Capt. Ryan Doxey, Over-Ride

Home Port: Surfside, Texas

Boat/Power: 56 Viking/M91 MTUs, 1500hp each

Wins to Date: August Billfish Classic: 1st Place, 500 Pts; Lone Star Shootout, Heaviest Blue Marlin, 500 Pts.

Tackle: Tiagra 80s, Shimano Tallus rods, Amilon 130-pound test line

Capt. Ryan Doxey, fishing with owner Marty Griffith and crew members Jacob Dawson, Steven Vasek, Jeremiah Sullivan and Jeff Young, has done very well so far on the Texas billfish circuit by focusing on live bait fishing for blue marlin.

In The Spread

“Live bait. My top three choices would be yellowfin, blackfin and skippies. We’re using 12/0 to 16/0 Mustad 39950 BLN hooks and wire on the leaders. We’ve found that wire has a thinner diameter and it doesn’t chafe although it isn’t for everyone—it can be dangerous. We do fish with fluorocarbon if my crew isn’t comfortable handling a fish on wire. We’re catching our bait on planers and Clark spoons or on diamond jigs during the day.”

Technique

“In the Lone Star Shootout we caught the first fish on our last bait. It took us about 30 minutes to get organized after we put that one on the deck and over an hour to make one more bait. We put that one out and got our 644 that was the big fish of the tournament. Most people wouldn’t spend an hour to catch only one bait but we feel that it produces a bigger grade of fish, not necessarily more bites but bigger ones. And fishing with circle hooks the fish tend to stay hooked—they don’t pull off on the leader or while they’re jumping as much, although it does happen. We lure fish for fun and I’d say the majority of our fish over 500 pounds either come off on the leader, straighten the hook or break the leader. Other than that, our success this year is just from good karma with the team. We fish four to five tournaments a year from May through September and we’ll put 800 hours on the boat in that stretch (which we’ve done for the last five years) so it’s important that we all work hard but also to make sure that we’re keeping it fun for everyone.”