Podcasts about blue marlin

Sundowner progressive set inspired by Dosem's Blue Marlin sets

Offshore marlin and mahi action, inshore tactics for bull reds and trout, reef fish release tips, and local tournament updates—all in this week's report.   The Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report is your best resource for the Gulf Shores Surf Fishing Report, Orange Beach Fishing Report, Dauphin Island Fishing Report, Mobile Bay Fishing Report, and Alabama saltwater fishing everywhere in between. For the anglers looking for a Gulf Shores surf Fishing Report, Gulf State Park pier fishing report, Orange Beach Fishing Report and Fort Morgan fishing report, look no further than the Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report. Every week we bring you an "onshore" report for those anglers interested in a gulf shores surf fishing report or a gulf shores pier fishing report. This week, we're checking in with Capt. Adam Peeples for the offshore report. He shares recent success stories on mahi and marlin, talks about the importance of temperature breaks, and offers tips for live baiting and safely handling large fish. Plus, he drops a clever boat hack involving a pool noodle. Then, Capt. Patric Garmeson gives us the inshore report, highlighting the tail end of sheepshead season and the arrival of Spanish mackerel. He also shares strategies for targeting bull redfish in muddy water and predictions for speckled trout fishing. Finally, we hear from Nick Haddad with Return 'Em Right, who discusses the impacts of barotrauma and predation when releasing reef fish, and we wrap up with updates on local tournaments like the Convict Classic and the new Red Fish Classic. Don't forget about the AFTCO promotion for Great Days Outdoors Podcast Network listeners—text ALSFR to 779-345-2918 for a free camo sunglasses cleaner cloth with any AFTCO purchase! It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you'd like us to email you the latest show, just head over to greatdaysoutdoors.com/asfr  and we'll send it straight to your inbox every week. Keep Whackin em'!   Sponsors: Salts Gone Shoreline Plastics Tohatsu Saunders YachtWorks The Wharf Boat Show BOW Blue Water Marine Service Survival At Sea The East Pass Broadbill Open Test Calibration Admiral Shellfish  CCA Alabama Alabama Marine Resources Angelo Depaola EXP Realty "The Coastal Connection" KillerDock Fishbites Hilton's Offshore Charts Pure Flats- The Slick Lure Great Days Outdoors Foster Contracting - Fortified Roofing Return Em Right AFTCO Texas Hunter Products Bucks Island Hiltons Realtime Navigator Dixie Supply and Baker Metal Works

Spring pompano, mahi, blue marlin & Gator trout tips from Blake Hunter, Adam Peeples & Evan Wheeler—timing, tides & tactics! The Northwest Florida Fishing report is your best resource for the Destin Fishing Report, Panama City Fishing Report, Pensacola Fishing Report, Navarre Fishing Report, and everywhere in between. For the anglers looking for a Destin Fishing Report, Ft. Walton Beach fishing report, Choctawhatchee Bay Fishing Report, or Miramar Beach fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in an Okaloosa Island fishing report and a Santa Rosa Beach fishing report and everywhere in between. For our guys looking for the Pensacola fishing report or the Navarre Fishing Report, we've got you covered. This week we're talking to: Blake Hunter with https://www.reel30a.com/ to learn where the Spring Pompano run is occurring along the Emerald Coast. You'll learn some great pointers on where to be leading up to the Full Moon and during the subsequent neap tide. Capt. Adam Peeples with One Shot Charters details a temp break and color change just North of the FADS and what he did to catch Mahi-Mahi and Blue Marlin. Finally, Capt. Evan Wheeler with Tall Pines Tight Lines takes us through the trophy trout fishery and when and how to fish wind blown and leeward banks with the weekly procession of cold fronts that are still moving through this time of year.  It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please Subscribe, Rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to text the word “nwffr” to 779-345-2918  to get that AFTCO CAMO LENS CLEANER CLOTH  or click here to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week!  Important Links:  Sponsors Fishbites Dixie Supply and Baker Metal Killerdock Test Calibration Coastal Connection EXP Realty Great Days Outdoors Hilton's Realtime Navigator Bucks Island Marine Salts Gone  

In this episode of the Katie C. Sawyer podcast, host Katie welcomes back Chloe Mikles, a marine biologist and PhD candidate, to discuss her research on bluefin tuna and black marlin. They explore Chloe's recent adventures at Tropic Star Lodge, the importance of conservation efforts in fishing communities, and the innovative tagging programs that help scientists understand these species better. The conversation also delves into the economic impacts of fisheries management and the role of citizen science in marine research, particularly through the Great Marlin Race. In this conversation, Chloe and Katie delve into the dynamics of fishing tournaments, particularly the Great Marlin Race, and the importance of citizen science in engaging anglers. They discuss Chloe's collaboration with renowned marine artist and scientist Dr. Guy Harvey, her experiences fishing with experts, and the techniques used in tagging Black Marlin. The conversation also explores the physiological differences between Black and Blue Marlin, their behaviors, and the ongoing research in billfish conservation. In this conversation, Chloe and Katie delve into the complexities of billfish species, particularly focusing on black marlin. They discuss the challenges of understanding migration patterns and spawning locations, the innovative tagging and tracking methods being developed, and the importance of community involvement in marine research. Chloe shares insights from her research project, highlighting the need for collaboration and funding to support conservation efforts. The conversation emphasizes the excitement of exploration in marine biology and the significance of engaging the fishing community in scientific endeavors. https://www.tagagiant.org/ Email Chloe: csmikles@stanford.edu Instagram: @Coastal_chloe   takeaways Chloe is a PhD candidate studying bluefin tuna and black marlin. Tropic Star Lodge is a premier location for fishing and research. Conservation efforts are supported by local fishing communities. Tagging programs provide crucial data on fish migration patterns. Bluefin tuna research has been extensive due to their economic importance. Pacific bluefin tuna populations have shown signs of recovery. The Great Marlin Race engages anglers in scientific research. Citizen science is vital for gathering data on billfish. Fishermen's observations contribute to scientific understanding. Effective fisheries management is essential for sustainable fishing. The Great Maryland Race involves tournaments where the furthest fish wins. Citizen science enhances angler engagement and investment in fish conservation. Collaboration with experts like Guy Harvey enriches research efforts. Fishing with seasoned professionals provides invaluable learning experiences. Tagging efforts require collaboration among the fishing community. Understanding fish physiology is crucial for successful releases. Black Marlin exhibit different behaviors compared to Blue Marlin. The fight dynamics of Black Marlin can vary significantly. Research on billfish phylogeny is constantly evolving with new data. Effective conservation strategies depend on angler participation and education. Billfish species have complex migration patterns and spawning locations. Black marlin are primarily found in the Indo-Pacific, with limited known spawning sites. Tagging technology is evolving to better track billfish movements. Community involvement is crucial for marine research and conservation efforts. Understanding climate impacts, like El Nino, is vital for fish populations. Innovative tagging methods are being tested to improve data collection. Collaboration among scientists is essential for advancing marine research. The fishing community plays a significant role in supporting conservation initiatives. Research on billfish can lead to better management practices for fisheries. Engaging the public in marine science can foster greater awareness and support for conservation.  

Daniel Buitrago, Brandon Fifield & Jack Lau are joined by special guest Bret Bohn of BBB Alaska - Bret is one of Alaska's most revered outdoorsman, adventure enthusiast & hunting/fishing guides in the industry today!    Karlo's avlanche recovery, message to the riders, get trained!, the ski train party, the Kamikaze Kona 760lbs Blue Marlin, southeast glacier bears, color phase “Cinnamon” black bear, Mountain Men Alaska, trapping strategy, trap tor sign, rough year for Alaska game animals, would you DIY or be guided on a governors tag? Mountain Lion hunting w/dogs, the art of Martin trapping, selling furs, North American Fur Auction, fur prices in history, traps don't discriminate, technology & hunting, trapline necessities, living the rural lifestyle, technology and solar energy, the heritage of BBB, a passion for guiding & guide use areas, putting miles on the sleds, W.A.T.R  (Women's Alaska Trappers Retreat, Iv's Mink Coat, Bret's bear story,          Visit our Website - www.alaskawildproject.com Follow on Instagram - www.instagram.com/alaskawildproject Watch on YouTube - www.youtube.com/@alaskawildproject $upport on Patreon - www.patreon.com/alaskawildproject

VALENTIN HUEDO is a Spanish Dj & Producer, born and raised in Ibiza. Valentin Huedo grew up surrounded by seductive tunes and grooves connected with the astounding nature and free-minded people. He grabbed the core of the island and understood the way music transcends us and make us bond with ourselves and with each other. And since then he's been projecting it both in the island and all around the world. From a very young age, he soundtracked the sunset in the legendary Café del Mar being the youngest dj to play there in a residency that lasted for a decade. In the following years he would do step forward into the balearic scene as resident dj at the infamous beach club Blue Marlin but also as one of the main hosts of Ibiza Sonica Radio spreading the sound of the island internationally. In 2016 he started as resident DJ at WooMooN, a rite that celebrates life, love and art in community that brings back the original spirit of the White Island. Chambord - The Underground Peter Makto - Chakra Boogie (DSF remix) M.E.M.O - Take Me Meera (NO) - Stikk (Tripolism remix) Yamil - Broken In Pieces Landikhan & Mira (Berlin) - Laika Frankey & Sandrino - Intrinsic Audio Junkies - Playmobil (James Harcourt remix) Luke Alessi - Molecular Motions Martijn Ten Velden - I Just Wanna Go REDOLENT Depeche Mode - Policy of Truth (Huedo & Bruz Rmx) This show is syndicated & distributed exclusively by Syndicast. If you are a radio station interested in airing the show or would like to distribute your podcast / radio show please register here: https://syndicast.co.uk/distribution/registration

Tom Doyle joins Squirly fresh off one of the most prolific Marlin Cups in recent history to talk metro Blue Marlin fishing, changing fishing areas and Barramundi in the Swan River

https://www.whisky.de/p.php?id=XRWDE000BM0 Nosing 05:14 Wir verkosten den Jamaica Rum - Blue Marlin "Whisky.de exklusiv". Der 30 Jahre Whisky.de Jamaica Rum - Blue Marlin ist eine exklusive Jubiläumsabfüllung von Whisky.de. Zwei Destillate aus den weltberühmten Rum-Brennereien Long Pond und Clarendon wurden auf Jamaika vermählt und reiften in Bourbonfässern. So entstand ein Blend mit charakteristischen Ester-Noten, fruchtigen Facetten und angenehmer Würze. ► Abonnieren: http://www.youtube.com/user/thewhiskystore?sub_confirmation=1 ► Whisky.de Social Media ○ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@whiskyde ○ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whisky.de/ ○ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Whisky.de/ ○ Twitter / X: https://www.threads.net/@whisky.de ○ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@whisky.de ○ Telegram: https://t.me/whisky_de ► Podcast: https://www.whisky.de/shop/newsletter/#podcast ► Merch: https://whiskyde-fanartikel.creator-spring.com/ Mehr Informationen finden Sie in unserem Shop auf Whisky.de/shop

Joining us this week on Select is UAE-based Lebanese-born selector and producer Tarek B with a dynamic house set, mixing micro and minimal elements with relentless groovy basslines and the occasional electro break. The set features a slew of eclectic tunes by global producers and artists such as tINI's ‘So High', Last Pines' ‘Go Ahead' and DJ Gear Hoover's ‘Studio Gear'. Having been manning decks since 2017, Tarek's sets have traversed dancefloors at some of the region's top clubs and festivals, from Dubai and Beirut to Istanbul, Amman, Riyadh and more, spinning at the likes of B018, Snoopy Beats and Boogie Box. He's also played Boiler Room Abu Dhabi and Ibiza's Blue Marlin club.

Dr. Jordan Cooper is a general dentist and owner of Cooper Family Dentistry in Little Rock, Arkansas.   Best-selling author of "Chasing the Blue Marlin," Dr. Cooper shares wisdom on goal-setting, entrepreneurship, and personal growth through his life stories, experiences in building a dental practice group, and real estate ventures, emphasizing the importance of embracing failure as a path to success. Dr. Cooper stresses the value of mentorship in professional development and encourages dentists to learn from those more experienced in their field.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------  Subscribe & Listen: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/69Dz26hgC9D6YqwN8JMDBV Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mb2-underground/id1747349567 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow MB2 Dental on Social: MB2 Dental: mb2dental.com Instagram: instagram.com/mb2dental Facebook: facebook.com/mb2dental YouTube: youtube.com/@mb2dental LinkedIn: linkedin.com/mb2-dental

The Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report is your best resource for the Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Ocean View Fishing Report, Norfolk Fishing Report, Lynnhaven Inlet Fishing Report, and everywhere in between.For the anglers looking for an Eastern Shore Fishing Report, Hampton fishing report, Buckroe Beach Fishing Report, or York River fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in a Cape Charles fishing report and a Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel fishing report and for every location in the Lower Chesapeake Bay. For our guys looking for the Virginia fishing report, we've got you covered.This week we're talking to Captain Russ Kostinas aboard Top Notch Charter Fishing out of Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach. Russ and team recently caught several billfish, a few tunas and several Mahi, including a remarkable 300+ pound Blue Marlin that they harvested due to the fish expiring during the fight. To contact and book: visit their website, call 757-681-8068 or email TopNotchCharterFishing@gmail.comNext, we meet a new Captain, Robbie Bryan with Reel Release Sportfishing. He shares about their recent wreck fishing trips as well as a remarkable story of catching a 53” cobia on a diamond jig 35 miles offshore in 110 feet of water! If that wasn't exciting enough, he shares about an incredible site just off the beach when some juvenile great white's were tearing up a giant school of red drum! To get booked for an adventure with Captain Robbie, visit Reel Release Booking or call 757-705-1366     Next we talk to Captain CL Marshall, with Tangier Sound Charters as well as Captain Matt with Sea Hawk Sports Center | Pocomoke City MD about what is going with the changing season and temp changes. The team at Sea Hawk does anything and everything from Trolling motors to rod repair. Captain Marshall runs a Mako 231 with a brand new Suzuki on the back and a trolling motor up front, his charter is great for anglers that want to be in on the action, casting and reeling fish in. Contact 410-251-7341 to book a trip.It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Remember to text the word “LCBFR” to to 779-435-2918 or visit us online at www.greatdaysoutdoors.com/lcbfr to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report Email Subscribers receive a PROMO CODE for a FREE AFTCO Camo Sunglasses Cleaner Cloth with the purchase of any products!Sponsors:Convert SolarSam Rust Seafood Great Days OutdoorsKillerDockHilton's Realtime-NavigatorAFTCOAirmedcare Saltsgone

    Jane Dutton (standing in for Relebogile Mabotja) speaks to  Goodman Ncobeni the General Manager at the Blue Marlin about the Blue Marlin All-Inclusive Seascape  which is situated a mere 200m from Scottburgh beach, making it a sought-after destination.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report is your best resource for the Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Ocean View Fishing Report, Norfolk Fishing Report, Lynnhaven Inlet Fishing Report, and everywhere in between.For the anglers looking for an Eastern Shore Fishing Report, Hampton fishing report, Buckroe Beach Fishing Report, or York River fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in a Cape Charles fishing report and a Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel fishing report and for every location in the Lower Chesapeake Bay. For our guys looking for the Virginia fishing report, we've got you covered.This week we're talking to Captain Jay Brooks with Smoke Show Sportfishing | Virginia Beach VA about the Marlin bite that is heating up. Captain Jay and his mate Leah, have been successfully catching several Mahi Mahi while primarily targeting White and Blue Marlin, with several releases in the past week. There is alot of excitement ahead as these NE winds seem to have helped move more of the billfish within reach. To get booked aboard the Smoke Show, contact via phone (757) 797-9156 or email charters@smokeshowsportfishing.com to ensure you book the trip that is right for you.Next we talk to Captain Eric Meyers aboard Heads N Tails, about the recent Cobia trips they have been running in the bay and even nearshore for combo trips of seabass/mahi and targeting pods of Cobia while running there and back. Bay cobia fishing appears to be dynamic day to day, with some days bringing pods of fish with plenty of action, while other days prove to be more challenging to locate fish. Captain Eric uses several techniques to help find fish even in tough conditions, listen in to learn more and to book, call 757-573-9569 or visit Heads N Tails Booking Website Lastly, we speak with Captain Eric again as he runs an inshore bay boat as well that targets the fall species in the Lynnhaven River and sometimes the Elizabeth River, like Speckled Trout, Puppy Drum & Striper. If chasing this inshore species on light tackle is your flavor, contact to book via the Heads N Tails Booking Website.It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Remember to text the word “LCBFR” to to 779-435-2918 or visit us online at www.greatdaysoutdoors.com/lcbfr to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report Email Subscribers receive a PROMO CODE for a FREE AFTCO Camo Sunglasses Cleaner Cloth with the purchase of any products!Sponsors:Convert SolarSam Rust Seafood Great Days OutdoorsAirMedCareHilton's Realtime-NavigatorAFTCO

In this special episode, recorded on behalf of the Regent's University London Alumni Club, we dive into the extraordinary worlds of motorsport and electronic music through the lens of Pole Position, the brainchild of two highly acclaimed figures in the music industry:  Loïc Le Joliff, the visionary founder of Brunch Electronik and Off Sonar, and Jaime Alguersuari, a former Red Bull F1 driver turned music producer and DJ. The event took place at Blue Marlin Ibiza in London, a creative sanctuary that has recently expanded its cutting-edge music programming into the city, and where our host, Farah Nanji, holds a DJ residency. Visit https://bluemarlinibiza.london to learn more. Regent's University London is one of the most respected independent universities in the UK, known for nurturing innovators, entrepreneurs, and tomorrow's future leaders. Visit https://regents.ac.uk/ to learn more. Farah graduated with a degree in Global Business Management from Regent's in 2014 and is proud to serve the University today as the Vice President of the Alumni Club. Regent's University and Blue Marlin invited Pole Position to fly in from Barcelona over the summer for this exclusive panel discussion exploring the high-performance mindset, followed by DJ sets. ➤ In this episode, we will uncover: ✅Jaime's experience of being one of the youngest drivers in Formula 1 history ✅ Transitioning from being an elite athlete into the music industry ✅ How Loïc has redefined nightlife culture with Barcelona's most iconic music event, Brunch Electronik  ✅ Mental resilience in the face of public scrutiny ✅ Balancing commercial success with artistic integrity ✅ The creation of the Ànims label and how it's capturing the attention of industry icons like Dixon, Solomun, and Carl Cox. ✅ Why risk-taking and innovation are key to staying ahead, whether on the racetrack or in the DJ booth. ✅ Maintaining mindfulness and balance amidst relentless travel and late hours ➤ Follow us at:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionmakers/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dj.n1nja/  X: https://x.com/dj_n1nja  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dj_n1nja  Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dj-ninja  ➤ Credits: Music: Particles ft. JKLN - N1NJA (Unreleased) Producer: Farah Nanji Co-Producer: Regent's University London ➤ For show notes + more on our host visit:  https://mission-makers.com/  https://www.dj-ninja.com/

In this special episode, recorded on behalf of the Regent's University London Alumni Club, we dive into the extraordinary worlds of motorsport and electronic music through the lens of Pole Position, the brainchild of two highly acclaimed figures in the music industry:  Loïc Le Joliff, the visionary founder of Brunch Electronik and Off Sonar, and Jaime Alguersuari, a former Red Bull F1 driver turned music producer and DJ. The event took place at Blue Marlin Ibiza in London, a creative sanctuary that has recently expanded its cutting-edge music programming into the city, and where our host, Farah Nanji, holds a DJ residency. Visit https://bluemarlinibiza.london to learn more. Regents University London is one of the most respected independent universities in the UK, known for nurturing innovators, entrepreneurs, and tomorrow's future leaders. Visit https://regents.ac.uk/ to learn more. Farah graduated with a degree in Global Business Management from Regent's in 2014 and is proud to serve the University today as the Vice President of the Alumni Club. Regent's University and Blue Marlin invited Pole Position to fly in from Barcelona over the summer for this exclusive panel discussion exploring the high-performance mindset, followed by DJ sets. ➤ In tomorrow's episode, we will uncover: ✅Jaime's experience of being one of the youngest drivers in Formula 1 history ✅ Transitioning from being an elite athlete into the music industry ✅ How Loïc has redefined nightlife culture with Barcelona's most iconic music event, Brunch Electronik  ✅ Mental resilience in the face of public scrutiny ✅ Balancing commercial success with artistic integrity ✅ The creation of the Ànims label and how it's capturing the attention of industry icons like Dixon, Solomun, and Carl Cox. ✅ Why risk-taking and innovation are key to staying ahead, whether on the racetrack or in the DJ booth. ✅ Maintaining mindfulness and balance amidst relentless travel and late hours ➤ Follow us at:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionmakers/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dj.n1nja/  X: https://x.com/dj_n1nja  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dj_n1nja  Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dj-ninja  ➤ Credits: Music: Mission Makers - N1NJA (Unreleased) Producer: Farah Nanji Co-Producer: Regent's University London ➤ For show notes + more on our host visit:  https://mission-makers.com/  https://www.dj-ninja.com/

The Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report is your best resource for the Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Ocean View Fishing Report, Norfolk Fishing Report, Lynnhaven Inlet Fishing Report, and everywhere in between.For the anglers looking for an Eastern Shore Fishing Report, Hampton fishing report, Buckroe Beach Fishing Report, or York River fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in a Cape Charles fishing report and a Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel fishing report and for every location in the Lower Chesapeake Bay. For our guys looking for the Virginia fishing report, we've got you covered.This week we're talking to Captain Russ Kostinas aboard Top Notch Charter Fishing out of Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach. This past week, the Top Notch caught several billfish and Mahi, including a remarkable 600+ pound Blue Marlin, by some retired Navy Seals. To contact and book: visit their website, call 757-681-8068 or email TopNotchCharterFishing@gmail.com  Captain Austin Hayne (Finao Sportfishing) gives us a report on recent Cobia fishing, as PODS of fish as they start to stage up for their migration. We also talk about a wild ride on September 3rd, during a NE blow with 5 foot waves at short intervals, while aboard the Fathom Offshore Team fishing boat, ‘Clickthrough'. Despite impossible sea and wind conditions, we managed to find and catch them! Captain Austin is an expert in overcoming challenges and making it happen, call to book 757-530-4009 or visit: Finao Sportfishing This week we talk with retired Navy Senior Chief, Captain Andy Sutter, owner and operator of Freedom Boat Club of Hampton Roads. #MoreAwaits when you join the boat club and the experience is completely hassle free. You'll receive unlimited training and spend zero time on maintenance or cleaning. Members can also take advantage of reciprocity, meaning, plan your vacation around the country or the globe, and take advantage of getting on the water while on your vacation!It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Remember to text the word “LCBFR” to to 779-435-2918 or visit us online at www.greatdaysoutdoors.com/lcbfr to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report Email Subscribers receive a PROMO CODE for a FREE AFTCO Camo Sunglasses Cleaner Cloth with the purchase of any products!Sponsors:Convert SolarSam Rust Seafood Great Days OutdoorsAirMedCareHilton's Realtime-NavigatorAFTCO

Captain Jim Lamarque has spent over 60 years in the fishing industry and has experienced more than his fair share of adventures. From Redfish and Blue Marlin to capsized boats and being kidnapped and held for ransom in the jungle, he's seen it all! Listen as we sit down and recount some of the life and times of Captain Jim Lamarque.

In Episode 46, our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler talks to Willie Zimmerman, the Captain of the 65' Guthrie "Ro Sham Bo". Willie talks about the Blue Marlin they recently caught to win the HUK Big Fish Classic as well as the Bigeye's they caught to win the Jimmy Johnson this year as well. Willie and his crew on the Ro Sham Bo are on a roll the last few seasons and Willie gives us some background on himself and how he moved his way up the ranks in the sportfishing world.To fish with our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, aboard his beautiful 60' Custom Sportfishing Boat, go to EuphoriaSportfishing.comIf you would like our host, Ricky Wheeler, to help you sell your boat/yacht or help you with searching for and buying a boat/yacht, please email:RickyWheeler@UnitedYacht.comFor online fishing courses, go to our website Courses.SaltwaterEuphoria.comCLICK HERE to see the Saltwater Euphoria Job BoardIf you are a Sportfishing Mate, Sportfishing Captain, or an aspiring mate or captain looking for an opportunity, please email us at info@saltwatereuphoria.com and we will get you on our SE Job Board. Send your up-to-date resume, a picture or two of yourself, and a short cover letter stating who you are and the type of work/sportfishing program you are looking to work with.Saltwater Euphoria Podcast Sponsors:+Saltwater Euphoria - https://www.saltwatereuphoria.com/+Euphoria Sportfishing - https://www.euphoriasportfishing.com/+Fishing Booker - https://fishingbooker.com/#65e87544c2843Follow the following on Instagram:CaptainRickyWheeler: @CaptainRickyWheelerSaltwater Euphoria: @SaltwaterEuphoriaEuphoria Sportfishing: @EuphoriaSportfishingRo Sham Bo Sportfishing: @roshambo_sportfishingIf you like this podcast please be sure to click that FOLLOW button and also spread the word by sharing this episode with your friends or whatever social channels you are on.  We appreciate your support.

Summary Curtis De Silva, a professional fisherman, shares his experience fishing in Madeira and the Southern Caribbean. He recently caught a grander blue marlin in Madeira and discusses the fishing techniques and spread used. Curtis also talks about his father, Captain Frothy, and their fishing background. He compares the fishing conditions and challenges in Madeira and the Southern Caribbean, including dealing with seaweed in the Caribbean and paperwork in Madeira. Curtis also mentions the differences in migratory patterns and water temperatures that contribute to the size of fish in each region. The conversation with Curtis De Silva focuses on his experiences fishing in Madeira and the Azores. The marine life in these areas is spectacular, with abundant bait, birds, and various sea creatures. The conversation covers topics such as the underwater banks and seamounts in the Azores, the impact of sea surface temperatures on fishing, the decision to pull boats out of the water during the off-season, the challenges of fishing in rough swells, the boatyard in Madeira, and the international fleet in Madeira. Curtis also shares his favorite fishing memories with his father and his passion for billfish. Fish with Curtis: search @madierasportfishing on facebook or instagram   Takeaways Curtis De Silva caught a grander blue marlin in Madeira, weighing 1048 pounds. Fishing in Madeira is characterized by calm waters and a close proximity to the shore. The fishing season in Madeira is from June to September/October. The Southern Caribbean has tournaments for sailfish and smaller blue marlin. Challenges in the Southern Caribbean include dealing with seaweed and rough weather. Fishing in Madeira is relatively easy, with the main challenge being locating blue marlin. Madeira has a large average size of blue marlin compared to other fishing locations. Paperwork and documentation are meticulous in Madeira. The migratory patterns and water temperatures contribute to the size of fish in each region. The marine life in Madeira and the Azores is spectacular, with abundant bait, birds, and various sea creatures. The Azores have underwater banks and seamounts that attract fish, including blue marlin. Sea surface temperatures can impact fishing, with extreme high temperatures affecting the Azores and Madeira. Boats are pulled out of the water during the off-season in Madeira and the Azores due to the slowing down of the marlin migration and the risk of damage from rough swells. The boatyard in Madeira is situated under the airport runway and provides services for boats. Madeira has an international fleet with charter boats operated by local and foreign captains. Curtis De Silva has a passion for billfish and targets big blue marlin in Madeira. Fishing with his father and catching his first blue marlin are some of Curtis' most cherished fishing memories. Releasing fish is a common practice in billfishing, and recreational fishermen play a role in understanding fish migration patterns. Curtis De Silva also runs charters in the Southern Caribbean, specifically in Grenada. Keywords: fishing, Madeira, Southern Caribbean, blue marlin, grander, Captain Frothy, techniques, spread, challenges, seaweed, paperwork, migratory patterns, water temperature, fishing, Madeira, Azores, marine life, sea surface temperatures, underwater banks, seamounts, boatyard, fleet, billfish Transcript: Katie (00:00.43) Today's guest is my friend Curtis De Silva from Trinidad and Tobago. Curtis has spent his entire professional career fishing between the Southern Caribbean and the island of Madeira. In fact, he has fished the last 15 seasons on the island of Madeira and a few weeks ago, weighed the first and as of July 2nd only grander of the 2024 Blue Marlin season. In this episode, we're gonna dive into the story about that fish, as well as what it takes to fish the Eastern Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores, how they compare to the fishery of the Southern Caribbean, and looking into a little bit on the relationship between Curtis and his father, legendary Captain Frothy from the Pesca Grossa, as well as why fishing is so important to him. It's always a pleasure to sit down and talk to Curtis and it's another great episode in the books. You're not going to want to miss it. Katie (01:06.734) Welcome to the Katie C. Sawyer podcast. Today I'm sitting with my good friend, Curtis De Silva. Curtis, where are you tuning in from? Hello. How are you going, Katie? Good. I'm tuning in from sunny Calheta, Madeira. That's right. Madeira. You guys, Madeira is an autonomous island owned by Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean. Curtis and I met a couple of years ago while we were fishing there with the On Location. Now, Curtis, you I want to get into your background. I want to get into your story. But first, I can't skip these important details. You had a really good fishing day just recently, just a few days ago. You want to tell us about it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you could jump right into that story if you'd like. Yeah, it's a pretty good one. So I think it was Monday this week. We went out on My dad's fishing boat is called the Pesca Grossa. And we had some clients that flew in from the States. They were on their honeymoon. They were keen to go one day blue marlin fishing. So we were fishing on board, you know, the 30 foot, just a little 30 foot sport fishing boat out here in Madeira And yeah, maybe about four o 'clock or so we hooked up onto a good fish, you know. it was actually a really interesting play. One of the better ones I've seen in my life. so one, one fish came up on the teaser on our right teaser, really short to the boat, maybe 10 or 15 feet from the back of the, the, the boat. And I threw the pitch out and it did not switch on to the pitch, you know, so it faded off onto our left long. What were you pitching? Just a mackerel, about a two pound Spanish mackerel, chin weighted, with a 10 o' circle hook. Yeah, so that fish faded off, you know, and hit the left lure and left long. Missed it completely. And about maybe a moment later, maybe five or 10 seconds, another fish came up and just crashed, but the short, the right short, you know? Katie (03:33.326) Teal off a bunch of line. We got the lady angler in the chair, you know, it may be about a 40 minute fight or so. We had the fish, three sides of the boat. When it was there, we just, we decided to take it. We decided to take it on board. Cause it was, it was a pretty big fish. When I larger ones we've seen both side in a long time. So we decided to take him. Yeah. Pretty big fish. A grander. How much did that fish weigh? Yes, it was 1048, 170 some kilos. I can't remember exactly in kilos, but it was 1048 pounds. It was really amazing to see that there was actually two of them. The first fish that showed up, how big was that one? Average Madeira size when I was there for the one season was somewhere between five and 700 pounds. A good size fish is 800. We were looking for the grander ourselves. We never found it. We never, well, Drake saw it. We've talked about that before, but we never found it. So how big was that first fish that showed up? So the first fish was probably very similar in size, you know? Stop. Yeah. So two big girls crashing on your baits. So what is your spread like? I mean, you have short teasers. You said you you're doing a like a macro pitch with teasers close to the boat. So those don't have hooks in them. And then you have or I don't know what you call them because then you called it the short lure. The right short is where you caught that second fish on. So you have a J hook in that one, right? That's right. So we fish a pretty simple spread over here. You know, we fish one 30s and we would have four four four lures with hooks in them. Any water at all times, you know? So left short, left, left and right short and left and right long would all have, you know, 10 OJ hooks in them. That's how we target them with 550 pound mono leader. And then you're also pulling teasers? Yeah. So we pull two teasers right up close to the boat. Yeah, that's basically all Madeira spread. That's awesome. What lures did these fish show up on? Katie (05:55.134) well, they actually showed up on my dad's lure. My dad makes these lovely lures. Now, I'm not sure what the name of this particular one was, but it was one of the Captain Frothy series lures. That's so special. That is so special. Okay, so Curtis, congratulations on your grander. Was that your first grander? I mean... Thank you. That was the first one I weighed on a scale. I believe I caught a couple before. But we released them, but this is the first one that we scale, Peroni scale and wait. That's amazing. Congratulations. And for your group to be on their honeymoon, like, my gosh, you said they had one day of fishing and it was at 4 PM. I'm assuming that you go into the dock at five. Like that is some good luck for those anglers and to have such a good crew. Now you said you were fishing aboard Pesca Grossa. You guys might've heard of this boat because of The legendary captain Frothy. Now Frothy is Curtis's dad. Curtis, you want to give us a little bit of background on Frothy as well as yourself, where you guys come from, what your history is, your professional history in the sport of billfishing? Sure, absolutely. I could give you a little background. I'm starting with my dad. So my dad has been a Harvard fisherman since he was a young, since he was a boy. He always was very passionate about it. He ran a very successful charter operation in Trinidad and Tobago for most of the 80s and 90s and early 2000s having about three or so boats going out quite regularly on a daily basis. He came here, he was fortunate, he came here in the 90s, he fished here in the 90s a bit and he caught, he was well caught on his first day here fishing. thousand pound blue marlin and brought it to the scale and weighted as well in the 90s. Yeah on his first trip here. So he got he fell in love with Madeira and I think it was somewhere in the early 2000s or so he bought pescagrossa and he started a charter operation out of here in Madeira and we've been coming here since. As you know I work on I captain a boat called the Luna right now here in Madeira. Katie (08:20.27) and she's just undergoing maintenance in the yard right now. So we just held up on that waiting for that boat to come back and I'll be running that boat this season. You're from Trinidad, Tobago. Do you, what, like what, growing up, what was your seasons like? Cause you've been going to Madeira for a while, but have you been living full time in Madeira for all these years or were you traveling back and forth? How did that look? So yeah, I spent about four months out of the year here. in Madeira for the Blue Marlin season from about June to September, October. As well as, yeah, I spend the other six months in the Caribbean where I do commercial fishing as well as we do family fishing with my cousin. My cousin has a 46 hat to us in Trinidad and we go to a bunch of the tournaments in the Southern Caribbean, such as Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia. and a couple of tournaments in Tobago as well, where I live for the other part of the year. Yeah, that's about my fishing background. I fish the Southern Caribbean a bunch as well as Hey Medaro. What are the seasons for the Southern Caribbean? What are the months and what is the tournament season specifically? And what are you targeting in those various locations? What size fish? What kind of tackle are you fishing? What does that look like? So we have a few tournaments in the Southern Caribbean. One of them is the Grenada International Bill Fishing Tournament. They have the Barbados International Game Fishing Tournament as well as the Tobago International. We fish for, you know, mainly sailfish and smaller size blue marlin. So we do do the dredge, teaser, circle hook fishing. for the smaller bellfish in the southern Caribbean. It's been very productive for the last couple of seasons. The fishing has been really well. Right before I came here, we did a three -day tournament. I think it had 30 or so boats, and they had over 130 releases, I believe it was, over three days of fishing. So the fishing back home is pretty good right now in terms of sailfish and smaller blue marlin. Katie (10:44.91) how we target them, that's the tournaments that I'm accustomed attending. Yeah, that's awesome. So what months of the year are the tournaments? Do they start in February and go through May? How does that work? So they have Grenada in January, which is the first tournament for the Southern Caribbean for the year. My dad actually fished this year and won it. He came first place fishing in... with the 46 after us, the hopscotch, my cousin, Peter and Grenada. So, that was the first tournament they have, Barbados, I believe is in March. Yes, they have the Barbados international tournament in March and the Tobago tournament is in April. Yep. That's awesome. And the Caribbean has been insane on fire this year like you touched on. I mean, it's just been really, really good fishing, which is cool because the last few years have they been a little slower than usual or to par like what what has the have the seasons been like over the last few years and have you seen them changing at all? I think the fishing has been more or less productive in the last. You know two or three years. You know it's been really hot. You know before that it's always been fairly good. It's always been decent, you know. But yeah, it's really been picking up in the last year or two. Been having a lot of, a lot more releases per average, per tournament. So. That's awesome. What are your biggest challenges when fishing the Southern Caribbean? Like, I mean, the waters are so different from what you see in Madeira, like so different already, the tackle spread, the fish you're seeing, it's all very different from each other. What are your biggest challenges in the Southern Caribbean specifically when fishing? A couple issues we deal with is one mainly seaweed, you know, the seaweed problems getting worse, especially our region. We're learning to work with that, work, you know, a couple of techniques to work with fishing in the seaweed, especially if you find pods of fish that are tangled up in there. So, you know, working on new techniques to actually be able to fish through the seaweed and work with it as opposed to just have to fish somewhere that does not have seaweed. You know, we often find Katie (13:04.142) large pods of blue marlin and sailfish right wrapped up with that sagasum seaweed, especially where it's stuck. So just working on some techniques on how to effectively fish through seaweed through the tournaments could give us a keen advantage, you know? So we, we're working on that's probably one of the most difficult. I would say that's the most difficult obstacle with fishing in Southern Caribbean right now, as well as, you know, we might get rough weather here and there, but. Part of Caribbean life for sure. So what are some of these techniques you're talking about? How do you, I love that you talk about how a lot of the fish are under that sargassum because it's an entire ecosystem. And that sargassum, you guys, it's a problem because the grass is getting tangled in the line. It's getting in front of the baits and then the fish aren't going to eat if there's a chunk of grass in front of the bait or it's all up in the dredge. So these mates are having to constantly get the grass off the line. It can be a real nuisance. But Curtis, tell me, how are you involved? What kind of techniques are you talking about? Because I'm super curious on how you fish around grass. I mean, I'll share as much as I can with you about that topic. But some of our techniques is we have really long outriggers. We have the triple spread of outriggers. and we have them mounted in a high position on the boat where we could actually run the lines a bit shorter than we normally would as in really short and really high up in the outrigger as to get that barlet who to skip a bit more over the seaweed with the circle hook more or less out the water you know using the correct line and leader material and hooks and whatever to allow for that you know but more or less so it could skip over the seaweed without actually getting tangled in it. One of the techniques, how we set up our dredges, how we run our dredges and how we set up our leaders on our teasers as well too. Would all play a good role in how much seaweed actually is able to get tangled onto your lures that you're running. Are you... Katie (15:25.838) Are you allowed to divulge a little bit more on how you set up your dredges to avoid grass? I mean, we can't do. Yeah, we can't do. Or is it top secret? Yeah. I mean, I really would. I don't want to get you in trouble. Yeah. I mean, we do set up our dredges a bit differently. You know, we don't use the spreadable dredges, you know. We set them up a bit differently. I don't think I could explain it too easily, but I could send some photos of our dredge setups when we run it through sexy weed. I would love that. Yeah, they're a little bit different from conventional dredges. Yeah, but I mean, like trying to, you know, every fishery is different, as you well know, and there's different challenges per fishery and trying to adapt your technique so that you will find success in that fishery is always so vital to your success. So what kind of like, what size weight are you putting in these balihoo that you're trolling? Like what size weight to allow them to be skipping on the surface? Right. So that's a key part as well too. So you'd be using a half ounce lead, half ounce egg shaped lead as to not have the balihoo weighted much. So it tends to skip out any water. Of course, when you're fishing balihoo, ideally you would want it to be head down. Tail Flop, Tail Wagon, ideally. But you know, when you're working with pods of sailfish and marlin right under the seaweed, they don't seem to mind if it's skipping a bit on the surface in that motion as opposed to giving you a more real feel. So we'd use the half ounce lead, we'd use maybe up to 50 pound fluorocarbon leader, even 40 pound fluorocarbon leader. Very light swivels, lightweight swivels. You know, 25 pound test line, 30 pound test line. could even drop a little bit down from that as well to us. They're just all of that helps in keeping the, the angle of the hook and the head just a bit out the water. What size hook are you fishing? I six O VMC circle hook. Yeah. Good hook. I like those. I like those. That's cool. Awesome. I love it. So, Katie (17:51.15) How many years have you been fishing the tournament season in the Southern Caribbean? maybe 15 years now with my father since I was a young boy. Many, many years. I think the first tournament I did, I'm 25. So I think I did my first tournament when I was probably, it's been more, probably when I was like eight years old, seven years old, I think I did my first fishing tournament with my dad. That's so cool. That is so cool. And, all right. So how many years have you been fishing the season in Madeira? I've been trying to count that. I believe this is my 14th season or so coming here to Madeira fishing the blue marlin season. So since you were 11. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. Okay. So let's dive into Madeira a little bit. So what are, you know, we talked about in the Southern Caribbean, we're seeing a lot of grass. The weather can be pretty challenging. in Madeira, there's a very specific season for the fishing primarily because of the winter swell that will hit the island in the winter. But so you're there from June to August, I believe is what you said. And what are, like, what are your biggest challenges in Madeira for the fishing and how does it vary from the Caribbean? So fishing in Madeira. It's quite an easy fishery I would say here. Mostly we'll be fishing two or three miles from the coast in flat calm waters, very pristine, so not a lot of trash in the water, not a lot of interference. Challenges of fishing here in Madeira is more in terms of trying to locate the blue marlin as opposed to any of the conditions that are naturally occurring. It's a very safe place to fish and it's very easy to fish. We fish in very close to the shore and the weather conditions are just right for most of the four months that I'm here. So as challenges as fishing in Madeira, I don't think there are that many. The marina facilities are very nice. They have water and fuel, electric, all at the dock. They make it very straightforward and easy for you as well as... Katie (20:17.006) Living on the island is lovely. Beautiful here. Weather's right. The climate's really nice. So I don't think there's much challenges in terms of fishing. One issue we do have is being very vigorous with our paperwork here. They're very meticulous with all their policies of making sure that you have all the correct documentation to go fishing. Like what kind of documentation? What are some of the policies out there? How does that look? Is it something you have to submit? Is there a form you have to submit after every trip? How is that? Tell us a little bit more about the documentation. So we would need to just... Everything here is paperwork. So nothing is computerized, only computerized system. So it takes a few days after you submit forms or whatever to receive replies and returns in terms of that. That's a challenge on its own. As well as, you know, there are a lot of papers you need to get, you know, you need to get a lighthouse license, a fishing license. We would have out of the water inspections, as well as in the water inspections annually on the boats, as well as inspections of all, you know, the safety gear on body boat, which is pretty standard, I think, globally. But we managed to... We work around that and make sure that we have everything in compliance with it. But sometimes it takes a few days just to get a response from these guys. And that's about it. Yeah, it's hard. It's island time. Like you said, nothing's on the computer. It's all hand form, handwriting. I know that I was I was texting you earlier and you said, yeah, I'm just doing some boat paperwork. Like, let's get on a call. So I'm super into that. That's cool. But what about You know, we touched on how you're doing light tackle in the Caribbean and heavy tackle 130s. You just got a grander like over in Madeira. I'm just I'm so excited for you because the fact that two fish showed up behind the spread and you got one of them. It's just the coolest story to me. I was so stoked to see that it was the Pescadrosa and that you were on board. Why do you think like why? Katie (22:33.518) Is Madeira a spot for big fish? And why is the Caribbean a spot for smaller fish? Does it have to do with the sea floor, the bottom, the currents? What's your insight on that? Interesting. So my insight on why the larger fish tend to show up to Madeira as opposed to the Caribbean. It's a lot to do with just their general migratory patterns, as well as, you know, So the bigger ones would have a different migrational pattern. I believe the smaller fish in the Caribbean. So I think it's a lot to do with that. And in terms of why Madeira might have the biggest size average, the biggest average size blue marlin, I think out of anywhere in the world, you know? I can't tell you specifically that I know for sure, you know? But I do know that they have a... very large average size blue marlin over here. And I don't see that, you know, very often other places that I fish. But as to why they, why they do come here, not very sure, not very sure entirely. What is the water temp you're fishing there in Madeira? Right now, right now it's about 21, 22 degrees Celsius in between that range. shoot. What is that? That's like, a 7980 to in Fahrenheit. I could be wrong. It's been a while since I've Celsiused up, but that's probably that's that's pretty. How hot does it get? How hot does the water get? So last year we had a record record breaking sea surface temperatures in Portugal and here Madeira as well. The hottest I saw last year was 26, 27 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but that's very hot. Okay, so I had to Google it and I looked it up and 21, 22 degrees Celsius is between 70, 72 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not very warm, especially when you're used to Gulf of Mexico waters. But 26 degrees Celsius is closer to 78, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And when you're looking at the Eastern Atlantic, as Curtis said, record breaking temperatures, it's very warm, especially for those bigger fish. Katie (24:55.438) So how was the fishing when it was that warm? The fishing generally, it was slow. It was slow here in Madeira last season, with not too many fish being caught here by the fleet. But right next door, about 550 miles away, they had phenomenal blue marlin fishery in the Azores, you know, with very similar water temperature. Yeah. But I think it's largely to do with How the bait forms up down there, they have a lot of banks over there and that bait is able to stick to a lot of structure. Whereas opposed to Madeira, just a big shelf, you know, not too many banks fish offshore here. Madeira just drops off. So Madeira is like a really steep island. It's where I learned how to drive stick shift and it was extremely challenging, but it's a very steep island and it continues in its steepness past the water. Right. So, you know, Curtis talked about how we're fishing anywhere from one to three miles off of out of the Marina. It's because that water just it just the seafloor just drops off. So in the Azores, Curtis, have you have you spent any time fishing the Azores? So last year in October, I did a 10 day trip to the Azores to blue marlin fish and it was very good. It was probably at the peak of the peak of when the bite was red hot and Yes, I did spend 10 days there last year. So what island were you fishing on? And tell me a little bit about like the banks that you're talking about. Like, does it is it like a gradual does the seafloor decline gradually there for a little while? And the like, what was the depth that the bait was pushing up on? What was the fishing like? Give me a little bit of insight in that. We were fishing, so I was fishing off of Horta. the Azores which is just a very small island I think the population is 6 ,000 so only 6 ,000 people live on that little island and it was very remote you know they had the bar company operation was there the uno mass port fishing operation was there as well as the charter fleet we did four days fishing raised a couple couple nice Katie (27:19.022) Blue Marla, I think we caught four from six over that time, as well as hooked onto a really, really big bluefin tuna. I estimated that one to be around 1200 pounds. Yes. Yeah. It looked like somebody dropped a mid -sized bus on top of the lure. And we fought that thing for four hours. my gosh, and the water was that warm? my gosh. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Interesting. Did y 'all see more than one bluefin or was that just the one bluefin you saw? No, there was a school of them feeding and we drove into the school. Yeah. But it was, it was very large sized bluefin tuna. It was not, it was very, very large. my gosh. That's amazing. That is amazing. Sorry. You threw me for, I was not expecting you to tell me that you caught a bluefin, in October and the Azores. Yeah. As well as some Mako sharks. Yeah, the marine life out there was spectacular. It was really something special. The water was very alive, you know, baits, birds, just lots of different sea creatures. You could tell that it was coming to life and everything was very alive out there. That's amazing. And was that when the water temp was pretty high or had it already started cooling down a little bit? So I can't recall the exact water temp. you know, on the days that I fished, but I think Azores was as well affected by similar extreme high sea surface temps as well as Madeira, you know, it was record breaking high for all of Portugal last year. That's amazing. That's crazy. So tell me about these banks you mentioned and that the baits baits pushing up there. So how does that work? OK, so they have they have these banks that are off the so they have the island structure of Porta. very similar to Madeira they have the shelf shortly after but further offshore that is essentially underwater volcanoes or you know that form the banks that rise up pretty shallow that are far off the island structure you know a bit further off the island structure like the Condor Bank I believe the Princess Alice Bank three banks Katie (29:47.534) that, pretty close to each other on, on, on in Horta. You know, I can't remember the name of the other one right now, but I definitely remember the Abicondo Bank, Princess Alice Bank. And, How far from Horta and how shallow does it get on those banks or the seamounts? How shallow does it get on the seamounts? Hmm. I think it comes all the way up to. I'm not sure exactly, you know, I'm not sure exactly, but I think it comes up to about 300, 300 meters deep. So it would come up. Yeah. That is very, yeah, that is nice. And they're close to each other. And how far from Horta are they? So I believe one, one starts at about, I think 12 kilometers and the furthest one is. Forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm just roughly remembering from my 10 day trip here, so I don't know specifically exactly, but I think it's somewhere around. Right, you're doing so good. You're doing so good. I think it's about 14 kilometers, 20 kilometers, and something like that. They have some more offshore ones as well too that I did not fish while I was there. They have great structure all over the Azores. Yeah, that sounds like, and again, kilometers and miles, I'm not doing so good with my conversions, but that sounds like they're all like within 15 miles of the island. I believe something like that, right? So that's pretty amazing. Like it's close. It's close. You're not burning a lot of fuel to get out there. I mean, not a terrible amount, but it is rough, especially during October, September, October. It's rough out there. We are most boats wouldn't be able to fully power up and those kinds of swells, but yeah, there's a fairly, you know, not, not terribly far run. That's cool. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about how the swell changes in that part of the world during that season, because when we were in Madeira, I know I was told that a lot of the boats, like the Luna, you guys go onto the hard in the off season. Can you tell me why? And. Katie (32:08.782) And and how and that's I'm assuming that those swells affect the Azores as well So I think one of the bigger reasons that we pull the boats out usually in October is because The marlin season tends to slow down. We wouldn't find that the marlin migrate through this area much after that time You know, they they've had years and they've had periods of time where it would be calm here through december january, you know as as yet a year would change, you know, some years it could be very rough here in October or even May and June could be very rough here, depending on what the global atmosphere is like, you know. Yeah. So I think that's a big reason we pull the boats out here in October is just because the maling migration starts to slow down. But why wouldn't you leave it in the slip? Why? Why do you take the boat out of the water? You don't see that in a lot of other parts of the world. Like you when when it's the off season, the boat just sits in the slip. You know, like it's not, we're not going to take the boat out of the water in the off season unless it's an outboard. Right. So, why, why do you guys do that? And you see that throughout the entire fleet for the most part, correct? Yeah. Yep. So, a lot of the boats, a lot of the sport fishing boats here would, the captains, the crews would leave. It would leave, you know, go to Latin America, the United States, different parts of Europe and. You know, it's a risk. It's always a risk because we do have forecasts of what it should be like, you know, maybe two weeks in advance, but it's never, you're never, you're never going to know if it's going to be one of those years where you're going to have a lot of swells coming through and it might, it might damage, the boat might be damaged in the marina with no captain and crew here to check out for these boats and look after these boats. The owners find it's a lot more safe. to have them out in the water where they can't sink. Truth, truth. I know that when we got to Madeira in 2021, the wall, the bulkhead along the outside of the marina had just recently been redone. You could see where a big wave came in and just tore the seawall of the marina down. Am I right? Like, or did I make that up? Yeah, no, yes. Katie (34:31.406) So yeah, they do have big swells that come on to the sea wall and definitely knock bits of concrete off of that retaining wall that's protecting the marina. I mean, we lost a cleat. We lost a cleat when we were there from one wave just coming in and just ripping the boat. And that was in the middle of the calm season. And we're fishing in Madeira, you're fishing the lee of the island. So it is like a swimming pool out there. It's really nice. It's really close to shore. And every now and then you see two granders behind your spread. So, that's so cool. And the hard, so tell us about the boatyard in Madeira because my mind was kind of blown by that as well. We talked about how the Island is super steep. So there's not a lot of places to have a boatyard. Can you get, can you give us a little details on it? Okay, so the boatyard in Madeira is situated actually under the airport runway. And the airport runway, it's built on stilts. So it's a huge concrete structure. And yeah, they have the lovely company Technovia that has the boatyard service there. And they're always very responsive and helping us out, giving us a hand with whatever we need down there at the outhaul spot. It's pretty cool. It's an interesting place. That's so cool. Yeah, it's crazy. It's so crazy, you guys. I've never seen an airport runway that is superimposed over the ground. To have a bunch of yachts sitting under it in the boatyard is just like a Twilight Zone type experience. But Madeira is known, the airport's known for its... lack of a better word, but it's sketchiness. It's a crazy plane landing to get into Madeira. It's like a one -shot, one -shot. You can't miss, you can't miss. Those pilots. Have you flown in and out of Madeira a lot, Curtis? I'm assuming so. You get there by plane. Yes, absolutely. I've been in and out here a bunch of times now. The airport, I feel like it's fairly safe. Katie (36:51.502) like it's pretty safe you know it does feel sketchy sometimes they do close off the flights quite often they do close off the flights and they reroute them to the smaller island Porto Santo which is a few minutes flight time from here. No it's here in Madeira, it's part of Madeira. Porto Santo yeah okay yes that makes sense yeah south southeast of Madeira right? I believe so yes. Yeah. Cool. yeah, I never made it over there. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely little Island. Sometimes they do reroute the flights to Azores as well too, just depending on what the local weather conditions are like. Yeah, that's awesome. Tell us a little bit about the fleet in Madeira. You have a super international fleet there. You've got some local teams, but also teams from all sorts of different countries. Can you tell us a little bit about the size of the fleet and where people come from? So there's a, I consider it to be a small charter fleet, maybe five to eight boats or so that operate out of the, out of Madeira. And yeah, like you said, most of them, I mean, my dad runs the Pesca Grossa, I run the Luna. They have a couple of the boats with Madeira on teams, but not too many foreign people. I think they have a couple of guys from England as well too. But not that many people actually run charter boats down here. They got a small group of English guys, me and my dad and a couple local guys as well that run charter boats. That's cool. It's a great little marina, you guys. If you have a chance to fish out there, definitely take it. And I'll link Curtis's information in the description below so you can... Schedule a charter with him because he's a heck of a fisherman as you as you know from this episode He's had all sorts of experience now Curtis Tell me like your favorite day on the water in Madeira My favorite day on the water. I think it was probably this week Monday. It was a pretty good one. I really enjoyed that Yeah, maybe I didn't know going to full detail exactly as to how everything played out, but Katie (39:11.182) It was, I think that was probably one of my best moments, you know, fishing wise. It's been great. If you want to go into detail now, like let's hear it again. I mean, I'm down to sit through, I want to hear it again. Yeah. I mean, no, just in terms of not what happened, just other terms of the day, you know, like, like you said, it was their honeymoon and there were two fish, you know, so that was quite amazing. That was mind boggling for me, you know. I've seen big ones here traveling in twos before, as well as schools and pods. But just having two of them and spread like that, very similar size and actually being able to catch one and weigh one, I think, it's definitely one of my favorite experiences. That's so special. That's so special. I had a podcast with a captain, Chris Donato in Kona, and he was telling me that when he sees a big fish, a lot of times he'll see smaller fish around it. So like a female and most likely males around it. So I find it really interesting that you had two big fish in your spread at the same time. And I just like, I mean, I'm blown away by it, honestly. And y 'all hadn't seen anything the entire day, right? Like that was, those were the first fish you saw. Yeah. The first blue mollins that we saw. Yeah. We were having quite a day, you know, in terms of mark and bait, you know, and we were checking our satellite imagery, trying to locate where we might find a little bit of warmer water. And yeah, it was, it was, it was really something, you know, I mean. Do you see it in your dreams when you close your eyes at night? I mean, sometimes, yeah, I think back in the memory quite often, especially this week, you know. Definitely. Of course. It's my memory, memory, know? Yeah, I really enjoyed that. It was pretty good. Would you say that you've been fishing your whole life for that experience? I wouldn't say for that experience, but yeah, that's definitely one of the what you would target to hunt the type of fish that I would be targeting, especially when I come here to Madera, Madeira, know, I tried to target blue mullet over 500 pounds. That being well over that. Katie (41:37.102) is definitely the size fish that came at the target. Definitely. What does it mean to you to have finally weighed a grander? And Madeira, I mean, you've been fishing there for 14 years. You said you've caught a handful that you think are over the mark, but to have it, to bring it back to the dock, to catch it within 40 minutes, that's amazing. And to bring it back to the dock and weigh it and it's over the mark, it's got to be just a really proud moment for you. Can you tell me a little bit about what that experience is like? Cause I don't know what it feels like and I want to know what it's like and what it means to you specifically. Interesting. So coming back to the doc we did, we went and we were unsure if it would weigh a thousand pounds, you know, we knew it was big. We did not know it was that big, you know, so there was some speculation as to what the weight actually might be on the boat still. So we would anticipating it to be in the region of 900 to a thousand pounds you know with with our we just had a little a little measuring tape on the boat a little small one 120 inches i believe and we measured the fish the length of the fish and it took up the whole tape you know we weren't able to measure the whole fish because the tail was in the water still as well too so we're actually able to get a proper measurement on the fish until got it on the crane and off the boat. So it had a pretty big half girth at 39 inches. So we did realize that it was a very girthy fish, very fat fish. So we didn't know it had the girth of a grander, but we weren't sure about the length because the scale, the measuring tape we had didn't let us, but we pulled it off the boat and got it on the scale. found out it was 1 ,048. So it was in that moment, it was pretty cool to know that it was over ground because you know, those type of fish, like you say, blue marlin fishermen hunt for a lifetime. Yes, I think it is a fish of a lifetime. It is so cool. Now, what made y 'all decide, did the fish come up dead or did you decide to swing the gaff? So it came up tail wrapped on the leader, came up tail wrapped. Katie (43:59.31) it was pretty docile, but, we saw that the fish was pretty huge, you know, thought it was over the mark. So we decided to on both it. Yeah. It was, you know, it was a, it wasn't a very lively fish because it's been tail wrapped, you know, we were pulling it backwards for I think probably 20 minutes or 30 minutes of the 20 minute fight, but, which you guys. When that happens, that means that the fish is, it can't breathe. So it's kind of unfortunate. It's super unfortunate when a fish gets tail wrapped. But if it's a fish of that size and you're going to weigh it, it's safer for the team, you know, in these situations for this fish to be docile. They can really, you know, cause some, some havoc and it, it's a precious memory for everyone. The see, killing a fish is never like that fun. but also these fishermen, we pursue this experience our entire lives. And Curtis, do you think that now that you've achieved this, is it gonna affect the way you hit the water every day? Or do you see any differences in your mindset or your experience? No, not in particular. I don't think I see, I view fishing much differently. I always knew, you know, situations and they have fish out here that do exist like that. And I don't think it's mentally going to change the way that I approach fishing or I attach myself to fishing. You know, I'm a second generation fisherman, so I always knew fishing is a big part of my life. And I always plan to do fishing trips for the rest of my life. So, you know, I mean, I really do love fishing and I'm passionate about it, but I don't think it's changed the way I view fishing. What do you think you love so much about fishing? What do you think keeps calling you back to the ocean? Okay. I mean, obviously it's in your blood. Yeah. That's a good question. I'm very passionate about it, marine ecosystems. I love seeing fish in the natural environments. Being out there in the ocean, in Madeira, the ocean's very beautiful, fresh air, very peaceful. All great things I love about my job. Katie (46:22.158) It beats working in an office or something like this. So I think that's why I'm very passionate about it. You know, just it's a lovely environment out there and a very enjoyable, enjoyable job. I couldn't agree more. I love being on the ocean. It's just the way it makes you feel is so peaceful. And you guys, so you have Big Blue Marlin and Madeira. We've talked about that. What other fish are you catching out? there? Like, is there another fish that you target when you're fishing those waters? So, we do target big eye tuna when they are around, some large sized big eye tuna. Some of them exceeding 300 pounds, you know, other than that, we try deep dropping some, for different species of group of shark that they have here. you know, we catch all sorts of crazy creatures from the deep without deep drop in equipment. So We've been trying that as well as the wahoo fish in here is good as well too. They do have decent wahoo fish in here. But while I'm here in Madeira, I try to target my focus around fishing for big blue mollusk. It's definitely where I try to focus most of my thought. Now, why do you think like I find that interesting? Because me too, like I love tuna. I love wahoo. You know, I love eating fish. But my passion is with chasing the billfish. Like I want the billfish, you want the billfish, even though most of the time it's catch and release. Like why do you think that is? Like what is it about bill fishing? That's a good question. Well, it's visually, visually it's very, it's phenomenal. You know, when you see a mile enabled to trace one of these lures and you know, take multiple hits at it or even just one single hit go airborne or, whatever they do, you know, it's visually spectacular. So it's breathtaking in that sense. Katie (48:31.214) I mean, in terms of, you know, I just grew up blue marlin fishing. You know, my dad was always a very avid blue marlin fisherman, you know. And I guess that always seemed to be the targeted species that he would try to catch as well too, you know. So for me, it's also just following along those lines and just being very passionate about that, you know. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And those big guy, you know, you mentioned that they get really big. We, I mean, we caught a handful of really big, big, big guy when we were in Madeira in the sunset hours. in the summertime, the sunsets really late. I mean, am I right? I feel like 9 PM was when the sun was setting. So those are some really full days on the water. If you're going the whole, the whole sunlight hours, which we did, but I think most people don't. but, What is, okay, we're gonna wrap it up here pretty soon, but I wanna dive into a little bit with your relationship with Frothy, you know, your dad, who's been passionate about bill fishing his whole life. You have both been fishing the Caribbean and Madeira fisheries for a long time. And what, like as a kid, what is your best memory of fishing with your dad? Whether it be like on the boat with him or when he came back to the dock, like what's your most impressive, like impressionable is what I meant to say, impressionable memory of your dad at your like early ages of life? Like it could, I could even ask like, what's your first fishing memory? That's a good one. Yeah. So I think a lot of my most prized memories with my dad are some of the earlier fishing experiences, some of the first fishing trips we ever been on, you know, my first blue marlin. my first fish, you know. In terms of details of exactly what happened on those days and where we were fishing, you know, I can't really remember, but I definitely do remember, you know, fishing with him, you know, in lakes and stuff when I was a young child and, you know, catching different species of lake fish and as well as going offshore and catching blue marlin and tuna. I think I got my first one when I was nine years old or so. And Katie (50:49.83) That was truly a very good memory with my dad. Fishing here in Madeira, I had some amazing experiences. I think it was in 2015. I was fishing here with my dad on the Pesca Grossa as well too. We had a really amazing day as well too. We were fishing, I think it was similar, it was around four o 'clock in the evening and we were coming in from a long day, no fish. We were just coming in and it was four o 'clock and... We had a big one take on the left, on the right long I believe it was. Take the lure and dump out a bunch of line. Nobody saw the bite. And I was clearing the spread, I cleared in the spread and I pulled in the left short and about a 700 pound fish or so came and ate that lure as well too. So we had two on at the same time. And we caught the 700 pounder and then we got to the other one and. We brought it to the boat and we thought that that one was 1 ,100 pounds. You know, so that was probably the best experience I had with my dad in terms of a good fishing day as well too. So it's interesting to know that the bigger ones do travel in twos and multiple. That is so incredible. That's so cool. And I love, my gosh, I loved it. Like one hit. and then you're clearing the spread. So the speed of the lure changed. There's stuff going on and it enticed another bite from another fish, you know, like already in like going back to your story just a few days ago where you had one hit the short and then go into the long, like it's already aggressively feeding, which might be why a second fish was enticed to come up and hit that right short again. And it's just like, that's so cool. Like it just goes to show that like making changes in the spread can really play a key role in getting these fish to bite. But the fact that you had that memory, like what were you like 14, 15 years old and you have that memory with your dad on a double big fish double. So did you all release that 1100 pounder? Yes, we did. Yeah. Or that big girl. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yes, we did. That's amazing. That's so cool. That's so cool, Curtis. Katie (53:09.606) Yeah, I love it. And like even, you know, and in a lot of places in the world, especially in the summertime, we have a lot of tournaments going on, especially in the Gulf and Eastern Atlantic. And killing this fish, it's part of it, but it's not always part of it. You know, like releasing fish in the bill fishing world is more often than not what happens. And as fishermen, we're so passionate about the conservation. And I think it's interesting, you know, having this conversation with you, Curtis, you're talking about the seasons, what you're seeing, there's two big fish at the same time. A lot of what we know about these fish, we know from recreational fishermen, charter fishermen that are out there on the water every day. We know their migration patterns a little bit more than we would if we weren't out there on the water every day and every season. I think that's so cool. So Curtis. Congratulations so much on your grander. I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited for you. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you and where they can book a charter with Luna? Absolutely. Thank you very much. I mean, for having me as well. You could find a Madeira Sportfishing or my Facebook, Curtis De Silva on Facebook or Instagram. And yeah, more than happy to. to pick you guys especially if you have anybody that is interested. Are you also running charters in Southern Caribbean? Yeah. So my brother owns and operates 43 Beatrum in Grenada. And I work on him as a mate with him during the season over there. Perfect. So I'll make sure to tag those operations in the description below. So you guys Check those out if you want to book with Curtis. I highly recommend. He's a great time. And Curtis, you know, do you have any last words for the listeners or anything you want to say to close out? No, thank you very much. I appreciate the podcast. It's been great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And it's been great. You're so awesome, Curtis. I really appreciate the chat and we'll talk soon. And that's a wrap. If you like this episode, please feel free to share. If you're watching on YouTube, Katie (55:27.59) feel free to like, share, and subscribe. And if you listen to it, do check out the YouTube video because Curtis has shared some good photo and video content to support our conversation. Y 'all don't stop chasing your wild and we'll be seeing you out there.

Summary: In this conversation, Fly Navarro shares his passion for fishing and media. He discusses his background growing up in Palm Beach County and his experiences fishing in the Caribbean and Hawaii. Fly also talks about his transition to freelancing and creating content, as well as his involvement with the Blue Marlin World Cup. This part of the conversation focuses on the Blue Marlin World Cup and the logistics of the tournament. It also discusses the cost of entry, the minimum weight requirement, and the use of certified scales for weighing the fish. The conversation then delves into the emotional moments and the perspective of fishing. The story of the Apex boat is shared, highlighting the power of stories in the fishing community. The importance of people and the connections made through fishing are emphasized. In this conversation, Fly Navarro shares his passion for fishing and the joy he finds in sharing the sport with others. He emphasizes the importance of enjoying the moment and releasing the death grip on the fishing rod. Fly Navarro also discusses the satisfaction he derives from bringing new anglers into the sport and helping them achieve their fishing goals. He encourages young listeners to pursue their passions and not be afraid to take risks. Overall, Fly Navarro's love for fishing and his desire to promote the sport shine through in this conversation.   Takeaways   Fly Navarro is a passionate angler and media creator, constantly seeking new fishing experiences and opportunities. He emphasizes the importance of staying connected through Wi-Fi and using social media to share his fishing adventures and promote the sport. Fly's background includes fishing in the Caribbean and running a boat in Hawaii, where he gained valuable experience and knowledge. He is dedicated to introducing fishing to new people and opening doors for others to enjoy the sport. Enjoy the moment and release the death grip on the fishing rod. Share the joy of fishing with others and help them achieve their fishing goals. Encourage more women and families to participate in fishing. Don't be afraid to pursue your passions and take risks.

The Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report is your best resource for the Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Ocean View Fishing Report, Norfolk Fishing Report, Lynnhaven Inlet Fishing Report, and everywhere in between.For the anglers looking for an Eastern Shore Fishing Report, Hampton fishing report, Buckroe Beach Fishing Report, or York River fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in a Cape Charles fishing report and a Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel fishing report and for every location in the Lower Chesapeake Bay. For our guys looking for the Virginia fishing report, we've got you covered.This week we're talking to Jay Brooks with Smoke Show Sportfishing for the Offshore report targeting Blue Marlin, Tuna as well as several inshow species for half day trips such as ribbonfish and spanish mackerel. Smoke Show offers several types of trips and Jay's wife is the point of contact who will assist you in ensuring you get the right trip for your specific needs. 757-301-0076 or email charters@smokeshowsportfishing.com For the nearshore report, we hear from a local legend, Jet Ski Brian, where we discuss how he started his journey fishing from a jetski, and how he uses that custom PWC to target several species from Wahoo, to Tautog, Red Drum and Flounder, all from the comfort of his specially outfitted jet ski. Give it a try, contact PWC FISHING in Newport News, PWC Main Website. Follow Brian M. Lockwood on Facebook for all his fishing adventures!  The final report is a spearfishing report with Michael Hosang from fishing4mortgages with Tidewater Mortgage Services, where we get into all the details of gear, safety and where and how to target species in the Lower Chesapeake Bay like Cobia, Sheepshead, Spadefish and more. www.Fishing4Mortgages.com | mhosang@twmortgage.com | 757-478-6122Spear Gear, Local guy Dano owns Mako Speargun Shop. https://makospearguns.com/Local Spearfishing Charter https://krakenchartersva.com/Va Beach Spearfishing Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/vbs.lostboys.lifeIt's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Remember to text the word “LCBFR” to to 779-435-2918 or visit us online at www.greatdaysoutdoors.com/lcbfr to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Lower Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report Email Subscribers receive a PROMO CODE for a FREE AFTCO Camo Sunglasses Cleaner Cloth with the purchase of any products!Important Links: Anglers & Sponsors - contact Kim Johnson from ODUAA and Mark Lozier of Oceans East, who are hosting the 6th ODU Alumni - Monarch Cobia Classic 2024 Monarch Cobia Classic Facebook Page and learn about the ODU Alumni Association Website and who these funds benefit. To become a sponsor of this event, click here for Sponsorship Information Contact: Kimberly Johnson kbjohnso@odu.edu (757) 683-3123Sponsors:ODU Alumni Association FishbitesGreat Days OutdoorsKillerDockHilton's Realtime-NavigatorAFTCO

Thanks to a special Blue Marlin

The Big Rock is the premiere Blue Marlin fishing tournament, with a multimillion dollar purse. Madison and Crystal are two of the women behind running this amazing event house in North Carolina's Crystal Coast. Join Booth as they dive into the particulars of running a fishing tournament with five full-time staff members and reflect on things they've learned along the way.The Big Rock 2024 tournament takes place June 7 - 16. Learn more on their website: www.thebigrock.comFollow along on Instagram: @bigrocktournamentFind our events and more resources on the Carolina Women's Collective websiteThe Carolina Women's Collective Instagram: @carolinawomenscollectiveThis show is produced by Rooster High Productions.

Jeremy Cox, Captain of the Lolita fishing team and co-founder of the Mongo Offshore Challenge, shares his fishing journey and the success of their recent fishing trip. The conversation covers topics such as Jeremy's fishing background, the Mongo Offshore Challenge, and their recent catch of a 704-pound blue marlin. They discuss the tournament format, the significance of the catch, and the importance of preserving and studying these fish. Jeremy also talks about the excitement of lure fishing and the thrill of anticipation. The conversation highlights the joy of fishing and the special moments shared with family and friends. The conversation revolves around the experience of catching marlin in the Gulf of Mexico and the importance of sustainable fishing practices. The guests discuss their recent catch of a 700-pound marlin and the challenges they faced during the fishing trip. They also touch on the significance of donating the meat from the catch to charities and zoos. The conversation highlights the love and passion marlin fishermen have for the species and their efforts to protect and conserve them. The guests also discuss the science and research that can be conducted using these rare event species. Additionally, they talk about the process of catching live bait in the Gulf of Mexico and the strategies they use to keep the bait fresh and alive. In this conversation, Jeremy from the Lolita Fishing Team discusses the evolution of live baiting in offshore fishing. He explains how the use of live bait tubes has become a common practice and how it has improved the ability to keep bait alive for longer periods. Jeremy also talks about the importance of fresh and frisky bait in attracting fish and shares tips on handling and caring for bait to keep it in optimal condition. He emphasizes the significance of structure, such as oil rigs, in creating fish aggregating devices (FADs) and attracting a variety of fish species. Jeremy also mentions the potential for future expansion of the Mongo Offshore Tournament to the East Coast and internationally.   Mongo Offshore Challenge East Coast Registration https://www.reeltimeapps.com/live/tournaments/2024-mongo-offshore-east-coast/register   Mongo App: Iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mongo-offshore-challenge/id1516755470 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reeltimeapps.mongo&pcampaignid=web_share   Keywords   fishing, blue marlin, tournament, Mongo Offshore Challenge, Gulf of Mexico, Lolita fishing team, catch, celebration, preservation, marlin, Gulf of Mexico, sustainable fishing, catch and release, fishing tournaments, conservation, live bait, tuna tubes, live baiting, offshore fishing, bait tubes, fresh bait, frisky bait, handling bait, oil rigs, fish aggregating devices, FADs, structure, Mongo Offshore Tournament   Takeaways   Jeremy Cox shares his fishing journey and the success of their recent fishing trip The Mongo Offshore Challenge is a season-long tournament that awards the biggest fish caught in various categories The Lolita fishing team caught a 704-pound blue marlin during the Hurricane Open tournament The catch was celebrated with family and friends, and the fish was donated to science for research purposes Lure fishing provides a unique thrill and anticipation for anglers Preserving and studying these fish is important for understanding their reproduction and population Marlin fishermen are passionate about the species and work towards their conservation and sustainability. Donating the meat from caught marlin to charities and zoos is a way to reduce waste and benefit the community. Catching live bait in the Gulf of Mexico can be challenging, especially during the day when the bait goes deep. Tuna tubes are used to keep live bait fresh and alive during fishing trips. The conversation highlights the importance of responsible fishing practices and the role of fishermen in scientific research and data collection. Live baiting has evolved over the years, with the use of live bait tubes becoming a common practice in offshore fishing. Fresh and frisky bait is essential in attracting fish, and there are techniques to handle and care for bait to keep it in optimal condition. Oil rigs serve as fish aggregating devices (FADs) by providing structure and attracting a variety of fish species. The Mongo Offshore Tournament is a popular fishing tournament that focuses on the Gulf of Mexico, but there are plans to expand to the East Coast and potentially internationally. Transcript: Katie (00:00.206) In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Captain Jeremy Cox as we dive into the Gulf of Mexico blue marlin fishery with big fish stories, tips on how to handle and maximize the health of your bait and why the oil rigs play such a valuable role in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. Katie (00:27.886) Welcome to the KDC Sawyer podcast. I'm your host Katie. And today I'm sitting with the captain of the Lolita fishing team. He's also the co -founder of the Mongo Offshore Challenge. Jeremy Cox, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with me today. No problem. Thank you so much for having us. It's my pleasure. Well, we've been talking about doing this for a long time and I'm really glad it worked out the way it did because you guys just had a heck of a fishing trip out of Grand Isle, Louisiana last week, which I really want to get into you guys. Spoiler alert. They caught a 704 pound blue Marlin, but Jeremy, tell us a little bit about you. Where are you from? What's your fishing experience and how did you get to where you are today? so, let's see. I'm, I was born in Maryland. Actually, my, my family's from Maryland. move my. family moved us to Pensacola, Florida back in the early 80s. And so I grew up in Florida. I was raised in Florida. I think I was two years old when we moved to Florida, Pensacola. And man, first fishing memory is like four years old. My brother, JD, which is also co -founder of the Mongo, he's my older brother by seven years. He took me fishing in a lake behind, you know, in our neighborhood behind our lake. caught a bass like the first trip and I was hooked. I was like man this is the thing now I probably pestered him every day after that can we go fishing can we go fishing you know we're going fishing and so that progressed into an addiction of fishing and my mom took me on a fishing charter when I was 10 years old out of Ocean City Maryland and I saw the mate you know back there with us and you know this guy driving the boat which was you know I learned was a captain and and we caught some tuna and I was like, these guys do this for a living? And my mom's like, yeah, this is what they do, you know? And I was like, man, I want to do that when I grow up. So my brother had a baseball scholarship. He went off to college and played baseball and moved to Birmingham, Alabama. And me and him always talked about owning our charter boat. So I got into the fishing industry. Like my first job was first fishing related jobs working at a place called Boaters World. They're out of business now, but. Katie (02:50.766) very like West Marine, it was around for years and it was a big box store for marine supplies and marine sales. So I worked there and figured that'd be a good opportunity to meet other fishermen. So long story short, met other captains and landed a mate job and started mating and me and my brother, that's what we were gonna pursue is our own charter boat career. And you know, I'm skipping a lot of stuff, but Hurricane Ivan hit in 2004 and sort of... hit us back to reality. It's like, man, we saw all these charter boats lose their whole livelihood with their boats getting wrecked and the whole season sort of thrown out the door, at least in our little town. And we're like, maybe that's not the smartest idea for us. We didn't have a lot of money anyway. We wanted to get in those charter boat things. I mean, so I had a lot of friends in the private industry. And we were charter fishing. We were mating and captain. By that time, JD moved down to Pensacola. And we were both mating on different boats. And I did some captain work. started in the private sector. So I was like, man, that's probably the better route, more secure, you know, and then it's, you know, you got somebody else paying for everything and you get paid to go fishing, paid to kick, you know, a lot more waxing and toilet fixing than fishing, but yeah, it's all part of the, all part of it. Yeah. So, but it's awesome. So, you know, that's, that's how I got into the captain, you know, and in that whole time, you know, I was doing sales, you know, I worked for a Long time I worked for a distributor. We sold fish and tackle to tackle stores. And then I was a tackle sales rep for a while. We represented a dial and play Jake and other other brands. And I did that for collectively for about 12 years while I was doing captain work on the side in the private world. I had an orange beach, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida, Destin, Florida. But now currently I run the Lolita to 72 foot Viking out of Destin, Florida. and been working for this family for this is the ninth summer. Great family. They're awesome. Yeah, we're like fam. They treat me to treat us like family and just a great, great time. And yeah, this weekend. So we, we called the art person. Yeah. no, no, no. I haven't interrupted you. Sorry guys. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. No, that's so cool. So are you out of Orange Beach now? Are you based out of Orange Beach now? I'm. Katie (05:15.47) We keep the boat Lolita, we keep it behind Bo Shamps and Destin. That's where we keep the boat year round. That's right, you just said that. No, yeah, we come to Orange Beach a lot. We're sort of a traveling boat in the summertime, so we're rarely home during the summer, but the wintertime's fall through spring, we're parked behind Bo Shamps. We spend a good amount of time in Grand Isle, Louisiana. The owners have a camp there in Grand Isle. Nice. Yeah, so we get to spend, well now it's about two months a year out of Grand Isle. a month in the spring. What two months is that? So we're just getting off of this month. So it's a March, you know, late March to well, actually this year it was early April through early May. You know, we're home in Orange Beach now for some work. So about a month, you know, in the late spring and then a month in a late summer, we used to go there late July and stay through late August. Yeah, it's really good fishing over there that time of year. Yeah. Are you, out of Grand Isle, are you... doing a lot of tuna fishing as well as blue marlin fishing. Correct. Yes, they love to catch tuna and blue marlin, that's pretty much it. That's all they would like to get. We do very little bottom fishing. It's primarily tuna and marlin fishing, which is... I mean, the fishing up there in the northern Gulf for those two species is incredible. And the fact that you've, I mean, you essentially grew up for the most part fishing the northern Gulf of Mexico, right? That's right. That's cool because I'm from Texas, right? That's where I claim as my hometown. But I, my Gulf of Mexico fishing experience is extremely limited. So, I have so many questions for you and I'm really excited to have a Gulf guy on the podcast. we've had South Florida, we've had Kona and now here we go into the Gulf and we're right in that tournament season. Now, do you want to tell me a little bit about the Mongo Offshore Challenge? It's a 153 day. regional challenge, right? That's right. So yeah, so me and my brother was involved in this private world of fishing and tournament fishing. I think our first tournament we fished together was in 2007 on a boat called the Sunset. I fished several tournaments in like 2004, 2005, but JD was able to move down from Birmingham, get out of, he was in natural disaster work as well. And anyway, he, Katie (07:34.382) He was able to fish with me in 2007, our first tournament together on a boat called Sunset. We fished Biloxi and we won it. First tournament we fished together. my gosh. What'd you win it with? 531 Blue Marlin. Yeah, and it caught on the first morning of the first hour of the first morning. is like totally spoiled. Like JD's like, I like this tournament fishing stuff. This is pretty awesome. Yeah. It's always, it doesn't always work out like that, but that was really special. We did it with our best friend and mentor, Matt Dunn, which he's not really in the, in the sport fishing game anymore. He switched over to yacht world and he's doing, you know, he works for, you know, runs a big yachty yacht now, but, Man, so we made a lot of memories fishing. We had a really good run there with him for about six or seven years. Did really well in the golf circuit. And that was right when live baiting was sort of getting really, really popular. We were primarily trollers on that boat, but yeah, that was cool. So. What do you mean primarily trawlers like lures? Yeah, lures. We were, we were lure fishing. We still actually are passionate. I don't know that I would have fell in love with blue marlin fishing if I would have started out just sitting soaking live baits. it's something about the anticipation of rigging the night before the days before. And you got your lures out and you're re -skirting and putting new hook sets on. You're like, maybe that's going to be this color. You know, you got, you know, we need more trawlers. We need more spiked lures. Yeah, you know, going to the tackle store and like, man, we got to buy this one. This is the one. man, look at the head. You know, it's just, I don't know, something about that anticipation and like, you know, the what if they eat this one? yeah, they should eat this one. It's this color. look, it's a dolphin color. We got to match the hatch. I mean, all that stuff is just like fun, you know, rather than feeding them what they eat all day long. Of course they're going to eat a tuna. Of course they're going to eat it. Yeah. It's like, you know, we do it and it works. Katie (09:36.782) We have to do it in time efficient up here. You have to live bait to be consistent. But it's, you know, you're not really tricking them anymore. You know, when you're lure fishing, it feels like, man, it's like bass fishing. I'd much rather bass fish with a spinner bait or a plastic worm than throwing a live shiner out there. They're going to eat a live shiner, but it's just something special about it. And so yeah, it's definitely progressed. We came in when it was... And the northern golf is mainly lure and, you know, in natural baits, you know, you're pulling islander, you know, about who combos is, you know, everybody still pulls and then they work 100%. They work. And that's just, I don't know, something special about, about that. And if we were started out live baiting, I don't know that I would have had the same excitement about it. Now we sort of mix it up a little bit. We do some trolling and we do a lot of live baiting. it's the primarily way we fish up here. We're very, very spoiled. with this Northern Gulf fishery with these old rigs. I mean, you have giant fads everywhere. So they hold fish. We're going to go a little off topic for a minute because I have a lot of questions for you. No, this is great. I love it. You're giving me great content. So in that tournament, so we won that tournament. I'll go back to the Mongo. Obviously, it's why you have us on here. But us tournament fishing, we saw the progress and we're on fast boats. And then we started running the Lolita. I started running that in 2016, and it was a slow Hatteras, a 23 knot Hatteras. And we also, when we first started fishing, there's a lot of express boats. In the early 2000s, in these big weekend tournaments in golf, there's a lot of smaller express boats. There's a lot of slower, you know, Bartrams and Hatteras. And everybody's competing. But as the fleet, you know, got more technologically advanced and bigger horsepower engines. It's a speed race now, so whoever has the fastest boat has more fishing time. And it's a huge, huge deal. We're running 150 to 250 miles one way. So if you're doing that, you know, and you're getting there two, three hours before everybody else, or at least before the slow boats, the slow boats don't really have a chance, you know, unless you get lucky and run over one. So we were like, man, it'd be awesome if there was a tournament that had like a, that would level the playing field that would give them. Katie (11:54.83) Same amount of time for everybody. Doesn't matter how fast you are, how slow you are. If you have a big giant Viking or a little center console, everybody's on a level playing field. And so that's how that progressed, that birth, that idea of like, man, all right, let's just have a season long event and put the lines in. Whenever you leave the dock, you're in the tournament from May 1st to September 30th. So if you can, and we're all about the big fish, Mongo meaning huge. So if you catch a giant fish. between May 1st and September 30th, you can win it. And we count your weights in tournaments, and we count your weights on fun fishing trips. We set up these weigh stations all over the Gulf, and you can go in anywhere. We have 20 weigh stations in the Gulf of Mexico from all the way in South Texas all the way to Naples, Florida. So you go in and weigh your fish, and if you have the biggest fish at the end of the season, you win the pot. Blue Marlin, Swordfish, Tuna, Dolphin, and Wahoo. So yeah, it's really, really fun. We started it five years ago. It had 66 teams that first year and this year. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And COVID year too, which is crazy. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, our first year we had 66 teams. We have a bit of a network. We've been around, we know a lot of guys. So we were able to call up a lot of captains like, what do you think about this format? Would you fish it? And they're like, yeah, that's awesome. Heck yeah, man. Because you always catch your biggest fish on your fun trips anyway. Yeah. Yeah, typically. I mean, you're going out there for a million dollar tournament and you catch the big one the day before practicing, you know, so now we can celebrate that fish and reward, you know, whoever catches the bigger ones, all kinds of cool things for that format that makes it neat. But yeah, so so that's where it came from. And then now this year is our fifth year we've had a we have 150 teams and over half a million dollars in the pot. That's crazy in the Gulf of Mexico because you guys have branched out to other fisheries now, right? That's right. So we started the East Coast three years ago. This is our third season in the East Coast. We're trying to grow that East Coast. We don't have the network that we have in the Gulf because we grew up in the Gulf. We know everybody. So we're working on growing that network over there, getting some key individuals, key captains on board. But there's already, and registration is still open for the East Coast until June 30th. So teams. Katie (14:12.782) fishing from Cape Cod all the way down to Florida can register for the Mongo up until June 30th and pick which category you want to get in. You don't have to get in swordfish if you don't, if you're not a sword fisherman, just get into mahi or whatever you're fishing for. What's the registration fee? So it's alacarte. So each, each one's different. So the mahi and the wahoo are 500 a piece for the season. That's nothing. You know, we burn in that much an hour out of some of these boats and fuel. So, and then a swordfish is 15, excuse me. Swordfish is a thousand for the season, for the season. yellowfin and big eye are a thousand a piece for the season. And then blue marlin is 2 ,500 for the season. So you'll, if you want to get in all categories, like 6 ,500 bucks for the board. Yeah. And you're in from every time your boat leaves the dock, whether you're fishing two times a year or a hundred times a year, you're, you're in there. And what did the winner of the Gulf of Mexico last year make and what did they weigh on blue marlin? I think their payday was like 130 ,000 last year and it was a 727 pound blue marlin caught in the bluxy tournament. So he won two tournaments with one fish. I love it. I love that. Yeah. A boat called the salt shaker with Captain Dennis Bennett. And I remember that. Believe it or not, they also won the mahi. They caught the mahi in the ECBC tournament and won like another 50 grand with the mahi. So they really cashed in last year. That's so sick. And their mahi was 60 pounds, 59 .9 pounds, 60 pound mahi in the Gulf of Mexico. It was totally unheard of. I haven't seen a 60 pounder. That is massive. I haven't seen a 50 pounder in the Gulf in years. The only fish I've seen that big was in like Costa Rica, Central Pacific. Panama. That's, that's where I've seen the mahi get that even close to that big. But again, my golf experience is pretty limited. Sure. One thing is different, you know, Mongo, golf on that a minute, but we have very big minimums. So there's not a whole lot of fish weighed in the Mongo throughout the season. One, it's a winner take all. So once something huge is on the board, you're not going to weigh in anything smaller anymore. And then our limits are high. Like mahi has got to be 40 pounds to even qualify. Katie (16:31.278) Wahoo's 60 pounds, Yellowfin's 140 pounds. Blue Marlin's 118 inches. Which is like the federal, you guys, the federal minimum is 99 inches. And a lot of tournaments go 112 inches. So it's definitely progressed over the years. Typically last year was 110 for all the tournaments and this last weekend was 112 for this last weekend. Yeah, because people are going in figuring them out and they're starting to weigh in more and more and more. So they're trying to inch those links up to not take so many of them. And that's one reason we wanted to just pay one place. You know, one, we just wanted to award the biggest fish of the season. And then two, we didn't want to kill a bunch of extra ones. And then typically the blue morn... Actually, I'm trying to think, other than the first year in the Mongo... Every other blue marlin has been caught, or the winner was caught in another tournament. So the first year, the first year was a state record fish caught the day after the, the world cup on July 5th. They were out there for the world cup. They stayed out another day, caught this giant fish. If they would have called in the world cup, they would have won a whole lot more money. Obviously fly usually has, I don't know, well over a million dollars in that, in that world cup pot. But they ended up winning, I think they won like 90 grand or something like that extra. Yeah, that they were. I mean, how cool that you guys are giving that opportunity, you know, like I Drake when we were in Madeira, we saw a real big fish on July 3rd and didn't see it again. But it's just, you know, it's funny how they dance around that date. I feel like those sightings really, really go around the 4th of July. If you guys are wondering what we're talking about, the World Cup is a tournament that's around the world based on your specific time zone on the 4th of July. and we'll have Fly Navarro on for a podcast coming into that. So stay posted. But Jeremy, I guess natural integration. Tell us about your fish this last week. So this last week in the Lolita, the boat I worked for, my owners are gracious enough to get in. They know we put the tournament on. They're totally supportive and supporting of it. It's me, my brother JD and my best friend, Brian Johnson. We were the founders of the Mongo and we also all three work on the Lolita. Katie (18:56.366) So my brother's a mate and Brian comes on for tournaments and it's been just a great team. We all get along so well. And so they're always gracious enough to, hey, we'll get into, you know, we never twist our arm or nothing. They like the idea, they like the format. And so they've got in every year and we've never weighed in on qualifying fish during that time for the Mongo. But this year, our first, actually it's our second trip of the season, but our first tournament of the year. fishing the hurricane open out of Grand Isle, Louisiana this past weekend. And we catch a 704 pounder, which is a nice one. It's 122 inches. It's our biggest one yet. And man, we are so ecstatic. Congratulations. It was money or no money. It's actually sort of special for my owners and my owner's family because they've had a camp on Grand Isle, Louisiana for they call it a camp. It's a beach house and it's nice beach house now, but. It was camp since the 50s, late 50s. This family has had many traditions of going down there and spending time together every summer. And it's been, you know, it's something where everybody can go and be around each other. And it's, they're a really close knit family anyway. And they fish the tarpaulios and fish some other things over the years, but they've never weighed anything huge there in Grand Isle. So this has always been like a dream of theirs. And to do it in Grand Isle just makes it that much more special. We didn't. Like I said, we want some money, but it wasn't about the money. It was about that memory that they got to make with their family members. And they brought their 90 year old grandfather down here to celebrate with us. And he's, you know, yeah, his wife was Lolita. She passed away, but that's had to name the boat after. So he was able to come down and celebrate. And it was just so special. It was really, really cool. And we're able to, you know, not only celebrate that fish and won some money with that fish and. Now we're on the board with the Mongo, which, you know, extra special for me, JD and Brian. I mean, it's really, really cool to be able to do that. But, but you reached out to us and now we were able to donate that fish to science, which is awesome. And we also flayed up a bunch of the meat. Everybody's sharing the meat. We actually, my brother's smoking some up, making some fish dip out of it. Yes. Smoked blue marlin. That's the way to do it. Yep. We got some, some art being made from it. you know, some, the bill and the tail and some prints. And so it's. Katie (21:19.758) It's not a wasted fish, it's a celebrated fish. And now we got, we had kids down there taking pictures with it. It's just inspiring kids. I mean kids, the thing is, is like what a lot of people don't realize is when these fish are brought back to the dock, like the kids that see it, it's such a lasting impression. Because I mean, even for the adults that have never seen anything like that, like to see a creature from the ocean, a fish from the ocean of that size and magnitude and what it takes. to bring something like that in and what type of possibilities there are out there. It just opens so many doors. And I'm really, I was really stoked when I reached out to you, you were all on board about the donating. And next, you guys, the next podcast is gonna be Jeremy Higgs over at the University of Southern Mississippi. And that's exactly who these samples are going to. So Jeremy, I had you like. what we cut the head and we kept some of the innards and we're going to get to age that fish and, and learn a lot about the reproduction and the phases of the fish. So it's blue marlin are females when they're of that size and they're going to get to do reproductive histology on there and we're going to learn a lot about it. And I just think it's so cool that you guys were on board and just sharing that on this podcast is so important because you know, when these fish are brought in, there's so much more that can be done with them than even just. you know, taking the tournament win. Like you said, I love that you're showcasing the celebration of that life. Tell us a story about catching the fish. Like what did it eat? And, yeah, so, we fished some, a very popular area called, we call it the ghetto. it's just, some shallow, well, it's not shallow. It's, it's close to land rigs. I guess you could say it's a, it's a rig that are the floating rigs that are closest to the Alabama line. We're fishing out of Louisiana, but everybody knows the ghetto. If you fish in the northern Gulf Coast, you know it's the ghetto. It's the Rampowl and Petronas and Marlin Rig and Horn Mountain. It's these rigs that's been there for years and years and years. Probably some of the early rigs that were floaters are the ghetto. And they've added on to them. And we got hundreds of rigs that we could choose from. So, ghetto's in the shallower waters. It's about 3 ,000 feet and it's working its way up the bank. And, Katie (23:37.07) I saw some good current in there, like a good eddy being built. We use Hilton's to do our research before we go to figure out exactly what the current's doing, the temperature's doing, and all that. We saw this eddy being formed in there, and I was like, man, it's got some good water pushing in there. Also, Bluefin was still open, so if we accidentally happened to catch one, it wasn't closed yet. It's like, all right, if we get one, we could probably take her home if she ends up. Accidentally, you know eating one of our live baits that we use for blue marlin which they do typically this time of year And then there's huge tune in that area this time of year had some reports today before Several boats catching actually one boat called a 200 pounder another boat called 185 pounder all in this area. Yep And then several boats have caught blue marlin over the last couple days. So I was like, all right, let's go in there most of the fleet's gonna go to greens Canyon another area south of Louisiana and Maybe it won't be as so many boats over there. Anyway, we made the call. Go over there. And the bait's a little hard to catch, a little concern. As we get there, the bait's really, really deep. Typically in the daytime, we're trolling around the rigs, try to catch live bait first to fill up our tubes. At nighttime, you're jigging, using butterfly jigs and whatnot around the oil rigs. They all come to the lights and usually up shallower. And you can jig them all night, fill up your tubes. But in the daytime, you've got to be a little creative and catch them on the troll. There was a lot of different techniques guys used, but they were really deep, really hard to catch. So we were like, all right, at least to the rigs that we stopped at. So we switched over to trolling. That first day we're trolling, nothing. We got to watch another boat that was live baiting catch a couple of fish. So we're like, all right, well, there's fish around. We'll load the tubes tonight and we'll start in the morning and do some live baiting. So we did that. We filled up our tubes at night at a rig and then pulled over to our first stop. It was a drill ship and first bait in the water. It was a porpoise. Porpoise came up and ate our bait and they just, they're so smart. Yeah. They hated this fisherman. They're beautiful, awesome creatures, but they came up. Yeah. You're fishing. Yeah. You don't want when they're eating your bait. They're amazing how they eat it too. They missed the hook. They know where the hook is. They bite it right behind and they just like suck out everything. You just, all you have left on your, on your hook is the head of your bait. And they did that like first, first bait in. Katie (25:57.678) Corpus and I'm marking someone's sonar and like these all look like porpoise to me. So let's let's just go. So we went three miles away to the next rig and there's nobody there. There was like four boats or five boats fishing with us at that first one. So there's multiple reasons why I wanted to leave. So we lit we left one over there and there's only other one ended up being one other boat fishing with us there and marked a couple in the sonar. We hooked one fish, jumped them off within like two minutes. It was a hindsight it was a male. It was a smaller fish. And we found that over the years that that'll happen a whole lot. You'll catch them. You'll catch a small one and you go back and catch the big one or you'll catch the big one and you go back and catch a small one. It seems like they run together this time of year. It's typical to find a big fish with a small fish or multiple. I'm so curious to find out if your fish was spawning. Multiple small fish. A lot of times. So anyway, I marked one, we hooked that one, lost it, put the baits back out, and I saw another mark going over to the rig. So we were using Omniso Nars. Actually, I'm using an MAQ. I love it. It's awesome. So we go over to the rig, put the baits out, drag it over top of it, and I lose the mark. I can't find it. And a lot of times that means they're coming up about to eat your bait. You know, you're in your prop watch or whatnot. Nothing. About five minutes goes by, I mark something else. up ahead of me so we pulled the boat up about maybe a football field's length and there she is. She eats the bait immediately, starts dumping it. What you have like a blackfin or bonita? Yep, that morning all we could call it was blackfin. A little football size maybe about that big. And yeah, Aida immediately dumped a bunch of line. We're using 130 class reels with 130 pound line on there. We do have backing and she... My angler gets in there, Jordan Womack, he fights it for two hours straight. A hot, hard fight. Not a whole lot of jumping, but just a ton of dogging, ton of left and right and down sea, up sea. The fish was crazy. Really, really strong fish. We got one look at it, like two jumps. There's a video we just put up there on Instagram yesterday. You can see the only two jumps. That's the only two times she came out of the water. And she doesn't really look that big in that video. She's pretty far away. And, Katie (28:17.134) We see it's a solid fish, but we get the measurement stick out, like, all right, it might be 112, we'll see. And then two hours into the fight after, he's like, all right, this fish is super strong. It's big. And then she sounds. Sounds all the way down to the bottom, way back into the backing. We're probably a thousand feet out of line in our angler's life. You guys, sounding is when, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremy, but sounding is when that fish goes essentially straight up and down and it's deep. Like it's just deep. A lot of times when they do that, we try to, captains call a lot of big blue marlin that try to tag and release them. You're trying to keep them up on top because the worst thing you want is from the sound because they'll die. Typically when they sound that deep, they're stroking out, they're giving out. That's all. If you keep them up top, you can usually tag them really quick and release them and be done. So she sounded and we're like, man, we're in for the long haul now. We're already two hours in, which is a long time. Yeah, usually tagging these fish. If we're tagging the fish, even the big ones, you can get them in 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour. But anyway, sort of all like defeated after that point. my goodness, we're two hours in, we haven't really saw her again. She's sounded and way back into the backing, our angler is just like totally gassed. He's puking, he's puking all over himself. He's pale in the face. He's like a bodybuilder guy. His arms are shaking, his legs are shaking. So we've got to get him dehydrated, get him cooled down, pouring water all over him. And then the family's just totally around him. The team's just around, like, you're not quitting. You're staying in this. You're going to get this fish. Just totally positive talking, because he's like, I don't know if I can get this thing anymore. Yeah. I mean, he's done his thing. Yeah. So in that. When they do that, and she's done fighting, like she sounds and then it's done, done taking more line. We go to full drag and at that process you got to plane them up. You got to, you know, you're pulling forward, getting a little bit of scope in the line where the line starts coming up a little bit and you're backing down really hard, reeling that slack and then doing it again. So basically what your rod was doing before, the boat's doing now. So the boat's pulling up and then you're reeling down. You're pulling up, reeling down about 40, 50 feet at a time. So it takes another three hours to get that fish. Katie (30:32.782) Hold on, I want to pause you real quick. I really like that you brought up the planing and how it's done because a handful of times when we've been fishing, it's just a really important skill for captains, crews, and anglers to know. A lot of times it can even potentially save a fish. If you have a fish that gets tail wrapped early on in a fight and you're not going to be able to get its head turned. So tail wrapped is when the line's wrapped around the tail of the fish. And if you can't get its head turned, a lot of times that fish is just gonna be swimming down. But if you recognize it early on, if the angler and the captain recognize it early on, you guys can start planing that fish up and get it up to the boat before it dies. Because if it's tail wrapped and it gets pulled backwards for too long, it's gonna asphyxiate because it can't breathe. moving backwards. So planing is a really, really important skill in the field of ethical angling. And then of course, in situations like these where, where you have a deep fish that's just gone. And I mean, also when they're that big, it's really interesting, Jeremy, because when they're that big, it's almost like they can't fight as long as the smaller ones. Like, do you think that that plays a key, like a role in it? And what about the like, how, how warm was the water? I'm just curious. 77. That's pretty cool actually for Northern Gulf. Yeah. It'll warm up. I'm surprised. Yeah. It's, it's, it's been cut off from the loop current that area. So if you go down in greens, it's probably 79 now, somewhere around there. the loop current is probably 80, but you know, this current is down there in greens is probably that, but up, up where we're fishing is still a little cooler because it's sort of been cut off. it's getting most of its water from out in the canyon out to the east of it. And that water is all 76, 77. Is that pretty regular with the seasons? Sometimes that loop current, you look on Hilton's and watch it come up. It'll come up from the Yucatan, make a hard ride over towards Tampa and loop back down. And then off of that northern part, you'll get eddies that'll curl up into that Louisiana, Alabama area. And those eddies are bringing in that nice fresh nutrients that you want. You want that counterclockwise eddy that brings up fish, brings up all the nutrients from the bottom. And you got to... Katie (32:50.926) Clockwise, it's pushing everything down. Altimeter's down and it seems like everything's deeper. But yeah, this time of year, it'll be all sort of weird and squirrely. We always like to fish after a really big storm, like a big south pushing storm. A lot of south wind, southeast wind. Sort of like the pocket and people are familiar with Chubb and down there. Anytime you've got something pushing everything into the shallow water, it seems to get better in there. And that near that shallower water just sort of stacks everything up. So we like doing that. but it was, you know, the, anyway, there's fish in there. There's fish everywhere. People caught fish this weekend all over the place. We were just sort of right place, right time. And then we're capitalized once we did get that fish on, everybody worked together as a good team. And, you know, we didn't make any mistakes. If we would have made a mistake, we would have lost that fish. Cause once we got that fish in the hook was hooked outside end, which is. already hard, you know, you lose them right at the beginning. It's probably when he chased that circle hook, when he was, when he was chasing that blackfin, that blackfin probably swirled around his head weird, got him somehow. And then that hook was hooked to the outside end. So when he came in, you could grab the hook and it just went, doop, it like barely came out. And then we had like two wraps, we had like two wraps around the tail that probably saved us, you know, saved that fish, you know, saved us getting that fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because if it would have been hooked outside in and he sounded and we'd just been pulling him up like this, it would eventually just work this pulled it out because it just and then she would have died in vain. Yeah. And then it starts with ater and nobody got to celebrate. Yeah. All that. So yeah, it was really special the way it worked out. So many so many things worked in its way. It was a blessing for sure. Were y 'all surprised when she came? when y 'all got her up and she was 122 inches long? Yes, well, actually she popped up way far away. So, you know, we're playing in and once you get them up, you're playing in a dead fish up from that deep. Once you get up to like 200 feet above that thermocline, they'll just pop up and she popped up. Interesting. Yeah, she popped up probably 200 feet away. And so when she popped up tail first, we probably we knew that she was probably tail wrapped, but we didn't know it popped up tail wrap. Our hearts sort of sank. man, I hope she ain't like a 400 pounder, you know. Katie (35:07.438) come up tail up tail up. And then we, you know, now this is all sort of sucks, you know, we don't, we don't win nothing. And you know, we just killed a smaller fish. So she popped up tail up and we saw the tail sticking out of the water and we're getting back and down, back and down to the fish that JD can grab the leader, pull her over and the tail gets bigger and she gets longer. And we're like, okay, all right. And then JD gets her boat side and we're like, holy moly. Nobody says anything to each other until we, until we get her, you can watch that video. We're getting her in a boat. Brian and Ryan, the owner, start pulling her to boat and they get her in and then everybody's like, whoa. You know, we didn't want to say anything. Exhale. Yeah, exhale. And then we measured her. Yeah, we knew she was big and then we measured her and now she's a mongo. You know, now she's over one eighteen. We're like, yeah, we're high five. And it was so awesome. It was very, very special. We've killed it. We've killed a fish with these owners a few years ago, but it wasn't a mongo. It was like a five forty or five. 30 or something like that we caught in Blocsie. Which length was approximately? It was like 112, 113 I think was the length. Yeah you guys 118 is a really damn big fish. Yeah. Like it's a big fish. A special fish. In 122. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And I, in the video, I mean it looked like you guys didn't even have a flying gaff out. Like you all just had your tuna gaff. Yeah we did have a flyer out. We decided we didn't need it once we got boat sided and we just stick it. regular stick gaff in there, straight gaff. And we did that and then we'd just get a new surround her, around her bill and then we were able to sort of guide her in that way. But yeah, it worked out really, really good that way. It was cool. It was very, very special fish. And then now it's like the dilemma of, all right, did we stay out here? The fishing's good. We ain't got a tuna yet. We came out here for a big tuna too. And we made the decision of going on in. So we... because we're in the Mongo. Because now we're gonna lose, we didn't want to lose any weight. And we wanted to explain how you lose weight. So a lot of times on the deck, they'll just lose weight. They're losing fluids the whole time, blood and other things. And we didn't have that many holes in her, but we had a couple of holes in her. A lot of times they'll just lose weight sitting on the deck. And it kept on going through our minds like, man, if she is a Mongo, she's still got, we got all season for 88 teams to try to beat her. Katie (37:30.414) But if we lose by like two or three pounds, we're going to be hitting ourselves in the face for not taking it. It's only three hours away to the weigh station. So it's a fast boat. So we go. And our plans are to come out either later that evening or that night and try to get a tuna. And we get in. We have a couple of mechanical issues I'm a little nervous about. So we decide not to go out. We just hung her up. We're 700 pounds. We're all having a great time. to see if somebody else can beat her. So nobody else beat her and we won that weekend tournament, which we're super excited about. And then, congratulations. See what happens in the market. Now it gives us a little bit later. You know, it was the 118 everybody was shooting for now it's a 700 pounder set by shooting for. So what is that? I don't know. It could be a 118, a really fat one, but typically probably, you know, that probably is going to save a few fish of being killed is in our thoughts, unless it's in a weekend tournament, you know, if it's on a fun trip, they're going to think twice about killing if it's. you know, 600 pound or something like that. So, yeah, that's cool. Which is really cool. Yeah. Question, what are some like when you're bringing a fish back to the dock and you want to make sure that it's not losing weight, like what are, what are ways that you can help mitigate that? Like, do you have any techniques that you or tips that you want to share? Yeah. So, at least knowledge that I've learned from, from other captains is, we haven't done it yet on. on length, but to keep length you want to keep them wet. Not necessarily cold, but wet to keep their length. So a lot of weekend tournaments, it might be 110 and you have 112 sitting on the deck. Two days later, that thing could be 110, you know, or 109. They could lose an inch or two pretty easily. And there's plenty of stories of guys catching a legal fish and getting back to dock and it's not legal anymore. So that's a bummer. So a lot of captains... found that you keep them wet with towels and that'll keep their length. Not sure about the way that is. Yeah. Is like their skin will shrink up. That skin is so it's very similar to Wahoo skin. Right. And even though the scales are different, very different, but it'll like it'll shrink up as it dries. So keeping them wet will keep them. There's like a lot of like. Katie (39:54.99) ends and outs of it, right? Like I just, okay. So just to clear the air here, I haven't been a really around fisheries that kill fish. you know, my blue Marlin, my predominant blue Marlin experience was in the fat fishery of Costa Rica, which is all catch and release because they're small fish. And then, we were fishing in Madeira for the big one, but we never saw her. So I've heard a lot of stories and like, of fish like coming back to the dock and people saying they were stretched, fish coming back to the dock, people saying that they, you know, put water in their bellies or whatever. what, like there's, there's definitely things you can and cannot do to keep these fish the way they should be as well as like the word mutilation. Can you, can you expand on that for me? Yeah. So in our tournament, in the Mongo, we def on a weekend tournaments. So say you catch your fish in a weekend, we defer to that tournament. So if it's dequeued in that weekend tournament, it's dequeued in the Mongo. If it counts, it counts. In our rules, we do Spirit of IGFA. So mutilated fish are not counted. Mutilation is something that impairs its ability to fight, its ability to swim. So if you back over it a little too hard and chop its tail off or chop something up with your propellers, it's not going to count. It's part of the game. It's shark bit. It's not going to count. We accept cookie cutter sharks because that could have been done months or years ago. Cookie cutter sharks will take like a little round bite out. You'll catch a swordfish and it'll have several of them in there a lot of times as cookie cutter sharks. So we'll accept those, but yeah, if it's a five tiger or something on the way up, then we don't count that. We count that as a mutilated fish. Unless that tournament that you're fishing in accepts it. then we'll count it because we defer to them. But yeah, I mean, you know, people have, yeah, we hear those stories too. I mean, same thing in the freshwater world, people putting leads in their stomachs and, you know, all kinds of stuff to try to win. So we, in the Mongo, we have some checks and balances in there. Sometimes we have the ability to cut that fish open at the dock and check its innards. And we have to have two witnesses that weren't on the boat to witness you weigh that fish. And... Katie (42:19.758) lie detector test for the winners. So we have some things built in to try to keep the confidence high that somebody isn't going to cheat. And a lot of it's peer enforced. If you're in this private industry of sport fishing and you're caught cheating, you go find another career. Yeah, you're not going to get another job. After your black eye, bloody nose heals, go find another job. you don't want to, nobody's going to accept you if you get caught cheating. So it's a lot of it is peer enforced, at least that fear of, you know, so hoping, you know, somebody that didn't want to go on their morals, there's some fear involved as well of getting caught cheating. So, you know, not saying people don't try, but we, we, we try to build some safe, some safe holds in there to keep people from doing it, at least thinking twice. Yeah, that's great. But yeah, and we like to keep them cold. You know, if they're big, big enough fish to weigh, the weigh in, we want to, try to donate that meat. So we like to keep them cold, wrap them up in a fish bag, put as much meat, much ice in there as you can, keep them wet as well. If you keep them bad and cold, he's going to stay long and you're going to get some meat and you can donate out of it. And people eat them in Hawaii all the time. They eat them in all these other islands all the time. I mean, it's not like the best table fare. It's not like we're going to, I'm, you know, let's go catch them all in a day so we can feed the family. But if you do catch them all in a day, she dies. It is edible. We have some especially smoked. Like we really like it. I've smoked Marlin on a bagel. Yeah. Yeah. I've had some smoked taco or some fish taco, Marlin tacos or they're fine. Yeah. You can dress it up and it's totally edible meat. but, we have some, some charities that we sit that we work with and the golf, golf coast, feeding the golf coast and different charities like that. that if a fish does come in the mongo and wait in one of our waste stations, we have outlet to get rid of that meat. A lot of times you'll have to flay that meat up and bag it up, but that's not a big deal. And then you just put those bags in the freezer or wherever and we'll have those cherries come up and pick it up. And they'll donate it to, if it's edible for human consumption, they'll donate it to some homeless shelters and whatnot, but also some zoos and things like that will take it for their tigers and their different. Burning sanctuaries. Yep, yep. So there, you know. Katie (44:38.158) alligator farm. How cool that you guys have like have thought all that yeah alligator farms for sure thought all of that out at your way stations like okay when we bring this fish back like I just love that you're obviously so sustainably minded. Yeah yeah yeah future conservation minded you know it's making choices you know make make your choice because if you want your kids to do this you know try to take some responsibility you know. Nobody loves Marlin more than Marlin fishermen. There's a bunch of fish huggers out there. Why in the world are you killing a fish? my goodness, neanderthals. Well, nobody loves them more than we do. I feel like we've hugged more Marlin. Yeah, we've hugged way more Marlin than y 'all have. And nobody raises more. Nobody raises more money to protect them, to research for them. We buy fishing licenses. That money goes to help all of it. So I love it when people... And the money we put into the communities. Yeah, I love it when people in all the comment sections, they all have an opinion and you go look them up and they're living in Iowa somewhere and never even seen a blue marlin. They have no idea what they're talking about. So nobody loves marlin more than marlin fishermen. We want them around. And yes, we try to take efforts to promote. people want them around more. We kill a few extra fish a year, but all under that minimum. We're allowed 250 per year. National Marine fisheries, white and blue marlin, and if there's an extra three or four killed in the mongo, and they're all huge fish, and they're all celebrated and all that, I think it's good. I don't think it's hurting anything. If anything, it's helping the industry, all the money that's raised from marlin fishermen, bringing new little junior anglers into it. Like you said, with... Like you said, with kids taking photos and stuff like that at Grand Isle this past weekend, there was a line of people, like literally after we took our photos, our team photos, there was like a line, like a single line of probably 15, 20 people waiting to take their picture with this fish that they only know who we are. They don't, you know, they're gonna take a picture with this fish so they can send it to their family members. I mean, very, very cool. Look at this. Yeah, so cool. Yeah, very cool. Did you even know this animal existed out there? Right. Yeah, and also like this, you know, Katie (46:54.286) Another way giving back to the fishery and the communities is the science. The science we're getting from it. These fish are known as rare event species and you and I can both testify to that. And they're really hard to get. They're very expensive to go after. And the scientists, the schools that are studying them to make sure that they are sustainably managed, that they are cared for correctly, that they are going to be in the lives of our children and our children's children in the future. they don't have the funding to be able to catch them themselves. And the fact that we have fishing teams that want to bring them back and take integrity and donate responsibility and donate these specimens to the science labs. I mean, USM was so stoked on y 'all's fish. Like it was, they were just so excited. USM, the Bill Fish Foundation, they were just really excited. So like you said, no one loves marlin more than marlin fishermen. It's just, it's a fact. exactly. And really cool fish. Yeah. And I've, I've even heard of people like, you know, we don't catch them as big as they, you know, y 'all are killing the stock. Well, think of all the records has been set in the last couple of years. All right. So last year, the biggest fish that's ever been recorded in the Gulf of Mexico was called in October, 1145 pounds. I see three years ago. Yeah. And days after he's one of our boys, he's one of our boys. He's, he's like one of the original supporters of the Mongo. Captain Chris Moat, he's an amazing fisherman loves blue morn fishing is really really good at it and Man, that would have been so special if it was caught two weeks prior to that. But yeah, so Yeah, so that's a golf record. I mean biggest one in the golf And then what what was Duffy's fish like four years ago the you know, 1 ,100 pounds caught in Maryland? All right, and then two years before that, Big Rock had the biggest ones ever caught in Big Rock. I mean, we're, the fish are still here. They're good. You know, we need to continue to take care of them and grow them, but they're not, we're not, we still have those old man in the sea photos. That's what the Mongo logo is about is staying inside that amazing fish. Well, there's proof that they're still out there. I mean, that just proved it. So yeah. That's so cool. I want to get into the live baiting. Katie (49:19.534) I want to get into why it's challenging to catch live bait in the Gulf of Mexico. So when we were in Costa Rica, I keep bringing this up, but we were bait and switch fishing predominantly, which you guys, that's teaser fishing. And if a fish shows up behind the teaser, we take the teaser away and then we present them with a dead bait with a circle hook in it. Right? And then we generally get a really active aggressive bite. It's a good feed, good hook set. That's all she wrote. But we were catching our bait out there. It was Bonita and they're prolific. They're just prolific. And I've heard that catching bait in the Gulf of Mexico is a very different experience. You've already touched on how the bait was real deep on this last trip and y 'all were struggling on catching bait. A lot of times you guys will have a little bit of an easier time catching bait at night, but then you're catching bait at night and losing some very valuable sleep. as well as, you know, those bait, they go deep during, during the day because the water can get so warm. So let, can you, can you give us a little bit of Intel into how you keep your tuna tubes, what tuna tubes are and how you keep them full and what your, your best care and strategy tips are? Yeah. So that's definitely progressed over the years. I remember live baiting in like 2005 and six, somewhere around there was my first time. was fishing on a boat with a really experienced captain that was really, really good at it. And they didn't even have tubes yet, but he live baited a lot. So he basically catches bait, put it right back out. Might even get a little creative and catch a bait and keep them close on a little leash in the water. Literally, that's your live bait tube, just keep them in the water on like a little leash with a little hook through his or a clip through his nose. Whatever, get creative to keep at least one in the quiver, to put one back out. But there's... caught a lot of fish by catching them and then hooking them up, putting them right back out and then doing well that way. But obviously if you can have a quiver of baits so when you get sharks or a barracuda eats it or a porpoise eats it, now you got to go catch more bait again. So now became the tuna tube. So it started out with boats getting two or three on there and now you'll have boats with 20 on there. We have 16 on our, so obviously the more tubes you have. Katie (51:46.094) The more bait you can have, the longer you can go without having to go try to catch bait again. So 16 tubes, man, that's been a whole progression as well of how do you keep 16 fish alive? So you have to have a lot of water flow. So there's a lot of techs and all kinds of science and mechanics and figuring out how much flow and how to get the best flow. And do you want bubbles and not bubbles? And where do you put your through hole? I mean, there's so much that goes into it. And every boat's different and all that. So anyway, over the last five or six years, it's very common to buy your boat. If you're building a brand new boat, say Vikings building your boat, and you can get your tubes installed at factory or right, you know, maybe you'll refit it when you get it down to South Florida. And there's a couple of guys that specialize in that and they'll refit your boat before you even go pick it up. You go pick up your boat and you got your sonar and your tubes. And those are primarily golf boats. Golf boats, we have tubes. If you don't have tubes, you're probably not fishing in the Gulf. So not competitively. Yes. And there's a lot of guy dredging now doing phenomenal. The guys that are really good at dredging still catch tons of fish, but a lot of that's on standups. Are you going to kill that? Those are your tag release guys. So the guys that are trying to catch the big one are live baiting primarily. And then you want them on a circle hook rather than have them on a J hook. because man, all the things didn't go wrong with a J hook. So, circle hook is a really good way of catching a big fish and being able to fight it through and land it. So, yeah, so typical day is, you know, if we're showing up, you know, tournaments leaving in the Gulf, you're leaving at like 10 a 11 a you're running out to your oil rig that you've picked, or you might stop on the way, some guys stop on the way at some bottom spots and pick up some bonito. A lot of times the bonito will hold up over a natural reef. or a shallow water oil rig and picking up some bonitas first. Bonitas are usually shallower where we live and as you get out you'll start getting to the black fin and the yellow fin and there's some skipjack and things like that. Yellowtail, or not yellowtail but rainbow runners. Things like that you can catch out there too. But you're trying to catch them trolling. Some people fish on the surface for them. The guys are figured out the getting deep, getting creative. Katie (54:07.502) how to get down deep with planers or downriggers or whatnot to get down deep to where they're at. And then all kinds of different things you can catch them on, little squid imitations or minnow limitations or spoons and all kinds of different ways. You're making them on daisy chains and figuring out a way to get those fish to eat, those little baits, and then you're bringing them up, putting them in your tubes. Once you get your tubes full, you go fishing. And then some guys, while they're fishing, they got a guy on the bow with these sea keepers. That's a whole nother thing. You got a guy, these sea keepers, if it's relatively calm, they're up there casting the popper, casting little plugs, little jigs to try to catch. You got one guy who's just a bait fisherman on your bow while everybody's fishing in the back. Try to continue. That's how important the bait is. You got to have that fresh bait. So yeah, you load your baits and then you're fishing, looking with sonars. Before sonars, we just all... stayed up on the up current side of the rig. A lot of times that up current side is where the marlins will be because the school of tuna typically swims around in circles on the up current side. My theory is it's easier for them to get back to safety. If they got to swim down sea to get back to safety, it's a lot easier than having to swim up sea to get back to safety. It's like a bass or anything. Yeah, it's like a minnow or anything else. or a reef fish, they're gonna swim back. So the upcurrent side will be the busy side. That's where most of your tunas are. That's where most of your predators are is upcurrent of them. So now it's easier for them to catch fish if they're swimming down sea versus having to swim into the current. That's how I figured it. So yeah, so that's the way we used to do before sonar, but now sonar's changing the game. Now it used to be, all right, and I'm gonna sit there with baits on the water while I'm sonar fishing, looking for something to troll over at two knots, my live bait's over to that mark. But now a lot of guys aren't even putting a bait in the water until they mark a fish because they've gotten so confident in their sonar abilities to find that fish. Don't even put a bait out until they're right on top of that fish. All right, deploy. Put your baits in the water. There he is. A lot of guys are getting really good at doing that. You can tell who's good at doing that. Wow. Just watch three tournaments. And if a guy's winning or placing in each one of those three or two of those three, Katie (56:16.27) that guy is a really good sonar fisherman because that's what he's doing. He's not waiting on chance and you know, just maybe official swim by this current side. He's, he's literally feeding that fish. It's almost like teasing that fish, but you know, you don't have to tease them. Just drop a bait on it and he'll come up and eat it. Cause I think the prop wash and all that makes them think that the feeding friends of the year, whatever, at least they're paying attention to what's going on with that prop wash up there. Yeah. So it's definitely progressing. It's, it's changed. It's like every five years something different and people are getting really good at that and then five years have changed and it's something people get really good at that. But that's the thing now, the successful captains that are, especially with numbers of fish are doing is not even putting a bait in the water until. So now you don't have to bait fish near as much because you're not killing so many baits. You're not wasting them whether tiring them out or you're getting shark aid or we get a lot of sharks, a lot of barracus, a lot of porpoise around them. these rigs too. So yeah, so daytime you're trolling for them, playing in whatever you got to do. At nighttime you're jigging and jigging is pretty easy. Once you find them, at nighttime you can load your tubes and usually 30, 45 minutes you'll have some bite, you know, you'll have some eating by sharks and whatnot. Sometimes it's frustrating, if it's really rough it's sort of hard to hold up sometimes. But yeah, loading them up and then you're ready to go and definitely lose some sleep. Some guys are bringing an extra guy, just like a night driver. You know, that way he's fresh, doesn't at least not run into the rig in the middle of the night, 3 a trying to hold

This month we are honoring Chelsea's move across the country by researching animals with long migrations! Today Chelsea teaches us about the blue marlin, who is absolutely adorable as a baby! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/savethemermaids/support

Blue Marlin and Bluefin tuna off South Florida this week ! Captain Norm and the Lunkerdog speak about this great offshore fishing bite that has been going on here in South Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast episode, Katie interviews Chloe Mikles, a PhD student studying bluefin tuna. They discuss Chloe's research on bluefin tuna and blue marlin movement ecology and population structures. Chloe explains the process of tagging fish and the importance of tracking their migration patterns. Katie and Chloe also talk about the bluefin tuna fishery in North Carolina and the international management of bluefin tuna populations around the world. Chloe shares her background and interest in studying bluefin tuna and discusses her PhD work on population differentiation. They also touch on the handling and care of tagged fish and the differences between handling bluefin tuna and billfish. In this conversation, Katie and Chloe discuss the tagging and tracking of marlin and tuna throughout the Atlantic Ocean. They explore the use of satellite tags and archival tags to collect data on the fish's behavior, including their location, depth, and temperature, and why it is important. They also discuss the challenges of tag recovery and the importance of collaboration with fishermen. The conversation highlights the physiological adaptations of bluefin tuna and their exceptional ability to cross the ocean. The rebound of the bluefin tuna population is also discussed, along with the importance of fisheries management and the economic impact of the fishery. Chloe offers advice for young scientists, emphasizing the importance of following one's passion and staying open to opportunities.   Takeaways   Chloe Mikles is a PhD student studying bluefin tuna and blue marlin movement ecology and population structures. Tagging fish is an important part of Chloe's research to track their migration patterns and understand population differentiation. The bluefin tuna fishery in North Carolina is regulated by size limits and quotas, and the fish are harvested for commercial purposes. International collaboration is crucial for the management of bluefin tuna populations, as they are highly migratory and cross the jurisdictions of many nations. Proper handling and care of tagged fish, such as minimizing air exposure and swimming the fish before release, help reduce mortality rates. Satellite tags and archival tags are used to track the behavior of marlin and tuna, providing data on their location, depth, and temperature. Tag recovery missions can be challenging, as the tags are small and can be difficult to locate in the vast ocean.   Bluefin tuna are endothermic fish, able to regulate their body temperature and withstand a wide range of temperatures. Foraging hotspots and oceanographic conditions play a role in the feeding patterns and migration of bluefin tuna. Collaboration with fishermen is crucial for successful research and fisheries management, as they have valuable knowledge and observations of the fishery. The rebound of the bluefin tuna population demonstrates the effectiveness of strict management regulations and the importance of sustainable fishing practices, despite the many challenges that can be derived from these efforts.   Find Chloe on instagram at @coastal_chloe ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   Katie (00:22.905) Hey, what's up you guys? Welcome to the Katie C Sawyer podcast. I'm sitting here with Chloe Mikles, a remarkable young woman that I have been fan-girling over on the internet for years now. Chloe, thank you so much for being here with me. Chloe (00:37.698) Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I feel like likewise, I've been fangirling over you for years too. So it's always fun to sit down and talk with you. Katie (00:45.849) That's so sweet. I really appreciate it. All right, you guys, Chloe is a PhD candidate at Stanford University, working with Dr. Barbara Block, a legend, studying bluefin tuna and blue marlin, movement ecology and population structures. Chloe, can you tell our listeners just like a brief synopsis of what that means? Chloe (01:07.882) Yes, so yeah, we oftentimes get caught up with like tossing in a lot of scientific jargon with our work. So Basically, I am in graduate school and for my dissertation work. I am learning from my advisor Barb Block and I am doing everything from going out into the field to tagging the fish which is the most fun part and probably what we'll talk the most about and then reading a bunch of papers to the scientific literature and I do some lab work as well, and then it all ends up, the culmination of the PhD is basically writing a bunch of scientific papers that summarize our findings. Katie (01:47.477) So what kind of questions are you asking about these populations? Chloe (01:53.258) So you can start off like very, you can go from very simple to very complex, basically, these questions. The most basic question is, we're putting tags on animals to see where they go. And you can make that more and more and more complex. So for example, from Marlin in North Carolina, blue marlin have been tagged all over the world, but not that many have been tagged off the coast of North Carolina. So by focusing efforts regionally in different locations, we can get a better idea of where the fish that pass through there go. And basically like if their migration patterns are different, if there are different populations of fish that are traveling elsewhere and just trying to learn more and more about these fish because it's so hard to study the ocean. I mean, it's not like, you know, a deer or a mountain lion or something where you can actually like watch where they go and track them or, you know, put a radio color on them and see where they go. The ocean is really hard to study. Everything's underwater. Everything's innately then more cryptic. Um, the technology is much more difficult to actually get something that can track animals underwater. So the more tags that we put out and the more data that we collect, it's like, we're constantly learning more about these fish every single time. Katie (03:07.065) really love that you just like compared the ocean towards land mammals and land predators out there and animals that we've been studying and trying to manage for a long time. We still have so far to go to properly manage our wildlife on land and the ocean is that much more difficult to do. So we'll get into that a little bit a little later because I want to really touch on what you're doing and what kind of questions and answers we're getting from that. But for the sake of Chloe (03:18.536) Mm-hmm. Chloe (03:22.764) Right. Chloe (03:26.322) Exactly. Chloe (03:32.415) Yeah. Katie (03:36.979) I'm a blue marlin girl. Let's focus our energy on the bluefin tuna because it's just there's such fascinating animals and I have so many questions for you. So first off let's start with where you started. Where did you grow up? Chloe (03:38.982) I know. Cool. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chloe (03:55.074) So I grew up in North Carolina and that is, yeah, that's a big reason why I've chose to study these fish for my PhD. So my family had a place on the coast of the Southern Outer Banks. And I just grew up there always being so fascinated by the ocean. And then kind of like in my most formative years when I was an undergrad and like right out of college, I made, you know, I made some of my best friends in my life and was fishing constantly. And... that reason, like, I love animals. I have always been passionate about studying them. It probably could have been anything, but the fact that, like, in those years I became so obsessed with offshore fishing, that's, yeah, that really did it. I know. Yeah. So... Katie (04:38.381) I got chicken skin. I feel that. I feel that on so many levels. So you did your undergrad at Cornell, right? You had a, didn't you have a full ride scholarship swimming? Chloe (04:51.17) So I did swim there for four years. The Ivy League actually doesn't provide like athletic scholarships, which is interesting. Yeah, but yes. So I swam at Cornell for four years. I majored in animal science. My original plan was to be a vet because I loved animals. And then I was doing a couple of internships with North Carolina State University and their Marine Station on the coast, actually working with both like fisheries biologists and Marine veterinarians. Katie (04:53.111) No big deal. Chloe (05:21.038) And I was like, this is so cool. Like I didn't realize that there was a career where you can actually study the ocean. Like I was getting paid as an intern. I mean, not much, but I was getting paid as an intern to go offshore and tag Mahi. I was like, this is so much fun. This is so cool. Um, and then as far as bluefin tuna, um, I just saw firsthand how important that fishery was to the local community. And it was like this amazing seasonal thing where every winter, Katie (05:35.441) Yeah. Chloe (05:50.994) It's like everyone would be commercial fishing for them. Like you would get your hardcore commercial fishermen who fish all year round fishing for bluefin tuna. But then you would get people who just do different jobs, um, take off weeks to partake in the commercial bluefin fishery for a couple of weeks. And yeah, it's a really different, I think it's a very unique commercial fishery. It's very different from most places in the country and the world. Um, it's a very short season, but Katie (06:07.493) That's fascinating. Chloe (06:19.934) I saw how much money it brought in to the local community, how excited people were, like, you know, there'd be little kids coming to see the bluefin brought in. And it was just like this, and it coincides with, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it's like this holiday season, just an extra excitement to the holiday season. Katie (06:39.013) Definitely. Tell us a little bit. So there's three populations of bluefin. There's the Atlantic bluefin, the Pacific, and the southern bluefin, correct? Chloe (06:48.806) Yeah, so those are three different species. It gets very complex when you start, yeah. So there are different species of bluefin tuna and then they're within the Atlantic, there are different populations. So it can get very complex depending on, yeah. Mm-hmm. Katie (06:51.294) Okay. Okay, right. Katie (07:00.261) So, right? And the more we know, the less we know. So in North Carolina, you're fishing for, or the commercial industry is fishing for bluefin, the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Chloe (07:08.508) Yeah, that's the best way of saying it. Mm-hmm. Katie (07:19.129) Tell me a little bit about the sizes of fish that are harvested and what the regulations are there. Like how many tags, what the release ratio might be, like give us a little bit of insight into that fishery specifically. Chloe (07:19.211) Yeah. Chloe (07:25.302) Mm-hmm. Chloe (07:29.506) Hmm. Chloe (07:35.242) Yeah, so specifically in North Carolina, well, actually just federally in the United States, a bluefin commercially has to be over 73 inches. So that's a pretty big fish. In North Carolina, it's a mixed size class of, I mean, you get fish probably as small as 50 inches and up to like upwards of 110. So it's a big range, but what's nice is you're not getting like a ton of the really little ones. Like you might get off the coast of Massachusetts, or not really little, but smaller. Yeah, I don't know if that upset anyone, but compared to the giants that you get in Nova Scotia or, I mean, people in Massachusetts still get really big ones too, but you know what I mean. Katie (08:10.021) Careful. Katie (08:16.263) Right. Katie (08:21.445) Yes, of course, of course, yes. We love you Massachusetts. So 73, you said 73 inches is qualifies as a giant, correct? Chloe (08:26.606) I don't want to call anyone out. Yeah, that's. Um, yeah, I think so. I forget all of that. Noah has it all spelled out, but 73 inches to harvest commercially. Yeah. Katie (08:36.069) That's okay. We don't... Yeah, yeah. And how many tags or how many, is it a tonnage or is it like how much can be harvested in the season? Chloe (08:48.678) Yeah. So it's based off of quota. And what makes this a really tricky fishery for people also is that once the quota is met or they predict that it's about to be met, they'll close the fishery immediately, like effective, like tomorrow at midnight, essentially. So you really don't have a great idea. Like when you start, I mean, you can, you know, if North Carolina knows like, Oh, we're going to get 60 metric tons for December. Then people have a good idea of. how quickly that will fill up, whether that's gonna be a week or two weeks, always depends on how good the fishing is, the size of the fish, the size classes that are coming through there. And then there's a limit of one per vessel per day. Katie (09:29.837) Okay, that's interesting. Really cool. So that's all fine and dandy. NOAA regulates federally in the U.S. But these are highly migratory species. So how does that work on an international level? Chloe (09:34.974) Mm-hmm. Chloe (09:40.206) Yeah Chloe (09:43.506) It's, yeah, that's the problem of the bluefin tuna and other highly migratory species is that they cross the jurisdictions of many different nations. I can't remember what the number is. I think for like all bluefin tuna, it's like over 50 different nations that are competing for this resource. So if you're a bluefin tuna, everywhere that you go, someone's trying to catch you. So in the Atlantic, they are managed by this international organization called ICAT. um, which I'm going to blink on the acronym, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. And they manage, bluefin, thanks, um, there are so many different, across the world there, like seven different, they're called RFMOs, Regional Fishery Management Organizations, and they all have like, similar, slightly similar, but differing names. It's hard to keep them all straight, but they manage for the most part all the highly migratory species of their set region. Katie (10:21.709) You nailed it. Chloe (10:43.562) So they set the quotas for different countries and perform the stock assessments and do all of the complicated data analysis and politics. Katie (10:54.373) So the politics are done internationally, regulated internationally as well as nationally. But there's so many questions we still have about this tuna, which is why your work and Dr. Block's work and all the work at Hopkins is so important, correct? Now go for it. No, no, no. Tell me what you just say. Chloe (10:59.11) Right. Correct, yeah. Mm-hmm. Chloe (11:09.61) Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it's, oh, go ahead. Oh, I was going to, it's really an international effort. Like, yes, we have our lab that's based at Stanford, but we are working with collaborators all across the world, from Canada to Spain, Italy. There's a country where bluefin tuna go, you name it. We've probably worked with them in some regard, as far as getting samples or tagging fish. So it's, oh, right. Yeah. Katie (11:34.265) That's awesome. I was able, and you know this, but I was in the Canary Islands with the On Location when Tag a Giant Foundation came over and we helped them catch fish to tag four-year studies and it was in collaboration with the University in Barcelona. So that was really incredible. I hope that you and I get to go do that one day. Have you been over there? Chloe (11:42.306) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chloe (11:54.282) Oh, mm-hmm. Chloe (11:58.854) I know. I haven't. It is my dream to go there. I want to go so badly. I'm gonna push for it this year. I have a lot of work to do. So unfortunately, like the further... yeah. Katie (12:08.953) You're in your fourth year, right? You're in your fourth year, so it's kind of busy, right? Chloe (12:14.018) Right, the further you get in the PhD, it's probably the more data analysis and the less fun in tagging, but hopefully I get a chance to get out. Katie (12:21.913) That's why they hook you early. That's cool. Okay, so let's go ahead and talk about the tagging. Let's talk about what these programs look like. I wanna know what Taggagiant's doing over in the Canaries and what they're doing in North Carolina and everywhere else and what we've discovered from them. Chloe (12:24.035) Yeah, exactly. Chloe (12:28.12) Mm-hmm. Chloe (12:37.14) Mm-hmm. Chloe (12:41.758) Yeah. So what's cool is basically everywhere that we go, we are working with the local community that's there. Like, we're in California. We can't just show up somewhere and pretend like we know how to catch bluefin tuna and just go off and be successful. Like, that would never work. Katie (12:58.048) I love the picture you just painted. That was perfect. Keep going. Chloe (13:02.43) So, you know, whether it's Nova Scotia or the Canaries or North Carolina, we're working with commercial and recreational fishermen in those locations who are the experts of catching bluefin in that spot. Like, you know, when you're in the Canaries, like, it's probably very different fishing than if you were in Southern California or if you were somewhere else. So, it's really special because I get to learn when I travel to these locations, all of the, you know, very regional specifics. what everyone has, you know, their different superstitions and their different techniques and what they swear by and um here do I could you lose me I'm oh okay Katie (13:37.397) Oh no. Hold on. I did lose you, but I think it might have been on my side. Oh shoot, let's start. I heard from regional specifics, so if you could kind of go a little bit back and we'll try again. Sorry. Chloe (13:54.582) Okay, no, you're good. Yeah, so when we travel to these different locations, we really just get to spend the time working with the commercial and recreational fishermen who all have these regional specifics of gear types and superstitions and things that they swear by. And it's a really cool opportunity to learn. And that's the reason that we're successful because we have the people that are experts for that region helping us tag the fish. So. It usually requires a lot of complex permitting to make sure that we get everyone, you know, on the same page, but usually people are really excited and, uh, really helpful and people are just innately curious about these fish. And, um, for the most part, everyone's very happy to be a part of it. So it requires a lot of coordination, but, um, it's great cause we get to tag fish of different populations, fish of different age and size classes and The goal for most of our work is to track these fish to their spawning grounds. And in the canaries, those fish are mostly going to spawn in the Mediterranean sea. In North Carolina, it's a very mixed batch. We get some that are going to spawn in the Mediterranean sea, some in the Gulf of Mexico. And then there's a spawning location that is, um, people are working really hard right now to understand better called the slope sea, which is off the coast, basically north of Hatteras all the way to the Scotian Shelf. It's like this weird kind of like shape off the continental shelf and bordered by the Gulf Stream. So we've discovered that there are some fish spawning there. So the goal is to track these spawning fish and figure out where they're going. And to understand like, oh, in Nova Scotia, maybe we have predominantly Gulf of Mexico fish, but maybe that's shifting year to year. So you wanna know which population the fish originates from to be able to better manage the stock. That's a hold. Katie (16:00.197) So, there are two, maybe three, maybe more populations of bluefin tuna in the Atlantic. One population is what you're dubbing the med population, and the other one is the gulf population. So, what you're saying is these fish consistently go back to their same spawning grounds once they're of maturity every year. Wow. Chloe (16:04.942) Correct, yeah. Right. Yes. Chloe (16:21.214) Mm-hmm. Yes, that's our understanding. And I mean, sure enough, we're going to get one day that goes to both and throws the whole thing out the window. But for right now, the understanding is, yes, that they're managed by ICAT as two populations, the Gulf and the Med for sake of simplicity. And they'll refer to that as the Western and the Eastern populations. So. Katie (16:30.289) I'm sorry. Chloe (16:47.134) Yeah, it gets, it gets complicated because then they're mixing in the middle of the ocean. But we do, I've been working on a lot of tagging data showing that they repeat, visit these spawning locations year to year, when we can have longer term tags on them. Katie (17:02.297) and you take little samples, are these populations genetically different? Chloe (17:07.551) So that is the question of my PhD. How did you know? So yeah, my PhD work is really aiming at specifically characterizing these populations from an ecological movement-based standpoint and also a genomic standpoint. So there have been a lot of different genetic markers used over the years to try to characterize and figure out how they're different. from smaller subsets of genetic markers across the genome. People can say, oh, this one's Gulf, this one's Med, this one is maybe something in between, not really sure. So I'm using the whole genome of the animal to try to really increase the amount of markers that we can use to differentiate them. So yeah, so when we go out and we tag the fish, I will usually get a small thin clip from them and... we try to get a fin clip and a muscle biopsy. And sometimes, you know, things are chaos on a boat and you miss them, which is too bad. But we try to do our best and get as many as possible. Yeah, exactly. So we get those and then I'll go and collect samples from fish that are landed also whenever I have the time. Katie (18:10.413) Because you have like a 600 pound fish on the deck. Katie (18:22.993) So, okay, for the listeners that might be like, wait, what is this? You're actually taking parts, parts of a living animal and putting it on the deck and that sounds horrible. You terrible person, Chloe. You're awful. Anyway, let's talk about the process and how, and how it's not at all terrible and what is, what, what type of measures you guys take to make sure that fish is as comfortable as possible. Chloe (18:26.958) Yeah. Right. Chloe (18:36.974) Yeah, the process. Chloe (18:47.722) Yeah. So part of it, you know, it all starts when you hook the fish. So we really try to use, always use circle hooks to maximize being hooked in the corner of the jaw. So that makes one thing easier. And then you also want the fight time to be as quick as possible. So we're not trying to be sporty about it. We're just trying to get these fish into the boat as quick as possible. When we get them into the boat, which is also a difficult process, we have to hook the fish basically in its lower jaw. and pull it up onto the boat with a rope and it usually takes several people depending on how big it is. And then once the fish is on the boat we have it in this blue mat that you'll see in a lot of our pictures. And someone like hand sewed that mat for us a long time ago and I don't like that's not something you can just go out and buy like someone made it specifically for our work and has handles on it so we can turn the fish. But that protects the... Katie (19:20.588) Mm-hmm. Katie (19:40.737) Sorry, I'm laughing because I remember when Robbie showed up in Gomera with this hand-sewn mat and I was like, it was massive. And those boys, man, they were packing them up on the flight for the flight back and I was like, what are y'all doing? It was making so much noise. Anyway, continue with your mat. I interrupted you. It's just a fond memory I have. But it, talk about a little bit before you go on about the purpose of that mat. Chloe (19:59.54) No, you're good. Yeah. Katie (20:07.429) and sliding that fish onto the deck and the slime of the fish. Chloe (20:08.614) Yeah, mm-hmm. Right, so that's important, as you just said, yeah, to protect the fish's slime. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff, like the deck of the boat is made to be grippy so that we are not slipping around on it. When, you know, you have a mate in the cockpit trying to wire a fish, like, you need to have your feet be grippy on the ground, so, but that is really damaging the fish's skin. So, hence our mat. And then we stick a hose in their mouth to irrigate their gills. So we're always checking like whatever boat we're tagging on, like I'm bugging the captain, like, Hey, is your hose a high enough pressure? Because we need a lot of water moving through this fish's gills. And then, um, because yeah, a fun fact about bluefin tuna and other, um, highland migratory fish is that they have to be moving forward to breathe underwater. So they use, as you're familiar with a process called ram ventilation, which is like the literally need water being pushed through their mouth. to irrigate their gills. So if you stop them, yeah. Yes. I think, yeah, some species of sharks. I'm not a shark expert, but I don't know. But yeah, bluefin and blue marlin for sure and other tuna species. So, and they're the ones, you know, they're moving fast essentially. So if you stop those fish, Katie (21:08.845) Same with billfish, sharks, correct? Mm-hmm. So if you stop them. Okay, yeah. Let's not go there. Go on. So if you stop at tuna... Chloe (21:33.95) it would be very hard for them to be breathing. So that's why we put the hose in their mouth. And then we put a cover over their eye just to protect their eye. I mean, they could be looking around and seeing what we're doing. They're honestly like too big to move around while we're doing anything for them. Like when you put this big fish on the deck, it's usually not big enough to actually like lift its tail up in like, you know, gravity is a much stronger force than they're facing in the ocean when they're moving. So they usually can't lift. their tail up that high to start doing like the tuna slap on the deck that you see like smaller ones do. Right. And then, yeah. Katie (22:09.073) the smaller ones yeah. I thought the I thought the towel over the eye was to keep them calm to keep it dark and kind of just Chloe (22:20.142) Maybe. Yeah, I mean, protect their eye, keep it. I mean, I don't really know if we didn't put the towel on their eye if they would be less calm. We could test it, but it's just something we always do. So maybe. Yeah. Katie (22:31.46) No. Yeah, of course. It's like a spa day for the comfort of the fish, my bad. Chloe (22:38.386) They're being abducted by these human scientists and probed and then sent back into the ocean. I would love to know what they think. And then while the fish is on the deck, we get a couple measurements. So we get their curved fork length, their girth, and then I take a fin clip, a muscle biopsy, we stick the tags in. We also put a spaghetti tag in the fish that has a phone number to call. Katie (22:40.578) Ha! Chloe (23:05.418) So those, I mean, a lot of people in tournaments are just for fun, we'll go out and spaghetti tag fish. And that'll be really valuable information for a point A to point B. So we have that as an identifier on there. Usually one sort of electronic tag. Sometimes fish get two tags. Um, and then we turn them around and set them back. And because we're tagging them with electronic tags, we actually know what happens to the fish. So if the fish were to die, which for the most part does not happen. I mean, it's very rare. I'm not gonna say it never does. Every once in a while, unfortunately, one dies, but we know and we report that right away. So that's part of the research. Like if a fish weren't to make it, which rarely happens, the tag actually pops off of the animal. So there's a sensor on there that basically, if it sinks to the bottom and it doesn't move for three days, then the tag pops off. Katie (23:40.741) science. Chloe (24:04.47) But the great thing is that doesn't usually happen. So we know that the fish, yeah. Right. Katie (24:07.033) That's crazy. So you don't have to wait the 360 days of the tag life. It's just, it lets you know immediately. Chloe (24:16.498) Yeah, we're usually just like, I mean, just for the, you know, we always like hold our breath for a couple of days. And we're like, if we haven't heard from it, then it's good. The fish is moving. It's somewhere. Like, you know, I was, I tagged my first blue marlin last year and I was just like hoping, hoping I was like, this is my first one. Like, I hope it's going to be okay. And, um, you know, also that I placed the tag correctly and it doesn't pop off of the animal and then if you don't hear from it, exactly. Yeah. These. Katie (24:41.349) That's an expensive mistake. Chloe (24:45.398) The satellite tags are like four or $5,000 a piece. So it's nerve wracking. Yeah, you wanna make sure that it goes well. Right, and then for that part, we're also taking as good of care of the fish as possible. Like if a fish comes up on the boat and it's like a seam or comes up to the boat, usually we don't bring it on the boat if it looks stressed. You know, like if the color is off, if it doesn't look good, if we ever accidentally get a tail wrapped fish, God forbid that, like we cut it loose, let it go, try to swim it to get it moving again. Katie (24:51.157) It's super, it's a lot of pressure. Chloe (25:15.398) and we're not going to put a fish that isn't in great condition through the stress of tagging. Katie (25:20.729) Yes, so for the listener, Chloe just mentioned if we ever get a tail wrap fish. We were talking earlier about how tuna and a lot of pelagic species need to be moving forward to breathe. So if you get your fishing line wrapped around the tail of the fish, you're going to end up pulling it from the back, backwards and then pushing water through the gills in the wrong direction. So that's how they asphyxiate. But there are ways as an angler and a captain to help mitigate these issues and make sure that they don't happen. Chloe (25:23.31) Mm-hmm. Chloe (25:29.803) Mm. Chloe (25:38.572) Right. Chloe (25:42.754) Mm-hmm. Katie (25:50.663) if they do happen to address it early and make sure that fish lives through the process. Now we'll get into that another time but I just wanted to touch base on why tail wrapping is such a bad thing. Now Chloe what I find fascinating is that these bluefin tuna and other tuna are so stout they're so sturdy and they can take that type of Chloe (25:59.49) Mm-hmm. Chloe (26:04.15) Yeah, thank you. Mm-hmm. Chloe (26:16.322) Mm-hmm. Right. Katie (26:20.661) I don't want to say harassment, but that type of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Yes, yes, and, and then live on it happily. I mean, like you, like you said, the science shows, the data shows. Now, I said we weren't going to talk about blue marlin, but Bill Fish, you don't take them out of the water to tag them, do you? Chloe (26:24.241) Stressed, yeah. Chloe (26:31.155) Yeah. Chloe (26:38.505) Yeah. No. So billfish are considerably more fragile than bluefin tuna. And like the smaller billfish, like spearfish and sailfish are very, very fragile for whatever reason. Those fish, like, you know, in the States and I can't remember if other countries, but in the States, it's illegal to pick one up out of the water unless you're going to harvest it. So those fish, you want to Chloe (27:11.074) For pictures sake, you know, the GoPro stick was invented and people have found a way to like get a great picture shot of a sailfish next to the boat without having to bring it out of the water. Yeah. Exactly. They die, right? Katie (27:21.209) So much prettier than when they take them out of the water. They get all dark, they're ugly, and then most of the time they die. But in the water, they're properly aerated, they've got all their beautiful colors. So definitely encourage the listener, if you guys go bill fishing, to keep your fish in the water and take a picture that way. But Chloe, how do we know that they don't survive and why has it become legally mandated to keep these fish in the water? Chloe (27:31.566) Right. Chloe (27:44.158) Mm-hmm. So there have actually been a ton of scientific studies evaluating catch and release mortality. So that's basically the percentage of fish that are caught angled a certain way and released. So there's a huge body of literature and a lot of scientists that work on that question and so many different species. And you can get very, very specific with it. You can have a certain, like there are different, basically more catch and release mortality estimates for. every single different species and every different way of capture. So you'll have someone evaluating light tackle catch and release mortality on, um, blue marlin or bluefin tuna or the same, you know, the same for any other species. And you're really trying to estimate like, okay, what can we do to minimize, um, mortality for these fish? And a lot of times it's, um, quicker fight times, limiting air exposure, limiting handling, um, It's things that all like kind of make sense when you spend a lot of time out on the water and you see how these fish react. But you know, it's like when I first started trout fishing, I was like, wow, trout are super fragile. Like you know, you fight those fish too long and they like can't even swim again. So ocean fish in general are more are a lot tougher. But yeah, we don't bring I think that some of the earlier studies with blue marlin, maybe they think. Katie (28:55.513) Yeah. Chloe (29:10.73) At some point people probably were bringing them on the boat and then they were seeing from the tags that they just don't survive. Or if you don't swim the fish when you're releasing it. We found from a lot of tagging work that if a fish is really tired after tagging it, you really need to take the time to swim it and release it. That practice thankfully is caught on widely in the whole bill fishing community and I see people having those videos. Because everyone wants that video of showing that your fish swam away. Katie (29:33.474) Yes. Katie (29:39.633) The healthy release. Yes, we're not out there because, exactly, we're not out there because we don't like them. So no, they're incredible. We always swim, especially our big fish, we always swim our big fish. And you can tell, like I mentioned earlier, the coloring of the fish helps show how healthy and the lack of color shows the level of stress. So how do you tag your marlin? Chloe (29:39.766) We all care so much about these fish. Yeah, we don't want them to die. Ha ha. Right. Mm-hmm. Chloe (29:57.249) Right. Chloe (30:02.123) Mm-hmm. Chloe (30:06.006) So yes, the marlin, it's a huge coordinated effort between captain, mate, or mate's plural sometimes, and whoever's tagging the fish. So usually, it depends on whether you're tournament fishing or what, but usually the captain will try to back down on the fish quickly to minimize the fight time. And then as long as the fish isn't too green, like you want it to be somewhat under control also. So it's a really fine balance. Like. Katie (30:33.029) Green is not a color, it's a behavior. Chloe (30:35.47) Green is a behavior, yes. Thank you. So you'll have a fish, you know, you can't safely tag a fish that is still jumping and tail dancing across the water. You need it to be somewhat under control, but not too tired that it's like having a hard time moving. So it's this really fine balance. And then, you know, it requires the mate to get it close to the boat. And then we like to place the tag right under the dorsal fin. And I think I sent you some pictures that we can show listeners later, but that is like the spot where you want to tag the fish to help like it's above their lateral line, which is a really cool sensory organ that we can talk about later. Um, but you want it to be like deep into the muscle. Um, but then like it's, you really have to avoid like damaging any specific organs. So it's like kind of in the shoulder of the fish, I guess. Um, and then it's in the spot that. Katie (31:06.149) Definitely. Chloe (31:32.562) really minimizes any sort of drag also. So we don't want this tag, you know, and we also don't tag small marlin. We only tag ones that are big enough so that the tag actually isn't interfering with their, or minimally interfering with their day-to-day activities, swimming life. So it can be hard because like you'll get a fish next to the boat, a marlin, and the mate's holding on as hard as he can trying to get it in the right position and the fish is just like rolling over like belly up. Katie (31:50.26) I love it. Chloe (32:02.326) You're like, well, I need you to be sideways so you can get the tag in on the side. Right. So it can be very tricky to keep the fish in the right position. Yeah. And then we have a long tagging pole that AFCO makes that we, uh, is super easy and lightweight and you can just stab the tag into its back and let it go on its way. Yeah. Katie (32:02.335) Yeah. Katie (32:05.785) Give me your dorsal! Katie (32:12.601) That's... yeah. Katie (32:25.765) Let it go on its way. Awesome. Switching gears back to Bluefin. Let's talk, and it's the same thing with these blue marlin tags too, but I really wanna focus on these tuna of yours. What all do the satellite tags, what type of information do they gather, and how does that information get brought into the day by day of the fish? Like telling us about the day by day of the fish. Chloe (32:31.062) Yeah. Chloe (32:34.998) Mm-hmm. Chloe (32:49.694) Yeah. So the satellite tags, I wish I had one to show you, but it's basically this. Yeah. So the satellite tag is this waterproof pressure proof package that contains a computer chip inside a battery, all of these different sensors. So start from like the top of the tag. It has a light stock that is measuring the light levels. Katie (32:56.249) We'll show it on while you're talk. Chloe (33:16.734) And from that, we can actually mathematically geolocate where the fish is. So we know when the sun rises and we know when the sun sets and we use different mathematical algorithms based off of that to position the fish. So that data all gets stored inside the tag. Then we also have an external temperature sensor that's sensing the environment around the fish, the water that it's in. So when it's diving deep or on the surface or travel anywhere, you can get the temperature of where the fish is. And then there's a pressure sensor, which you can calculate depth from. So as you go down, pressure increases and we can determine basically to the exact meter. Science uses all metric, which makes things complicated going back and forth, but we can figure out exactly the depth of fish is swimming at. And then, so that's a satellite tag. There are also, I can talk more about later, archival tags that we surgically implant in their bellies. And the only difference between those is, The archival tags also have an internal temperature sensor, but then they also stay with the fish for life. So the satellite tag is this package that detaches from the fish after a pre-programmed time. So in its computer sensor, and depending on what sort of experiments we're doing, we'll set that time differently. So you can set it to pop off after a couple of days, after a week, after two weeks, you can set the exact number of days, but usually we set them to a year, or as long as we can. So the battery life on those lasts about a year. We'll pop the tag off and then it actually starts transmitting its data up to the satellite. And it just starts like dumping the data up to the satellite as fast as it can before it dies. What's great is that if we get the tag back, we get the entire record. So when the tag is uploading all the data to the satellite, it's not able to get like everything at the sampling rate that it's taking. So. It might be recording a data point every 10 seconds, but that's too much data to send up to the satellite. So it'll send like a shorter summary. Like maybe you have something like every minute or every couple of minutes, a position, a depth, a temperature. Um, so it just depends on the resolution of the data. I can keep going. Yeah. There's a lot to it. It's. Katie (35:33.669) That's amazing. So yeah, no, wait, I'm like, I'm kind of blown away about the fact that it records a data set every 10 seconds for a year. Like... Chloe (35:42.658) Mm-hmm. Katie (35:43.885) That's a lot of data, but then this concept of, you know, wherever the bluefin tuna is 360, 65 days later is where the tag's gonna pop up. So then you have this little tag that's gotta be like what, six inches long, maybe eight, that's floating around in the ocean and it's like, good luck scientists, come and find me before I die. Chloe (35:46.27) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chloe (36:00.991) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. And usually, right, usually they don't pop off anywhere convenient. Like, they're not going to pop off like right in your backyard. I mean, one did once, which is great. But, um... Katie (36:13.515) I'm sorry. Katie (36:18.563) That's awesome. Chloe (36:21.986) Blue Marlin that I tagged last year just popped up right off the coast of Belize, which was super exciting. So Robbie, who you know, flew down to Belize to try to go get it, and he went on this tag recovery mission. And as soon as he got out on the water, the tag died, and he could not find it. And it's just this tiny tag floating in the middle of the ocean. And I mean, with ocean currents and weather patterns, yeah. So he never found that one, unfortunately. Katie (36:28.645) That's awesome. Mm-hmm. Katie (36:46.969) You do what you can. Chloe (36:51.882) Maybe it'll wash up on a beach. That'd be great. Katie (36:51.911) Have you gone on...yeah right. Have you gone on tag recovery missions? Chloe (36:58.562) Yes, they are difficult. So you're looking for this little black tag that's barely floating in the ocean. So it's hard because you have so much. It's a mini computer that you've then, you know, made waterproof, made pressure-proof, and made like able to fit on a fish. And then you also need it to float. So it barely floats. Like it's just barely sticking out of the ocean, sometimes bobbing up and down. and it has this little antenna that's kind of swaying back and forth, but it's black. And anyone who's been out in the ocean, like if you drop something black, it floats. Like it's not bright, but that's because we don't want other fish to be picking at it. So if it was a bright color, it's just kind of this fish swimming around and it might get bitten off by another animal. So that's why we make them dark. But we use this device, it's called a goniometer. And yeah, I know. Katie (37:39.002) Right. Chloe (37:55.138) Don't ask me how it works. It's like an omnidirectional stick that you put the code in of the tag and it tells you like it's like a game of hot and cold. Like you're getting warmer, you're getting further away. And once like I, the first tag recovery mission that I did by myself, I went with my friend Katie (37:55.341) I'm in. I'm into it. Chloe (38:23.178) And he was like, oh, we use that in the Marines to like locate stuff. It's like, great. Like, so maybe you can help me. Um, so we go off, yeah, looking for this tag, playing this game of hot and cold. You know, sun's going down, weather. Like we had like a very quick weather window and we literally, I have a picture of the tag in the ocean with the sun, like halfway set in the background. And it's like, we barely, barely got it. Yeah. Katie (38:30.521) Super. Katie (38:49.822) Oh my gosh. You got it. That's awesome. Is that the only one you've been on? Chloe (38:57.016) So I have helped get some in Nova Scotia also. Those are actually a lot easier because the fish usually returns to the Gulf of St. Lawrence every year. So we know that it's gonna pop off there. And then it's a big bay. You know, like there isn't the Gulf Stream to whisk a tag off. Like if you don't get a tag in North Carolina within a couple of days of it popping off, it's in the Gulf Stream and it's like on its way to Spain. Katie (39:15.741) Right? Katie (39:22.307) It's gone. Chloe (39:23.658) Yeah. And it's dying, yeah. Yeah. You still get a great amount. So you can tell basically the entire track of where the fish went. And then you get a pretty good summary of, you can get like a good average of the depths and temperatures that the fish likes to be in. So for marlin, we know that they really like to be, they're more surface oriented, they like to be warmer. Katie (39:26.199) And it's dying. But you still get, you still get, okay, so how much, if you don't recover the tag, how much data do you get back? Okay. Chloe (39:54.178) The bluefin tuna can go a lot colder. The bluefin can go, it's, it has like, it can withstand probably the coldest temperatures of just about any highly migratory species. They're amazing fish. And then we have them going down to the lowest temperature is zero Celsius, which is like freezing basically. So yeah, they're cold. They're warm fish, which is, so they are... one of the only endothermic fishes. And of, you know, yes. So, I mean, we call it regionally endothermic, but they are warming their core up. So it's this really cool process where, you've probably seen when you like cut open a filet of fish that there's red muscle and white muscle. And in like, I'm trying to think of another good example, in just like a normal fish. Katie (40:26.661) fully endo. Chloe (40:51.83) The red muscle is on the outside, but in the bluefin tuna, they've basically like evolutionary evolved to internalize their red muscle. So that, so when they're swimming, they're heating themselves up. And then because it's internal, they're able to like insulate their body, retain that heat. And then through a series of their like countercurrent heat exchangers, which is like this very fine capillary network within their body. They're able to retain the heat. inside. So it's this very, yeah. Katie (41:22.661) So is that why tuna meets red? Chloe (41:26.87) Um, the meat is really red because it's really concentrated with, um, myoglobin or, yeah. No, I was like, wait, is that correct? So, um, they, they have a lot of, you know, because they're, it's a highly efficient fish, they have a ton of mitochondria and their muscles just like packed full of those and all the oxygen transport. Yeah. It's physiologically they're like. Katie (41:33.425) Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt you. You were on a roll and I was just, I was kind of blown away. Sounded really good to me. Chloe (41:56.29) They're a very, very fascinating animal. And that's why my advisor, Barb Block, has really fallen in love with them. Like her, by training, she's a physiologist. So these animals are like one of like the world's physiological wonders, basically, that they've been able to evolve this system that's more mammalian-like. Like we are endothermic. We, you know, can adjust to different temperatures, but fish and reptiles are not. They just kind of, for the most part, they just go along with whatever temperature it is. And... That's why you get iguanas falling out of trees in Florida when it gets too cold, because they just can't withstand that. Katie (42:34.541) Um, what about like yellowfin and blackfin and big eyes? Are they all endothermic as well? Chloe (42:35.146) Mm-hmm. Chloe (42:41.366) They are, but the bluefin has basically the greatest capacity for endothermy. So they also have similar systems. They're just not basically as strong and developed and evolved as the bluefin. Katie (42:53.557) And you were saying earlier, back when you were talking about the populations, you got your Eastern and your Western population and how they're all congregating, seemingly, off the coast of the Midwest of the U.S. And, sorry, Mideast. Mideast of the U.S. Northwest, thank you. Eastern land. Chloe (42:56.722) Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. Chloe (43:08.658) Mid- yeah. Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Eastern- yeah, it's- I always get it mixed up. Depends on whether you're talking about the continent or the ocean. Yeah. Northwest Atlantic Ocean is what we usually say. Yeah. Katie (43:20.247) Right. Thank you. So. Thank you. Okay, so how they're all congregating in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. And what just kind of blows my mind here, and that I really want to emphasize is the fact that these fish are crossing the ocean. And that's not a that's not common. Like even for blue marlin, like it's not common for them, as far as we know, to be crossing the ocean basin. So what does that mean? And how do they? Chloe (43:39.171) Yeah. Right. No. Mm-hmm. Chloe (43:48.351) Right. Katie (43:51.117) Like, do they feed in the middle of the Atlantic? Are there feeding points there? Like, what do we know based on your tagging research that these fish are doing to cross the ocean, and why is that so exceptional? Chloe (43:53.495) Mm-hmm. Chloe (43:58.699) Yeah. Chloe (44:03.522) So yeah, first of all, it's just a very far distance. So yeah, being able to make that migration and of itself is just incredible. We definitely know that there are foraging hotspots just about everywhere. We recently, I don't want to say discovered this spot. I mean, it's this oceanographic condition that we spot that we always, people always knew was there, but we didn't really understand why the fish were there. There's a spot like kind of in the middle. of the Atlantic Ocean. And there's this eddy called the man eddy that one of my colleagues just published a paper on explaining how the fish are basically drawn to this eddy and that they're feeding on congregations of baitfish. We don't know what the fish are that are there. I'm sure someone knows, but there's like this big feeding aggregation for bluefin tuna that they all love to go to. And it's just this spectacular thing. before I just kind of looked at the track and they're like, oh, it's just passing through, this must just be somewhere. But we actually see fish year after year returning to that location. So they know that there's some really high quality forage there and then, you know, so there are spots where they can feed as they cross the ocean. But sometimes you'll see tracks where it's just going very quickly and not spending a lot of time diving or, you know, just spending a couple of days passing through a very long distance. So we can get a really good idea whether or not a fish is actually utilizing, like performing feeding behavior and diving or just swimming. Katie (45:40.165) So what are the, like, that's really interesting to me because when you're looking at this data that you're getting from your satellite tag at the end of the year, how do you know what identifiers are there that's showing you that fish fed in that location and what identifiers are showing you that it was just passing through? Chloe (45:49.292) Mm-hmm. Chloe (45:56.45) Mm-hmm. So one really cool thing, well, okay, yeah, with the satellite tag, it's usually diving behavior. So we really think that the fish is only diving if it's going to feed or if it's trying to avoid predator, or sometimes they're diving to avoid surface currents. But that we really would have a very hard time understanding. But for the most part, they're only diving to feed or to avoid a predator. So yeah, that would be the way. A cool thing about the archival tags. is with the internal temperature, you can actually get, you can actually know exactly when they're feeding because when we eat, our body actually warms up. It's called this heat increment of feeding. So when you're ingesting, taking in these calories, that's energy and your body as it's processing that is heating up. So we can actually, there have been some papers showing this with mostly smaller bluefin tuna. You can tell when they like take a bite. their internal body actually cools down at first because they're getting cold water from the outside or maybe a cold sardine or something. And then it starts heating up as the fish is digesting that meal. And there's this curve of digestion and then it goes back down to baseline. So yeah, you can get this whole study of metabolism in the way that a lot of like human physiologists can also do in a wild bluefin tuna, which is just spectacular. Katie (47:25.157) Spectacular. That is fascinating. And with these with these archival tags, not only do you have to catch the fish again to get it back, but you have to like harvest the fish to get it back. What how many do you all set? How many archival tags do you all set out launching a year? And how many have you gotten back in your career? Chloe (47:26.782) Yeah. Right. Chloe (47:45.602) Yeah, so, oh man, it's, well, I think it's actually worth standing beyond my career. So since I've been putting out archival tags, I haven't gotten a single one back. Um, it takes a long time. So, yeah, not yet. Um, so I'm actually working on tagging data from an archival tag that was placed in a fish in North Carolina in 2012. And it is like the most remarkable. Um. Katie (47:58.411) Yet. Chloe (48:15.358) study of animal migration. And we've tracked the fish for six years and the battery life on the tag lasted for six years and it was caught in, um, like a pen in the Mediterranean sea and then harvested. So we were actually able to get the tag back. But, um. Katie (48:20.529) That's amazing. Katie (48:29.413) That's the Almadrabah, right? The Almadrabah fishery in the Med? Do you know about that? Chloe (48:34.274) Yeah, I'm not... a little bit. There's... yeah, I've never seen all of it. Katie (48:37.153) It's just like a big cultural thing in Italy and Spain. It's old, it's ancient practice of harvesting these fish in pens, but it's pretty spectacular. Yes, but sorry, continue. So that fish was harvested in the Med. Chloe (48:44.055) Mm-hmm. And then Matanza, yeah. Chloe (48:51.594) Yeah. Yes. And so over time, it's really a product of like how many fish, how many we get back or how many tags we put out and then how many fish are caught. So if quotas are really low, we actually won't get that many tags back. If quotas are really high and we put out a lot of tags, then over time, so like starting in the late nineties, and if you give it a lag of about 20 years, we'll get close to about like between like 30 to 50 percent of those tags back, which is a huge return rate. Yeah. Like in fisheries literature, like I think a tag return rate of over three percent is considered to be like great. Yeah. So a lot of these fish are getting, yeah, and a lot of them end up getting caught in the Mediterranean Sea, and but this also requires Katie (49:30.501) That's... Yeah, that's a lot. Katie (49:41.881) success. Yeah, that, I mean, that's wild. Chloe (49:51.734) partnerships with the harvesters there so that they know like if there's this weird thing in the belly of the fish like they need to be aware that is something that they need to look out for and that they need to return to us. So it requires again this international collaboration and cooperation and people being supportive of the research also because you know people are like all these darn scientists you know I'm just going to crush this tag and throw it overboard then all the effort is done for nothing you know. Katie (50:14.698) Ha ha. Chloe (50:20.442) have to maintain those good relationships. Katie (50:22.965) And you touched on that earlier about how most people are really excited to have you guys on board and are just genuinely curious about the science and the studies. Have you worked with a lot of commercial fishermen and a lot of recreational fishermen? I want to hear a little bit about your stories with that. Chloe (50:29.441) Yeah. Chloe (50:32.66) Mm-hmm. Chloe (50:40.254) Yeah, so I mean, my best friend from back home, Natalia, who we both know, she, yeah, she is this badass commercial fisherman, fisherwoman. Um, and I learned so much from her about bluefin tuna and just fishing in general. So having that relationship. Yeah. I mean, I, that was, I learned more about bluefin than I feel like most scientists get to, because I was on the water fishing for them. Katie (50:45.361) She's incredible. Katie (50:56.185) God, that's so cool. Chloe (51:07.57) learning firsthand from the people that know the most about them. Because if you're out in the water catching these fish every day, like, maybe you're not a trained scientist, but your observations are all scientific. Like, you know, the great currents, the right tides, the right temperatures, you know, the seasonal migrations of them, when they go, where are they going to be and when. So, you know, exactly right. What they're eating, how to present the bait properly. Like fishing is so scientific in nature. So. Katie (51:27.341) what they're eating, what to look for, and all the conditions. Chloe (51:36.938) I mean, that's why I feel like I was so drawn to it. Cause I was like, wow, this is like, this is scientific. This is really cool. So for the most part, like fishermen know best where the fish are, what's going on in the fishery. Like if they're the ones that you need to go to, I mean, they know best. So I've been really lucky to have these good relationships and you know, the fishing world is so small. So. you know, you make one good connection and then, you know, you can go just about anywhere in the world and there's someone who knows someone who knows someone who can connect to you and that goes a long way. Um, and it's right. Exactly. So, you know, every once in a while, of course you're going to meet someone who's grumpy and not excited about the tagging and the science. And that's probably cause they've been around for a really long time and they've seen how the fishery changes and Katie (52:16.257) and is so happy too. Chloe (52:34.198) You see a lot of things where it's like, oh, it's not like it used to be. Like the fishing was so good back then. But in the case of bluefin, I feel like a lot of people are seeing now how, you know, there were, there's been like the most strictly managed fish in the world. But your people are seeing in their lifetimes, the fish, the fishery rebounding and they're seeing, oh, wow, we're actually seeing more fish in our waters than we were like 10 years ago. Or maybe this year is bad, but. last year was really, really good. Or maybe that we see a lot of small fish that we know are going to be around and be bigger in the next couple of years. So it's cool. I feel like people have really been able to see like, you know, that fisheries being closed down and management being really strict isn't like, I mean, it's not, it's very contentious. It always is between commercial and recreational fisheries and being a fisheries manager would be a really, really hard Chloe (53:32.682) the effects of it and when it does go correctly, when the science, when it's incorporating all of the science, when it's incorporating, you know, the data that the fishermen are collecting, that's all like the catch, you know, that people are reporting that commercial fishermen are required to log their effort. Those things all go into the stock assessment models, make it more precise and that data helps to, you know, provide better management. And that's. what our science is trying to do. We're trying to provide the best possible data to managers so that they can adequately manage the fishery. Because I mean, we want there to be more of them. We want, you know, fisheries management is by nature economic also. So it's, you know, NOAA fisheries is housed in the department of commerce. So this is an economic resource, not just a really fascinating ecological and animal resource, like it's a wild population that's economically important. Katie (54:29.837) It's significantly both for the commercial sector, but also for all the communities that depend on them and for the tourism sector of those communities. So I really like that you just touched on a ton of different stakeholders in this conversation about the... Chloe (54:29.842) So if we wait, yeah. Yes. Chloe (54:37.433) Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chloe (54:44.854) Yeah. Katie (54:49.305) fishery and the commercial fishermen and the recreational fishermen and the science scientists and how this population has rebounded. And let's hear a little bit about the rebound of this population. Before I get into my closing statements, I just I want to ask you a million things, Chloe. So I think we're going to have to do another podcast episode. I know I don't know where the time goes. I know we're going to have to do it again. But but I want to hear just a brief bit about the rebound. Chloe (55:04.352) Mm-hmm. Chloe (55:08.43) Oh my gosh, it's already 1058! What? Oh my gosh. Well, yeah. Katie (55:19.882) and then we'll get into some closing statements. Chloe (55:23.278) Wow, that went so fast. So, oh gosh, I'm gonna get all the dates and decades wrong, but basically the bluefin fishery started crashing in the 70s and 90s, and then there was like, it was, there was a petition to list it as endangered on the CITES endangered species list, that didn't happen. But the population was... You know, we saw just like year after year from the stock assessments or not. We, I wasn't around the stock assessments were showing the population was decreasing each year and the amount of fish that were making it back to breed and spawn were decreasing those fish weren't producing anymore. So, um, they're really strict, um, management regulations for a long time. And I don't know specifically what those were, but the bluefin tuna, they don't reproduce until they're about 10 years old. So. Katie (56:18.829) so old. That's so old for fish. Chloe (56:20.234) The hard thing is, like, you have people who are very frustrated, who are like, I've been patient, like, I've been, you know, listening to these rules for so long and I'm not seeing any difference. I'm not like, of course you're not because the fish doesn't reproduce for until it's 10 and then that fish doesn't really recruit up into the fishery until it's about five or six years old. So. It takes a really long time to see the effects of management and also for management to know if what they're doing is actually effective. So it's a really tough balancing act. Yeah. Katie (56:53.965) It's a tough balancing act for everyone. I feel like for the communities that are depending on the fish, but also for the scientists to be standing by their decisions and the rule makers for to be standing by their decisions because like you said, ten years, that's so... In the world of fish, that is so old. And how old do these fish get? Generally. Chloe (57:00.26) Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chloe (57:10.507) I know. We estimate that they can get as old as 40. So I know. But probably most of them are caught or eaten by something else before they get to that age. So it's a fish eat fish world. Katie (57:16.933) WAAA Katie (57:26.029) Right. Fishy fish world. All right, Chloe, that was an incredible conversation. I could go on forever with you. It's amazing. I didn't even get into the Gulf of Mexico. So we'll have to do another one on that one. But I do have a couple questions for you closing up. For any listeners out there, like younger listeners that are interested in what you just spoke about, or, you know, understanding, even if it's from fish to... Chloe (57:34.038) Yeah, same. Yeah. Chloe (57:43.394) Sounds good. Katie (57:53.797) birds. I know that you're a big bird girl too. Studied ornithology, right? Chloe (57:55.731) Yeah. Chloe (57:59.858) Yeah, I did some work with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an undergrad and studied lots of different birds there. So it was cool. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Thank you. Katie (58:05.229) that you're seriously one of the coolest people I've ever met. So, do you have any words of advice for young listeners that are that are fascinated by this conversation and want to get into a field of science or you know what are some words of advice? Chloe (58:19.767) Mm-hmm. Chloe (58:25.93) Yeah, I think that the most important thing is to really like follow your passions and stay true to yourself. Like don't pretend to be someone else just to try to, you know, fit into a certain mold. Like really play to your strengths. Like I mean, everyone has strengths and weaknesses and we can always try to like, you know, bolster up our weaknesses, but just play to your strengths and just don't close the door to any opportunities. You know, like if you get a really incredible opportunity to partake in something. So like, even if you don't know if you're going to love it, just try it. Because the worst thing that happens is like, Oh, maybe you don't have a great time or you realize like, Oh, maybe like working on fishing boats and collecting this data, like maybe that's not for me. Um, so yeah, exactly. Um, and it's really just about like building your network, like professionally and personally. I mean, it's just, you want to be doing what Katie (59:09.785) But I did meet this one cool person. Chloe (59:24.082) you love doing. That's the most important thing, like getting through the like, especially doing a PhD. It's a long time. And it's difficult work. So you have to really, really love it. Yeah, I think that sums it up. Katie (59:37.197) I love that. That reminds me of, I think it's Mark Twain quote where he says, there's the two most important days in your life are when the day you're born and then the day you find out wh

To save her friends and herself from being eaten, a ghost crab enters a juggling contest with a devious and possibly unbeatable opponent. Genre: Fable Excerpt: Four unlikely friends were frolicking in the ocean one day. They were the Ghost Crab, the Blue Marlin, the Jellyfish, and the Nautilus. The crab and the marlin splashed about on the surface, and dove back down, while the jelly and the mollusk bobbed gently under the surface. Overhead, there passed the shadow of the Seagull, who watched the friends with great interest, a great interest born of a keen hunger. Here she saw a variety of sweet and juicy treats for her to feast on.   What's the Writing Prompt that inspired the story?Not a prompt, but a challenge to write a story that's between 2500 to 3500 words. Aim for as short as possible without going below (or too much below). I chose a genre, fable.  And at some point, I had the words “crab” and “juggling” written down. So…what was the crab juggling?   Faster FictioneerEver wonder how I've gotten all these hundreds of stories written?  I have a method.  If you've got 40 minutes, I can teach you an abbreviated version of that method, right here: FASTER FICTIONEER (If you want to learn even more, I've got info about my online course on that page too.)   I've Got Issues For YouThe Storyfeather Gazette is a monthly round-up of my recent podcast episodes, short stories, trailers, news, recommendations, and more that I send by email. Follow the link to look through old issues and to Sign Up: STORYFEATHER GAZETTE   Storyfeather-themed merchandiseT-shirts, mugs, stickers, notebooks, baby onesies, and more featuring artwork from stories and art challenges STORYFEATHER TEEPUBLIC STORE   CREDITSStory: “The Juggling Ghost Crab” Copyright © 2020 by Nila L. Patel Narration, Episode Art, Editing, and Production:  Nila L. Patel   Music: “Trip-Hop Lounge Abstract Background” by Digital Emotions (Intro/Outro)   Music by JONATHAN SHAW* “Afternoon Chat” “Midnight Creeping” “Cold Sanctuary” “Spinning Tavern” “Thoughts” “Encounter of Misdeeds” “Lingering Evil” “Showdown of Misdeeds” “Checking Inventory”   *These tracks were part of a music and sound effects bundles I purchased from Humble Bundle and sourced from GameDev Market.   Music by Jonathan Shaw licensed from GameDev Market Sound effects from AudioJungle and GameDevMarket Vocal effects made in Audacity Changes made to the musical tracks?  Just cropping to align with my narration.   Find more music by Digital_Emotions at audiojungle.netFind more music by Jonathan Shaw at jshaw.co.uk and at gamedevmarket.netFind more stories by Nila at storyfeather.com   Episode Art Description: Digital drawing. Standing on sand facing forward is a ghost crab with the left claw held up.  Above the crab from left to right are a pine cone, a wedge of watermelon, and a saucer and cup of tea with tea spilling out over one edge. A bright and speckled circle of energy arcs over the objects and below the crab. Water of “Storyfeather” at bottom right. Border at top and bottom to make the image square displays a starfish pattern in colors that match the drawing.

Captain Tommy Norred has been a pillar in the Destin fishing community for over 50 years, doing everything from pier fishing and charter fishing to Captaining private boats and catching big Blue Marlin. Well known, and loved, for his story telling, practical jokes and big heart, he has definitely left his mark. Listen as we attempt to scratch the surface of those stories and delve into the history of Captain Tommy, Destin and more.

In Episode 31, our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, talks with Chris Donato. Chris is an Owner/Operator Charter Captain on his boat names "Benchmark" in Kona, Hawaii. Chris talks about his time fishing in the South Pacific in some amazing locations, big blue marlin, his Grander, and what drew him in to calling Kona home. Lots of great stories in this one as well as some great lure fishing tips and more.To reach out to Chris or to book him for a Blue Marlin Charter in Kona, Hawaii aboard the Benchmark, you can reach him via Instagram: @GranderMarlinWebsite: https://www.grandermarlin.com/If you would like our host, Ricky Wheeler, to help you sell your boat/yacht or help you with searching for and buying a boat/yacht, please email:RickyWheeler@UnitedYacht.comTo fish with our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, aboard his beautiful 60' Custom Sportfishing Boat, go to EuphoriaSportfishing.comFor online fishing courses, go to our website Courses.SaltwaterEuphoria.comCLICK HERE to see the Saltwater Euphoria Job BoardIf you are a Sportfishing Mate, Sportfishing Captain, or an aspiring mate or captain looking for an opportunity, please email us at info@saltwatereuphoria.com and we will get you on our SE Job Board. Send your up-to-date resume, a picture or two of yourself, and a short cover letter stating who you are and the type of work/sportfishing program you are looking to work with.  Saltwater Euphoria Podcast Sponsors:+Tackle Direct - https://www.tackledirect.com/ +Saltwater Euphoria - https://www.saltwatereuphoria.com/+Euphoria Sportfishing - https://www.euphoriasportfishing.com/You can follow the following on Instagram:CaptainRickyWheeler: @CaptainRickyWheelerSaltwater Euphoria: @SaltwaterEuphoriaEuphoria Sportfishing: @EuphoriaSportfishingIf you like this podcast please be sure to click that FOLLOW button and also spread the word by sharing this episode with your friends or whatever social channels you are on.  We appreciate your support.

Tune into this week's episode hosted by Austrian DJ and producer MEGABLAST. SASCHA WEISZ, aka Megablast, has been making musical waves for some time now with his unique, eclectic take on contemporary electronic music, a very personal, genre-crossing interpretation of house, afro, Latin, dub, trippy techno, and world beats. His range and ability to enchant the dance floors with percussionists and vocalists make him one of the most impressive and distinct artists in the industry. Since his early career in Vienna, where he gained international attention 2006 with the album “Kunuaka” by Makossa & Megablast on Kruder & Dorfmeister's G-Stone label and more recently from his new home base in the north of Ibiza, he has played at some of the most iconic events and venues all over the world, such as Scorpios Mykonos, Caprices Festival Crans-Montana, Ushuaia, Pablo Fierro's “We're Here” at Chinois (formerly Heart), Lio, Blue Marlin, Akasha, Cova Santa Ibiza, Soho Garden Dubai, Vagalume Tulum, Annabel's London amongst many others. With his releases on labels like Sol Selctas, Flying Circus, Madorasindahouse, International Deejay Gigolos, !K7 and his very own Luvlite Recordings as well as having his tracks remixed by influential producers like DJ Koze, Acid Pauli, Lucia- no, Booka Shade, Jenia Tarsol, Chaim, SadoV (Red Axes), Stereo MCs and Henrik Schwarz, he clearly demonstrates his musical repertoire and unlimited love for different genres. “As an artist and music producer, it's important for me to keep the freedom from any genres and not let others put me in a specific category,” he says. “Be yourself, don't try to be someone else, and be okay with failing sometimes—these experiences make you who you are today. Focus on quality over quantity and don't believe the hype.” Enjoy this Eclectic Journey with MEGABLAST on Redolent! 01. Makossa & Megablast - Like A Rocket (2005) 02. Makossa & Megablast - Like A Rocket (2015 Edit) 
 03. Rebrn Koka - Phisica
 04. DJ Vibe & Fragoso - Don't Stop (Dub Mix) 05. Joseph Ashworth - Cobalt 
 06. DJ Chus, Dennis Cruz - The Sun [Stereo Productions]
 07. Benno Blome - Abotha (Mihai Popoviciu Remix) 
 08. Bondi - Turning Blind (Bondi Rework) 
 09. Samm (BE) - Does It Matter (Ajna (BE) Remix)
 10. Gome - Elevator Man (Mike Dunn BlackBall Remix Instrumental) 11. Makossa & Megablast - Cuerpo ft. Cleydys Villalon This show is syndicated & distributed exclusively by Syndicast. If you are a radio station interested in airing the show or would like to distribute your podcast / radio show please register here: https://syndicast.co.uk/distribution/registration

This week's Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report Thanksgiving Special features helpful tips for yellowfin tuna fishing from Venice, Louisiana, with guest Adam Peterson of Gulf of America Charters. Adam will provide all the advice and techniques necessary to get the most out of your dream tuna fishing trip.  The second segment features an inspiring tale of a young lady and her first Blue Marlin. Learn how she kept fighting even when the odds were against her and how it meant so much to her father. Finally, the show closes with an important safety lesson from the Sea Tow Foundation. Discover the importance of E-Flare Education and learn why it is life-saving knowledge for every angler. Check out this special Thanksgiving episode of the Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report for fishing tips, a heartwarming story, and safety education. It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts and if you'd like us to email you the podcast, just head over to greatdaysoutdoors.com/asfr and we'll send you the new show each week. {Full Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. There's no extra charge to our readers for using these.} Sponsors CCA Alabama Alabama Marine Resources Angelo Depaola EXP Realty "The Coastal Connection" Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo KillerDock Fishbites Gulf Coast Office - National Land Realty Hilton's Offshore Charts Pure Flats- The Slick Lure Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism Great Days Outdoors Foster Contracting - Fortified Roofing Mallard Bay Return Em Right AFTCO Mustad Fishing Texas Hunter Products Bucks Island Hiltons Realtime Navigator L&M Marine Dixie Supply and Baker Metal Works

The Northwest Florida Fishing report is your best resource for the Destin Fishing Report, Panama City Fishing Report, Pensacola Fishing Report, Navarre Fishing Report, and everywhere in between. For the anglers looking for a Destin Fishing Report, Ft. Walton Beach fishing report, Choctawhatchee Bay Fishing Report, or Miramar Beach fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in an Okaloosa Island fishing report and a Santa Rosa Beach fishing report and everywhere in between. For our guys looking for the Pensacola fishing report or the Navarre Fishing Report, we've got you covered. This week we're talking to Capt. Adam Peeples again for the offshore report targeting Bigeye Tuna and the bite is hot right now for this and other pelagics. Brandon Barton brings us a hybrid offshore / inshore report, from a kayak! Redfish and Blackfin tuna are the bright spots this week. The final report is a cool story of a young lady and her first Blue Marlin. You don't want to miss this story about a young girls fight with her first billfish and what it meant to her father. It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please Subscribe, Rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to text the word “fishing” to 647-558-9895 or click here to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Northwest Florida Email Subscribers receive an AFTCO FREE SUN PROTECTION MASK promo code for any purchase!   Sponsors Admiral Shellfish Alabama Marine Resources Angelo Depaola EXP Realty "The Coastal Connection" Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo Buck's Island Marine CCA Alabama Crocodile Bay Dixie Supply Fishbites Foster Contracting - Fortified Roofing Gulf Coast Office - National Land Realty Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism Great Days Outdoors Hayabusa USA Hilton's Offshore Charts KillerDock L&M Marine Mallard Bay Test Calibration Texas Hunter

Don and his many guests cover all sorts of topics ranging from the weather finally becoming fall as November arrives, whether or not a Black bear hunting season could be on the horizon, how 2024 could be known as the year of the low water levels, have you ever been up to the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennesse, an incredible record-setting catch off the coast of Alabama happened this past week, and if Jeff Landry could maybe get the ball rolling on the water access issue that people have been faced with.

This week news of records being broken in the hunting and fishing world, we share the latest details for the upcoming NFR when Las Vegas turns into Rodeo Vegas plus tips to host hassle-free. This is Rebecca Wanner aka 'BEC' and Jeff ‘Tigger' Erhardt with the radio show The Bend Radio Show & Podcast, your news outlet for the latest in the Outdoors & Western Lifestyle! Episode 156 Details If rifle deer hunting has started in your neck of the woods, it will be soon. Time to pull out your trusty deer rifle and dust off your cobwebs by sighting in both the firearm and sharpen your skills. If you already have taken some shots, dialed in that scope earlier when it was warm; remember it is very important to do so again in the temperature and humidity that you will be hunting. We want everyone prepared and ready to have a memorable successful hunt! NEWS BOWHUNTER TAGS WORLD RECORD VELVET BULL MOOSE After five years of buying raffle tickets for the North American Game Warden Museum's moose tag, Trace Armstrong of Rolette, North Dakota actually won the coveted grand prize tag! Now the hunt was on to find a trophy bull to fill this winning Moose tag. A trophy is an understatement for what Armstrong drew his bow for on August 31st, 2023. Armstrong released his arrow at 35 yards to take down a 1,700lb Canadian bull moose still in velvet that has been green scored by an official Pope & Young representative at 173 4/8 inches and with a net score of 16 6/8th inches. The bull will be scored again after October 31st, for the dried rack requirement and if stays close to the green score it is speculated to top the Pope & Young record book which would make it the new World Record Velvet Bull Moose! Head to TheBendShow.com to see this massive beautiful trophy bull! Congrats again to Trace Armstrong! MASSIVE BLUE MARLIN SMASHES GULF OF MEXICO RECORDS Dreaming about heading south to warmer waters and partaking in some deep-sea fishing? Recently, Texas angler Scooter Anderson did just that launching out of Alabama on a 55-foot Viding offshore boat. Anderson landed an officially weighed and measured 12-foot, 1,145-pound Blue Marlin that shames not just Alabama records but all Gulf of Mexico State Records!  NFR After-Party Announces Entertainment Lineup & New Location The most anticipated after party of the NFR, hosted annually by Rodeo Vegas, is ringing in its 20th Anniversary with Country Music Stars Justin Moore, Corey Kent, Chayce Beckham and more at its new home, Rodeo Vegas's new location will be part of Resorts World Las Vegas. Rodeo World Las Vegas will also be hosting the BFO, Bullfighters Only World Champsionships at Resorts World Las Vegas! HOSTING FAMILY & FRIENDS HASSLE FREE Take it from BEC, don't fret about volunteering to host that next gathering or if you are someone who's always wanted to do so. The stress is what we put on ourselves, and our guests are just happy to be invited! Here are BEC's tips for keeping it fun, cost-effective, and stress-free! Guest List: In this day in age, it is completely okay to create a Facebook Event and invite this way. It's highly recommended as almost everyone has at least one member in their household with a Facebook account. This then can be used for last-minute details, as well as used to build up the excitement for the date. Location: If your home is a disarray, that's okay! BEC uses her heated shop for fall gatherings. A bathroom is cleaned in the house near the door, but there are never any complaints about hanging out in a big open space like a shop or garage. FOOD: As the host, find one of your favorite recipes that can be made ahead of time that covers the “Main Dish”. BEC & Tigger always make Tigger's Ranchers Chili. It is a hit with everyone! Then say in your invite to bring a side to share! BEC leans towards main dishes that can be kept warm in a crockpot or roaster, ready to serve or be enjoyed at any time. DRINKS: Make it BYOB (Bring Your Own Beverage) and have a case of water or two on hand. This way there's no headache in making sure everyone is covered. Have a bag of ice handy for an ice bucket and you are good to go! SERVING FOOD: Cover all the counters or workbenches with inexpensive throwaway table coverings. Typically only a couple of dollars. Have paper plates, napkins, and plastic silverware for easy cleanup. ENJOY THE TIME spent with the ones you love! GIFT IDEAS Another beautiful piece written and read by Richelle Barrett the author, photographer and rancher from northern Montana, known as The Prairie Crocus. In time for the holidays, we recommend ordering her latest inspirational coffee table book “Anthology” filled with beautiful thoughts and photos of the rural way of life. Available now at Prairie-Crocus.com. Be sure to follow her on Facebook too @ThePrairieCrocus. WESTERN STYLE Looking for the latest in Western fashion and style? Medora Boot and Western Wear keep both Tigger & BEC in the boots they love, the jeans that fit, and the latest styles of shirts, jackets, and more. Check out MedoraBoot.com located in historic Medora, North Dakota in the Badlands. Online ordering and shipping are available in time for the holidays! FIELD REPORTS & COMMENTS Call or Text your questions, or comments to 305-900-BEND or 305-900-2363 Or email BendRadioShow@gmail.com FOLLOW Facebook/Instagram: @thebendshow https://www.facebook.com/thebendshow SUBSCRIBE to The Bend YouTube Channel. Website: TheBendShow.com https://thebendshow.com/ #catchBECifyoucan #tiggerandbec #outdoors #travel #cowboys The Outdoors, Rural America, And Wildlife Conservation are Center-Stage. AND how is that? Because Tigger & BEC… Live This Lifestyle. Learn more about Jeff ‘Tigger' Erhardt & Rebecca Wanner aka BEC here: TiggerandBEC.com Home - Tigger & BEC WESTERN LIFESTYLE & THE OUTDOORS Tigger & BEC are News Broadcasters that represent the Working Ranch world, Rodeo, and the Western Way of Life as well as advocate for the Outdoors and Wildlife Conservation. Outdoorsmen themselves, this duo strives to provide the hunter, adventurer, cowboy, cowgirl, rancher and/or successful farmer, and anyone interested in agriculture with the knowledge, education, and tools needed to bring high-quality beef and the wild game harvested to your table for dinner. They understand the importance in sharing meals with family, cooking the fruits of our labor and fish from our adventures, and learning to understand the importance of making memories in the outdoors. Appreciate God's Country. United together, this duo offers a glimpse into and speaks about what life truly is like at the end of dirt roads and off the beaten path. Tigger & BEC look forward to hearing from you, answering your questions and sharing in the journey of making your life a success story. Adventure Awaits Around The Bend. REFERENCES https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/north-dakota-velvet-archery-moose/ https://pope-young.org/ https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/alabama-blue-marlin-shatters-gulf-records/ https://www.rodeoworld.vegas/ https://www.rodeoworld.vegas/bullfighters-only-info https://www.bullfightersonly.com/ https://www.facebook.com/theprairiecrocus https://medoraboot.com/

In Episode 28, our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, talks with his good friend Matthew Milne. Matthew has spent the first decade of his adult life as a professional mate  fishing in some great locations throughout the world such as Cape Verdes, Madeira, Dominican Republic, Southern Caribbean, and also New Jersey with Ricky. These days he spends half of his time in Cape Verde Islands chasing Blue Marlin, and the other half of his year as home in Trinidad running tarpon charters on his 31' center console. Lots of blue marlin fishing excitement and experiences along with some tarpon talk as well. To fish with our guest, Matthew Milne, in Trinidad for tarpon or one of his other locations he is a mate at, contact Matthew via email matthewmilne94@gmail.comTo fish with our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, aboard his beautiful 60' Custom Sportfishing Boat, go to EuphoriaSportfishing.comIf you would like our host, Ricky Wheeler, to help you sell your boat/yacht or help you with searching for and buying a boat/yacht, please email:RickyWheeler@UnitedYacht.comFor online fishing courses, go to our website Courses.SaltwaterEuphoria.comCLICK HERE to see the Saltwater Euphoria Job BoardIf you are a Sportfishing Mate, Sportfishing Captain, or an aspiring mate or captain looking for an opportunity, please email us at info@saltwatereuphoria.com and we will get you on our SE Job Board. Send your up-to-date resume, a picture or two of yourself, and a short cover letter stating who you are and the type of work/sportfishing program you are looking to work with.  Saltwater Euphoria Podcast Sponsors:+Tackle Direct - click the link to go to the page with Ricky Wheeler's Tuna Essentials - tdhook.co/WHEELER+Strike Point Tackle - http://www.strikepointtackle.com/shopUse discount code RICKY10 at Checkout on Strike Point Tackle's Website for 10% off anything on their website.+Saltwater Euphoria - https://www.saltwatereuphoria.com/+Euphoria Sportfishing - https://www.euphoriasportfishing.com/You can follow the following on Instagram:CaptainRickyWheeler: @CaptainRickyWheelerSaltwater Euphoria: @SaltwaterEuphoriaEuphoria Sportfishing: @EuphoriaSportfishingMatthew Milne: @milfroyIf you like this podcast please be sure to click that FOLLOW button and also spread the word by sharing this episode with your friends or whatever social channels you are on.  We appreciate your support.

The Northwest Florida Fishing report is your best resource for the Destin Fishing Report, Panama City Fishing Report, Pensacola Fishing Report, Navarre Fishing Report, and everywhere in between. For the anglers looking for a Destin Fishing Report, Ft. Walton Beach fishing report, Choctawhatchee Bay Fishing Report, or Miramar Beach fishing report, look no further. Every week we bring you a report for those anglers interested in an Okaloosa Island fishing report and a Santa Rosa Beach fishing report and everywhere in between. For our guys looking for the Pensacola fishing report or the Navarre Fishing Report, we've got you covered. This week we're talking to Captian Blake Nelson for the inshore report targeting spanish mackerel, mangrove snapper, redfish, and speckled trout. We dive deep on fishing spoons for Redfish. Captain Adam Peeples brings us the offshore report and we talk about everything from Blue Marlin to swordfish to snapper with a special section devoted to sorting out the weather and if you should fish that day. The final report is a onshore report from Sean Lawless where we get into everything you'd want to do from the shore or kayak this week. It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please Subscribe, Rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to text the word “fishing” to 647-558-9895 or click here to be added to our email list and we'll send you the new show each week! All Northwest Florida Email Subscribers receive an AFTCO FREE SUN PROTECTION MASK promo code for any purchase!   Sponsors Admiral Shellfish Alabama Marine Resources Angelo Depaola EXP Realty "The Coastal Connection" Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo Buck's Island Marine CCA Alabama Crocodile Bay Dixie Supply Fishbites Foster Contracting - Fortified Roofing Gulf Coast Office - National Land Realty Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism Great Days Outdoors Hayabusa USA Hilton's Offshore Charts KillerDock L&M Marine Mallard Bay Test Calibration Texas Hunter

Matt and Gus are joined by Justin Hodge of J.Hodge productions. Justin is an avid outdoorsman and outdoor action photographer and videographer working for CBS, Outdoor Channel, Discover Channel and numerous photography contest winnings. Topics Discussed: How Justin got his start in photographer and eventually videography. The journey of making the leap into working for yourself and believing in what you're doing. Living a life emersed in the outdoors. Competition within the industry. Behind the scenes details about how live shows like The Sportfishing Championship are able to be shot live on CBS. A love for waterfowl hunting and photographing dogs. Community and comradery in the outdoor community. About Justin Hodge: Justin Hodge is the proud owner of J.Hodge Productions. He is an avid outdoorsman that loves telling stories through a lens. He first picked up a camera 8 years ago and has a strong desire to set the standard in the creative community with his work. He currently has 7 National covers for Saltwater Sportsman magazine as well as many other works in print in the hunting and fishing space. He has been a finalist in the Sitka Diverge Photo Contest and won the Grand Prize in the Gunner Kennels Photo contest with over 28,000 entries. He has worked on quite a few TV Productions; ranging from SeaHunter TV on the Outdoor Channel, Meat Mayhem Kingfish series airing on Discovery Channel, and The Sportfishing Championship; a Blue Marlin series that has aired live on CBS Sports the past two years. Justin's Facebook Justin's Instagram Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/whiskeyandwhitetails Instagram - @whiskeyandwhitetails Facebook - @whiskeyandwhitetails Twitter - @whskywhitetail Website & Store - www.whiskeyandwhitetails.com YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUX9-ft9bLcrNMUMREwj4Dw/featured MORE: We'd like to extend a special thank you to everyone who has supported us along this journey so far. We've done a lot in a short time and have so much more we're excited to do still. We must give a particularly BIG shoutout to our growing Patreon Community! If you enjoy our content, consider giving us a 5 star rating on your favorite podcast app, leave us a review, and tell a fellow whiskey or whitetail/hunting enthusiast about our show. We'd be beyond grateful for the support.  Make sure to stay up to date on everything we're doing through our Instagram and visit our website to check out our latest journal posts about hunting, whiskey and cigars and our shop for our latest barrel made products. Last but not lease, please consider joining our Patreon community where you'll get exclusive access to Patreon only content, early access to other content, prizes, giveaways, a voice in what content we create, live streams, expand our ability to bring you EVEN MORE awesome content as well as a community of awesome whiskey and outdoor enthusiasts. This podcast is a part of the Waypoint TV Podcast Network. Waypoint is the ultimate outdoor network featuring streaming of full-length fishing and hunting television shows, short films and instructional content, a social media network, and Podcast Network. Follow Waypoint on Instagram at the following accounts @waypointtv @waypointpodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Jordan Cooper shares his incredible journey, from the dental chair to the boardroom, offering invaluable insights on merging professional excellence with personal passions as the bestselling author of "Chasing the Blue Marlin: How to Pursue Your Life's Passion – and Your Passion for Life." Also, gain insights into optimizing your dental practice team, regardless of clinical setting or location, with expert advice from Lisa Shebaro, Director of Business Development at Pacific Companies.

Catching blue marlin off the coast of South Florida is a lost sport. Years ago the marlin fishery here in south Florida was nothing less than spectacular. Today it is a resource that is untapped as the sport fishermen have lowered the bar to a level where most do not even think of catching one of these magnificent creatures. Our friend TJ Ralph did just the opposite and got rewarded justly catching his first blue marlin with the ones he loves. Captain Norm could hardly keep his poise as his heart grew with pride and hope for the modern day fisherman . I hope you enjoy this episode of the Reel Guy Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Episode 23, our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler talks to Vinny Delgado who has spent a lot of the past decade-plus chasing billfish, especially blue marlin, in some awesome fishing destinations as a mate. Vinny has recently made the move up the ladder on a 64' Viking and has been racking up some blue marlin releases in the Bahamas over the past few months. Lots of travel and tackle talk and tips in this one.To fish with our host, Captain Ricky Wheeler, aboard his beautiful 60' Custom Sportfishing Boat, go to EuphoriaSportfishing.comFor online fishing courses, go to our website Courses.SaltwaterEuphoria.comSaltwater Euphoria Podcast Sponsors:+Tackle Direct - click the link to go to the page with Ricky Wheeler's Tuna Essentials - tdhook.co/WHEELER+Strike Point Tackle - http://www.strikepointtackle.com/shopUse discount code RICKY10 at Checkout on Strike Point Tackle's Website for 10% off anything on their website.+Saltwater Euphoria - https://www.saltwatereuphoria.com/+Euphoria Sportfishing - https://www.euphoriasportfishing.com/You can follow the following on Instagram:CaptainRickyWheeler: @CaptainRickyWheelerSaltwater Euphoria: @SaltwaterEuphoriaEuphoria Sportfishing: @EuphoriaSportfishingVinny Delgado: @vinny_d_jrIf you like this podcast please be sure to click that FOLLOW button and also spread the word by sharing this episode with your friends or whatever social channels you are on.  We appreciate your support.

Blue Marlin off South Florida is a forgotten fishery Captain Norm and the Lunkerdog go over the process and strategy this week on the Reel Guy Podcast. Its hotter than a snakes ass so happy el Nino ! Reel Guys Do Blue Marlin is the 230 th episode and the kick off to season five I hope you enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harley Van Hyning, also known as Gnarly Harley, is a local Gyotaku artist out of Destin, FL. He creates original works of art from everything from small shrimp and flying fish to giant Bluefin Tuna and Blue Marlin and countless species in between. Each piece is unique and tells its own story. Listen as we talk about Harley's background, the art of gyotaku, some of the stories that accompany his works and more. 

Captain Greg McCoy piloting the Sensation experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows during Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament this weekend. McCoy and crew landed a 619.4 pound blue marlin during the Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament Saturday after a six hour battle that lasted into the night. Upon arrival at the dock a crowd cheered as the largest blue marlin of the tournament was hoisted onto the scales. The glory was short lived as it was made clear that the weight was under review due to a possible "Rule 23 violation." In the end, the crew ended up losing over $3 million dollars because the blue marlin had been bitten by a shark and may have been dead before it was landed. If you're wondering why was the fisherman disqualified from the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, we go into depth in this podcast. The Big Rock tournament is always exciting, and sometimes filled with fishing drama, and this year was no different. CLICK HERE to visit my website www.dietermelhornfishing.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dieter-melhorn/support

South African THEMBA burst onto the global scene in 2018. This summer THEMBA is resident DJ at Black Coffee's party at Hi, has shows at Ushuaia, Amnesia, Blue Marlin & Heart, while also touring in over 20 other countries. Early 2019 saw THEMBA at Brixton 02 Academy, Luciano & Friends Tulum, Paris Fashion week and at Miami Music Week for Black Coffee and All Gone Pete Tong, where Themba's set was used as Pete Tong's BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix. THEMBA's sound forged from his African roots creates his unique take on electronic music. 2018 he released 'Paliva EP' & 'Haai EP' on Knee Deep In Sound, 'Vuma / Lost' on Yoshitoshi & 'Who Is Themba?' on his Herd label, which remained in the Beatport chart for a year. Enjoy x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skip Smith this week on the Reel Guy Podcast. We start from the beginning, A Dock at Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale Florida. How the "Madam" mothership idea came about , 49 World Records ! Skip has a few words about the recent passing of Peter Wright . Blue Marlin off South Florida. Skip's new passion is his Custom Boat Shootout Tournament, one of the most successful billfish tournaments in the world. Deep dropping and bar hopping through out the Bahamas and so much more. Only on the Reel Guy Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report is your best resource for the Gulf Shores Surf Fishing Report, Orange Beach Fishing Report, Dauphin Island Fishing Report, Mobile Bay Fishing Report, and Alabama saltwater fishing everywhere in between. For the anglers looking for a Gulf Shores surf Fishing Report, Gulf State Park pier fishing report, Orange Beach Fishing Report and Fort Morgan fishing report, look no further than the Alabama Saltwater Fishing Report. Every week we bring you an "onshore" report for those anglers interested in a gulf shores surf fishing report or a gulf shores pier fishing report. This week we're talking to Capt. Stephen Franklin AKA Bama Saltwater  who is giving us the Alabama Fishing report all the way from the Flora Bama to Fort Morgan. Capt. Stephen has been fishing a lot from the pier in Gulf Shores and he has been successful with Sheepshead, Spanish Mackerel and more.  For our guys looking for the Dauphin Island inshore fishing report or the Orange Beach Inshore Fishing Report, Capt. Patric Garmeson has what you need to know to catch more speckled trout, redfish, and tripletail and how to catch each of these species in the area. The tactics and tips we discuss here each week can be applied to many areas when fishing Alabama's coast and other states along the Gulf of Mexico. The sheepshead spawn bite is in full swing and Capt. Patric gives us the ultimate Guide to Sheepshead fishing. We also talked about Spanish Mackerel, Speckled trout, redfish and more.  For the Alabama Fishing Report offshore and the Gulf fishing report, tune in for this week's report with Capt. Dustin Bedgood. You never know what you might get in the offshore Gulf Fishing report each week. We cover nearshore fishing from Captain's running center consoles and fishing for red snapper, grouper, triggerfish, king mackerel, cobia, and more. When we head to blue water, we have contributions from some of the best Captain's on the tournament circuit and off who fish for tuna, wahoo, mahi-mahi, and billfish. This week with Capt. Dustin we cover everything from catching Blue Marlin on live bait to jigging for Scamp and Snapper on the bottom. We talk about some practices that will ensure that your fish are the best quality when they get back to the dock just like what he sells at Fairhope Fish House.  It's all brought to you whether it's good, bad, or ugly. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts and if you'd like us to email you the podcast, just head over to greatdaysoutdoors.com/asfr and we'll send you the new show each week. Keep Whackin em'!   Sponsors CCA Alabama Daycool Heating and Air Alabama Marine Resources Angelo Depaola EXP Realty "The Coastal Connection" Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo KillerDock Geico, Ron Davis Fishbites Gulf Coast Office - National Land Realty Hilton's Offshore Charts Pure Flats- The Slick Lure Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism Bluewater Charters MDH Foundation Great Days Outdoors

Download Gary's 13 Keys to Creating a Multi-Million Dollar Business from https://www.DitchDiggerCEO.com/ Jeff Frient (https://www.bluemarpartners.com) is the managing partner of Blue Marlin Partners, a private investment firm in Washington, D.C. that invests in established lower middle-market businesses looking to substantially grow and realize shareholder value.   In this episode, Gary and Jeff Frient discuss:     1. Military Mindset in Business     2. War Time Leadership Lessons     3. Balancing Family and Career     4. Overcoming Fear of Failure LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-frient-28525b11/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jfrient/ Connect with Gary Rabine and DDCEO on: Website: https://www.DitchDiggerCEO.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DitchDiggerCEO TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ditchdiggerceopodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DitchDiggerCEO Twitter: https://twitter.com/DitchDiggerCEO YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ditchdiggerceo