaments in the world. With more than $3.5 million at stake and multiple large marlin caught in the days leading up to the tournament, the action lived up to the hype, and the 36-year-old event continues to grow each year. At the end of the tournament, the fleet tallied a total of 175 blue marlin, 56 striped marlin, nine black marlin and three sailfish. Like any tournament, though, most of the teams walked away not having the week they wanted. A majority of the teams never even saw the million-dollar…

Opinion WHAT ICONIC BOATS OR BOATBUILDERS INSPIRE Q: YOU TODAY? FOUR TOP BUILDERS SHARE THEIR HISTORIC INFLUENCES. FOUR TOP BUILDERS SHARE THEIR HISTORIC INFLUENCES. facebook.com/marlinmag @MarlinMagazine The old Ryboviches were the boats my dad and I thought were the most beautiful when I was growing up. The 41-footers from the 1960s and ’70s were just incredible: You could see the craftsmanship and the love that went into each one, above and beyond what was normal for the era. The way the joints met in the sheer molding was just as fair and pretty as you would see on any boat in the world. Roy Merritt also has had a big influence on the Carolina builders. From the mezzanine design to all the other custom touches he does, we think a…

IT’S NO SECRET AUSTRALIA IS RICH IN FISHING OPPORTUNITIES, ESPECIALLY FOR ITS PROLIFIC GAME FISH. The giant black marlin off Cairns have always dominated the international limelight, and rightfully so: No other location in the world offers so many shots at granders. However, when it comes to sheer numbers and variety of billfish, it might surprise many anglers to hear that New South Wales is where they should be looking. Sure, it doesn’t offer 1,000-plus-pound monsters, but what it does have is good numbers of all six species of Indo-Pacific billfish. And when you step back and look at sport-fishing opportunities around the world, there are few places where you can catch all six species and score a coveted fantasy grand slam in just one state — and NSW is…

Every boat deal is different, but there is a general process buyers should be familiar with before purchasing a sport-fishing boat. As I mentioned in a previous article, brokers are quite helpful throughout the course of a purchase, but that doesn’t mean the individual purchasing the boat shouldn’t be aware of the basic stages. PERSONAL INSPECTION Of course, the first step to any purchase is for buyers or their brokers to look at the boat. Now, this doesn’t mean buyers get to sea-trial or survey the boat. Rather, they have an opportunity to personally inspect the boat, perform a walkthrough and assess its layout so they can evaluate the boat’s overall condition and determine if it suits their needs. THE OFFER After locating a suitable boat, the next logical step…

It seems to me that we have lost the art of angling as IGFA intended for it to be implemented so many years ago. The IGFA wrote the rules to set a standard for our sport-fishing endeavors and as a way for us to govern ourselves. But nowadays, we have strayed so far away that even someone like myself has strayed too. Let’s start with the line. So many anglers say they are catching blue marlin on 30-pound-test line. They set the drag at 5 to 10 pounds, and once the fish is hooked, they back down like it’s a million- dollar-winning marlin in a tournament. The mate grabs the 30-foot leader, gives it a yank and it’s over. If the angler is lucky enough to have hooked his own…

Magdalena Bay, located on the Pacific side of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and a couple hundred miles northwest of Cabo San Lucas, is home to some of the world’s best striped marlin fishing. When conditions are right, the marlin come pouring past Mag Bay in truly astounding numbers. It’s remote and desolate, but for those willing to put up with the hardships, the juice is worth the squeeze. And for the duo of Old Reliable owner Nick Smith and Capt. Chip Shafer, the conditions lined up perfectly in mid- October. “The conditions were the best I’d seen since 2013,” Shafer says via satphone from the bridge of Old Reliable, a 64-foot Bayliss. “Between the hurricane and the El Niño years, it was slow there for a while, but it turned back…

Over the past several years, the IGFA Great Marlin Race has documented some incredible blue marlin movements using satellite tags. This partnership between the IGFA and Stanford University pairs recreational anglers with cutting-edge satellite-tagging technology to gain more insight into the ecology and migratory behavior of billfish. During an IGMR tagging event that took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2011, a blue marlin traveled an amazing 4,776 nautical miles before the tag popped off near the coast of West Africa — and that’s just the linear distance from the point from where the tag was deployed to where the tag popped off. The actual track was much longer, but what’s most incredible is that the fish traveled that distance in a mere 120 days. Another IGMR-tagged blue marlin…

Trolling chin-weighted ballyhoo on circle hooks with 20- to 30-pound-test tackle is one of the most popular techniques for anglers targeting billfish around the world. But what happens when you get a bite, drop-back flawlessly, ease the drag up and then … nothing, nobody’s home. What do you do next? ABOUT THE EXPERT: Capt. John LaGrone has fished extensively throughout Central America for nearly three decades and was a standout skipper for many years in Guatemala before relocating to Costa Rica’s fish-rich Pacific coast. He’s currently at the helm of Marc Stanley’s 60-foot Spencer Pelese in Los Sueños. We turned to Capt. John LaGrone, one of the most experienced dead-bait captains on the water, for his recommendations on how to get that critical second or even third bite. “On a…

ishermen love practical jokes. Whether it’s a way to stave off boredom, the result of being overserved at the bar or just a bunch of overgrown adolescents having a laugh at someone else’s expense, jokes and pranks come with the territory. The best seem to find their way around the world as they pass from mouth to ear, captain to deckhand, owner to angler. Here are just a few from around the docks. IT’ S RAINING BEANS This is a classic old-school prank that we first started doing about 15 years ago when we were traveling and fishing down in Mexico. It’s harmless and not even that messy, but pretty funny. In the wee hours of the night or early morning, sneak aboard your buddy’s sport-fisher. Carry with you a…