InTheBite

Common Sense: Safety at the Helm

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Safety is not just a word, it’s an action. People in our profession sometimes get too comfortable in their routines and forget that disaster can happen in a split second. It probably won’t, but what if it does? After all, it has happened before. Tragedy can happen and unfortunately, sometimes it does.

If you’re a traveling boat, I think it’s necessary for two crew members to be on the bridge at all times when underway. You can keep an eye on one another that way. If there is only one guy on the bridge and he slips, bumps his head and falls overboard, who’s going to know? We’re all guilty, but that doesn’t make it right.

We lost a fellow fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico not too long ago. He was running at night and was on the bridge by himself. When a crew member came up on the bridge to relieve him, he was gone. The last time he had been seen by anyone was a few hours earlier.

Nobody will ever know for sure, but they think he left the bridge to use the head and fell overboard in a choppy sea. Not only was he gone, but the unmanned boat could have hit another boat and killed who knows how many people. If someone else was on the bridge that night, things might have happened differently.

In another instance in the Gulf of Mexico, the captain left the bridge at cruise speed with the helm unattended to do something with a fish in the cockpit. The boat plowed into a shrimp boat almost killing everyone on both boats. If the captain just would have used common sense and stopped his boat when he left the helm, he wouldn’t have risked everyone’s life. Common sense goes a long way when it comes to safety.

Entering and returning into rough inlets, day or night, with two people on the bridge can make all the difference in the world in preventing accidents. On long crossings, just the company of another person on the bridge can keep you more alert and awake—in foul weather it’s a no brainer. We all know this, many of us even talk about how important it is, but for the most part we just don’t do it.

Also stay out of the tower unless it’s absolutely necessary. With today’s superfast boats, accidents seem to be more and more frequent. Thirty-five knots and five- to eight-foot seas can be pretty violent. Just hanging on is a chore! So, slow the heck down! You’re just tearing things up and greatly increasing the chances of something bad happening.

We’ve all lost several buddies in recent years in ways I believe could have been completely preventable, so keep an eye on one another. Try to use some common sense and chances of a tragic accident will go way down. Make sure all your safety gear is up to date—lights, flares, fire systems, etc. After all, you never know when you might need them! Even with the warning to keep them up to date and in proper function, I hope you never need them!

—That’s my two-minute warning. Fraz

The United States of Swordfishing: Where, How Around the States

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By Ric Burnley

Somewhere in Southeast Asia, who knows how long ago, an angler in a canoe dangled a bait from a kite and kite fishing was invented. Centuries later, an angler in Japan installed a 30-foot-tall pole in his boat to suspend lures for tuna. The pole was painted green. Across the world, probably Latin or Central America, a captain ordered his crew to deploy 36 teasers on a metal frame to attract marlin.

Each of these discoveries proved to be so effective, word spread around the world. Today, kites, greensticks and dredges are used everywhere their target species swim. As the tactic spread, anglers have refined and improved the tackle and techniques.

More recently, an angler in South Florida dropped a bait 1500-feet and pulled up a swordfish. Word spread, and within a decade, anglers all over the world are copying their success and adapting it to their local conditions.

Captain Nick Stanzcyk and his family are largely credited with popularizing daytime swordfishing in the US.

Captain Nick Stanczyk, Broad Minded

Islamorada, Florida

Modern deep drop, daytime swordfishing is attributed to the Stanczyk team fishing out of Bud and Mary’s Marina in Islamorada, Florida. Captain Nick Stanczyk inherited the techniques from his father and uncle. “They caught the first swordfish in 2003, I didn’t see my first one till 2006.”

Since then, Stanczyk has focused on swordfishing developing methods that have traveled around the world. He explains his addiction, “Swordfish have a mystique, they’re elusive.” He also says daytime fishing provides reliable action.

Stanczyk finds the fish in 1400- to 1800-feet of water along the steep canyons and large flats of the continental shelf. “The most important factor is bait,” he says. He looks for marks on his depth finder indicating life below the boat.

The standard rig for daytime swords starts with a heavy-duty, 50- to 80-pound rod and reel combo packed with 65-pound braided line. Stanczyk uses a 150-foot-long, 200-pound-test wind-on leader with a six-foot section of 300-pound test monofilament connected to a 9/0 to 11/0 J-hook. The eight- to 12-pound weight is attached to the leader with a floss loop a few feet from the mainline.

“I hate squid,” Stanczyk says. Instead, he prefers strip baits such as dolphin belly or bonita strips. He usually fishes two lines. A shallow bait dangles 900 feet from a buoy stationed 200 feet from the boat. This basic set-up, and its success on swordfish, have spread around the world. As word spread, crews adapted the techniques to their home waters.

Capt. Jeff Wilson has caught a pile of swordfish, in the Gulf and beyond. Here he is with a nice one—635.

Captain Jeff Wilson, Titan Up

Galveston, Texas

Five years ago, Captain Jeff Wilson learned to daytime swordfish in Ft. Lauderdale. When he moved to Galveston, Texas, he took the lessons with him. “We couldn’t fish like we did in Fort Lauderdale,” he remembers.

The Gulf Coast canyons, holes and crevices mimic the structure found off south Florida but the current doesn’t move as fast. Wilson admits, “We ended up with a tangled mess.” To match conditions in the Gulf, he developed a “C” pattern for running the boat while dropping the bait, driving in an eighth-mile half-circle while dropping the rig.

They designed a unique rig, too. “We developed a direct-drop method,” Wilson explains. He starts with 80-pound braided mainline, they’ve cut the 250-pound wind-on leader to 65 feet to a six-foot leader of 300-pound test.

Unlike Nick Stanczyk, Captain Wilson loves squid. For the best results, he stitches the squid to the Pakula 40 DHX hook. “The hook has a longer barb and a beak point,” he explains. Using 70-pound floss, he stitches the squid’s mantle to the head and uses a copper tube to keep the body from scrunching up on the hook. “It looks like Frankenstein,” he laughs, then insists he’s caught as many as three swords on one squid.

In another departure, Wilson clips a seven-pound sash weight directly to the hook with utility wire. “Drop it to the bottom and bring it up quickly to knock the weight off,” Wilson says. A smaller, cannonball weight, attached to the wind-on a few feet from the mainline connection, keeps the rig from spinning and tangling.

Wilson looks for bait and fish marks in 1300- to 1800-feet of water. “1500 feet is optimal,” he says. Then, Wilson admits, “We had two spots that produced half of our fish.” He prefers to fish a week leading up to the full moon. “The bite seems to drop off for five days following the full moon,” he adds.

Wilson also fishes two lines, with one bait 1000- to 1200-feet below a buoy and the other a few hundred feet from the bottom. “If I mark a DSL on the fishfinder, I’ll drop the buoy to that depth,” he adds, describing the deep scattering layer, a layer of small creatures that congregates between 1000- and 1500-feet deep.

He’s learned valuable lessons about hooking and fighting a swordfish. When Wilson gets a bite, he comes tight on the line then drives the boat ahead to drive the hook home. “If the fish is going to come off, I want it to come off right away,” he explains.

Adapting the South Florida technique to Gulf Coast, Wilson has scored more than 500 swordfish in five years. “We used to get a lot of bites,” he says. Recently, he’s noticed more anglers targeting day time swords and adds. “Now we have to work for it,” he says.

Capt. Michael Maddox has his finger firmly on the pulse of the burgeoning So Cal deep drop fishing scene.

Captain Michael Maddox, SoCal Deep Drop

Southern California

From South Florida to the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, swordfishing is spreading like wildfire. Most recently, the fishery has flared up off of the coast of Southern California. Los Angeles angler, Mike Maddox has been commercial fishing for swordfish for the past couple years. But recently, “there has been a big pick up in recreational fishing,” he says.

According to Maddox, recreational swordfishing has picked up in the past few months around Anacapa, Catalina and Channel Islands. “For two weeks people have been catching them a few miles off Newport Beach,” he says.

We’re fishing in 1200- to 1400-feet of water. He fishes one rod a couple hundred feet off the bottom and a buoy rod at 900-feet. “I look for bait and thermocline on the meter,” he says, adding there isn’t much current so anglers just drop and fish.

The uptick in swordfish mania has inspired Maddox to sell rigged squid. “I took what I’ve learned commercial fishing and turned it to prepping baits for recreational anglers.” He starts with an 18- to 24-inch squid and runs an 18/0 Mustad circle hook in through the tip of the mantle and out below the fins. To keep the bait in place, he simply zip ties it to the hook. “I can use the same bait for two or three days,” he says.

He attaches the bait to a six-foot section of 400-pound leader connected with a swivel to the 300-pound wind on leader running to 100-pound braided line. His ideal rod and reel combo

would be a bent-butt 80. “The fishery is so new people are catching swords with whatever rods they have,” he marvels.

Maddox has developed his own technique for hooking swordfish in deep water. “When I see the rod tip bounce, I tell people to open a beer,” he laughs. Maddox will wait for several minutes watching the rod tip bounce while the swordfish eats the bait.

When the line starts to plane out behind the boat, he knows the fish is hooked. He keeps the drag light and runs the boat forward to bring the fish to the surface. When the weight comes to the boat, he leaves it on the line while leadering the fish. “If the fish takes another run, I let it take the weight to wear it down.” Maddox continues to let the fish fight itself out. “Don’t put a lot of pressure on it,” he stresses.

Maddox is amazed how fast daytime swordfishing has picked up in Southern California. “People are just discovering the possibilities,” he says. As anglers explore the canyons and cliffs, they are finding new places and new ways to catch swordfish.

Capt. Randy Butler with the Virginia state record swordfish. When you can catch 50 whites in a day, you do your swordfishing at night!

Captain Randy Butler, Rebel

Virginia Beach, Virginia

While daytime swordfishing is sweeping the world, it all started at night. To prove the point, last summer Virginia Beach charter captain Randy Butler and crew on Rebel set a new Virginia State Record with a 466-pound swordfish caught after dark.

Butler says the night-time challenge is greater. “During the day the swordfish seem to be concentrated on the bottom, at night they spread out in the water column.” To cover his bets, Butler fishes baits under floats at 20 and 60 fathoms and off the rod tip at 10 fathoms placing the deepest bait farthest from the boat.

He fishes the baits on a 10/0 to 11/0 hook crimped directly to the 200-foot, 200-pound wind-on. For bait, he likes what he finds locally. Butler often catches bullet tuna, tinker mackerel and squid in the lights under his boat. “I like tinker mackerel, best,” he admits.

In fact, Butler’s state record was caught on a tinker mackerel fished at 20 fathoms. Butler’s secret: he rigs the bait so the tail is up. “Swordfish swallow the bait head first, so I get a better hook-up ratio” he says.

He attaches a strobe five fathoms above the bait and fishes lights under the boat.

Butler focuses his fishing from 200 to 60 fathoms. “I’ve caught swords as shallow as 40 fathoms.” He likes a north to south drift to carry him along the edge of the continental shelf. When he discovers a productive depth, he’ll focus his drift on that area.

Where ever anglers target swordfish, they adapt these techniques and baits to the water and fish in their area. Whether anglers have spent decades targeting swordfish or months, they admit they have much to learn and more fish to catch.

Don’t bring a knife to a swordfight…. bring a harpoon!

Want to Catch A Sword – Call the Pros

To learn more about swordfishing, book a trip with these crews:

Rebel; Captain Randy Butler

Virginia Beach, Virginia

757-932-0036

www.rebelsportfishing.com

Qualifier; Captain Fin Gaddy

Oregon Inlet, North Carolina

252-423-1779

www.qualifiercharters.com

Bud and Mary’s Marina; Captain Nick Stanzyk

Islamorada, Florida

305-482-0366

www.daytimeswordfish.com

Rigged Baits; Mike Maddox

@SoCalDeepDrop

Socaldeepdrop@gmail.com

How To: A Guide to Outrigger Tune-Up & Service

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Brenden and Preston Ziemba, of Coastal Rigging, take us through a step-by-step tutorial on how to keep outriggers tuned with maintenance and preventative measures. 

Rubbing Layout Arm Fix

For more  information on Coastal Rigging please e-mail info@inthebite.com or fill out the form below and our InTheBite concierge service will be happy to assist you.

 

Feels Like the First Time – Contender 25

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The Contender 31 Classic. It was boats like this one that put Contender on the map.

If you were alive and, in any way, involved in boating during the mid-80s, then you were a witness to one of the biggest boating booms of all time. Contender Boats fueled that growth like no other. After graduating from the University of Florida, Miami native Joe Neber, took a summer job at Sea-Vee “that turned into a career.”

“I was planning on going to law school but ended up working for Don McGee for the summer,” he says.

An unexpected buyout ended his time at Sea-Vee, but Neber had already been bitten by the boat builder’s bug. He started buying fiberglass hulls from Whitewater and rigging them out for resale.

“We did a lot of custom rigging, five or six boats, until they stopped selling me fiberglass parts because we were hurting their business. That’s when I decided to start Contender Boats…I was 22 years old at the time,” says Neber.

A short time later, in June of 1984, the first Contender, a Classic 25, rolled out of the building.

“Although it’s been a progression, the boat that really took us to the dance was the Classic 25. As the first Contender, it’s really an iconic boat. At the time, it was very high tech. We were some of the first to use biaxial and tri-axial fiberglass and used a lot of foam coring. We were stepping up the game and people started seeing some of the advantages of these new materials,” says Neber. “The 25 was great for us. We sold over 1,100 of them over a real long production run. The next one that came along after that was the 35 express. I built that boat because I needed that boat. We built about 600 of those. It could go fast and get me to the Bahamas and back. But the big one that really made a difference was the 31 Classic, which was actually 32’6” with the bracket.”

“Back in the day when we were building the 25, we were bolting on transom brackets to a square transom. We were still building a lot of straight-shaft inboards at the time. Before Yamahas came out, the bar for outboard reliability was really low. People who were going to the Bahamas preferred straight shaft inboards for the reliability. But by the late 80s and mid-90s the Yamahas weren’t breaking. We transitioned to the transom brackets with the 35 Express and the 31 and we never looked back at the inboard market too much,” says Neber.

From a summer job at Sea Vee, Joe Neber has transformed his passion for center consoles into one of
the most iconic brands on the market.

With both the 25 and 31 selling really well, an oil crisis and a recession in the late 2000s tipped Neber’s hand and forced him to get creative once again.

“In 2007 and 2008, we had oil at $165 a barrel and people stopped buying boats. We were actually looking at going back to inboard diesels!” says Neber. “We needed a new product, so we began transitioning into the step hulls business to give our customers an option between the deep-v and the step. But you have to know, I was the anti-step guy when I was the deep-V hull guy! I had a product that was burning 20 percent more fuel than a stepped hull. I had to change something. We went through a lot of research and development, making three dimensional drawings until we got it to the point where we liked the designs and built them. I hardly ever build deep-V now.”

“We knew what we liked in our V-hull and what we wanted in the stepped hull,” says Neber. “Nobody was building a step hull that had a balance of performance…it didn’t exist. If it ran good in a head sea, it was scary in a following sea. Nobody had it right. Our goal was to build safe, balanced stepped hulls that ran in all sea conditions. Our first hull, the 35 Step, hit it right on the money. It worked perfectly. We worked with naval architect John Cosker on the step hulls. He’s a brilliant guy who has built super-fast racing boats. We told him what we liked and what we didn’t like and he came up with the 35…and it was amazing.”

Contender went on to make 32-foot, a 39-foot and a 30-foot stepped hull.

“Our stepped hulls are the finest performing offshore boats available today,” says Neber. “Their fuel economy, seakeeping ability, soft ride, and safety in a following sea are incredible. There’s nobody out there that can run with us…there’s nothing that goes to sea like a Contender. Good seakeeping is a driving force. It comes from the hardcore fishing stuff we are doing. Our goal wasn’t speed; even if we weren’t the fastest in the fleet, once it got rough, we’d still be out front. Our biggest competitor is our prior-built product.”

For more  information from our marketing partner Contender Boats please fill out the form below and our InTheBite concierge service will be happy to assist you.

Coronavirus forces Return of Boats to U.S. Ports

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March 24, 2020 — InTheBite’s On The Docks editor Kevin Deerman sent us this short video of seven boats — Princess Lily, Stacked Up, Blackhawk, Artemis, Auspicious, Mama Who and Draggin Up — leaving the DR this morning heading back to U.S ports due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 Virus.

The boats are running 10 knots to conserve on fuel. The plan is to clear customs and refuel in Long Island at Flying Fish Marina which has 20,000 gallons on hand.

We wish them all a safe journey as they return home to their families.

 

V-37 Walkthrough

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Join Valhalla Boatworks’ Justin Healey on the V-37 for an in-depth walk-through showcasing the high-performance luxury center console’s vast array of features and options. Along the way, Justin points out examples of her build quality, attention to detail and high-level engineering.

V-37 Walk-through from Valhalla Boatworks on Vimeo.

For more  information on Valhalla Boats please submit the form below and our InTheBite concierge service will be happy to assist you.

Capt. Evan Salvay: California Up and Comer

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Capt. Evan Salvay

Stella June

45 Sea Hunter

Owner: Ivan Vanortwick Boat: Stella June, 45 Sea Hunter

By Charline Levine

With a Bisbee win on his resume and his finger directly on the pulse of the burgeoning bluefin tuna bite, at just 27 years old Capt. Evan Salvay has established himself as one of the top fishermen in Southern California. The trick to his success? A run-and-gun style that focuses on finding fish and doing whatever it takes to get tight. But like all successful captains, Evan started out young and learned a bunch of different skill sets before he made a name for himself.

Evan began fishing on the local sport boats (what So Cal guys call party boats) in middle school and wet his feet by helping out the deckhands. When he was 16, he started working for a six-pack boat based in Avalon Harbor on Catalina Island. Home to the Tuna Club of Avalon since 1898, Catalina is one of the storied spots in the annals of sport-fishing history.

His first gig charter fishing was in 2009, not the best timing. An economic crash and slow fishing were not doing any favors for the charter industry, but it was a big year for Evan as he got to fish with Capt. Mike Arujo, a well-known marlin fisherman who ran the Vertigo, a 70-foot custom out of Newport Beach. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Arujo was among a small group of elite striped marlin captains in the area. It was Arujo who introduced the young mate to tournament fishing. Around this same time, Evan headed down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and fished with his uncle in some money events. In 2010, Evan was on a team that won a daily in the Western Outdoor News Tuna Jackpot. It was his first taste of prize money.

The marlin fishing in Southern California slowed to a trickle from 2011 to 2014 and several of the big-time tourneys in the area ceased operations. “I took a hiatus for a few seasons,” Evan says. “The tournaments were putting up one fish for the entire fleet over three days of fishing. There weren’t many opportunities in So Cal for a young person trying to progress. It’s not like the East Coast.”

Captain Evan Salvay and company posing with a $3 million black marlin.

When the marlin scene dried up, Evan bought a 17-foot Boston Whaler and started to fish the salt-water bass circuit. He’d also roll the dice and run that small boat out to San Clemente Island for yellowtail. They built a custom, 52-gallon gas tank under the leaning post to make the 60-mile run in open ocean. “My dad would drop us off and say, ‘See ya later.’ We’d circumnavigate the entire island. We did it every week. We’d hit atrocious weather and giant swells. Luckily it didn’t kill us,” he says.

In 2014, Evan got his captain’s license just as an El Niño kicked in and the fishing started to improve. “I started to transition back to offshore,” he says. He purchased a 29-foot Crystaliner, an express style So Cal boat with twin Cummins. This time, the timing was just right. In 2016, the offshore fleet saw one of the best striped marlin bites in modern history. “There was a wide stretch of fish. We ran out of San Pedro and fished striped marlin around Santa Barbara Island and as far north as Santa Cruz Island. It was the same year we saw wahoo locally and blue marlin were around in catchable volumes. That bite may never be repeated in my lifetime.” Salvay and his crew landed a 474-pound blue in their home waters, which was one of the highlights of his young career.

The bluefin tuna also began to show up en masse with big fish over 200 pounds in the mix. “This bite never existed here before, and the whole scope of my business started to revolve around the bluefin,” he says. But these tuna were not easily caught. Crews would find massive schools of ‘foamers’ busting up on the surface but had to get creative to catch them. That’s really where Evan’s skills shined. He began to focus on jigging and popping techniques and that propelled him to the top of the game.

“I was at the right place at the right time,” he says. “The fishery is cooking strong right now and it’s perfectly suited to young people. It’s an active style of fishing.” Evan spends most of the day in the tower, scanning in the gyros for pods of fish. When he finds them, he hammers the throttles to get in on the action and then anglers use a mix of poppers, kite baits, stick baits and iron to get tight. This isn’t a slow-trolling affair, it’s action-packed.

Throughout this period, Evan continued to go to Cabo and fish 15 to 20 tournaments a year. In 2017 he took his tournament program in Mexico up a few notches. He linked up with a client, Davis Ahn, and they purchased a Cabo 40 express. They sent the boat to Mexico about a month before the kickoff of the tourney season. Evan got the program together quickly, learning the boat and getting it set up to his liking. They pulled it off and landed a 442-pound blue on the first day of the 2017 Bisbee’s Black and Blue. The fish didn’t take home the daily, but they finished the tournament in fifth place and got to collect a check. “We were four guys in our 20s that were somehow given a shot,” Evan says. “I think we were the youngest team to ever walk on that stage.”

Salvay at the helm of the Stella June, 45 Sea Hunter.

The next year they went back to Cabo and fished on the same boat with the same crew. There were three qualifiers caught going into the final day, but the big money had rolled over and

there was a pile of cash up for grabs. “We went out that day and did what we wanted to do,” Evan says. “We filled the tuna tubes with 10- to 15-pound tuna and slow-trolled live bait.” They got bit around 11 a.m. and Charlie Lee caught the fish in just under two hours. The fish won the tournament, netting the Chinito Bonito a cool $3 million! The second largest tournament payout in sport-fishing.

“That was my dream,” Evan says. “I don’t know if it was luck or fate or what, but you put together a good program, put your time in and hope that luck kicks in. We got the bite we wanted. For someone who grows up fishing striped marlin in California and suffers through slow fishing, and to have your career skyrocket during some of the best fishing, it’s a dream come true.”

Right now, Evan is taking a hiatus from charter fishing and running a private boat that’s a big departure for the So Cal scene. The Stella June is a 45-foot Sea Hunter with quad 425-hp Yamahas, a full tower and a Seakeeper gyro. The boat is owned by Ivan Vanortwick who enjoys the same style of fishing as Evan.

“A lot of fishing is on the bow out here, not behind the boat,” Evan says. “We’ve got the biggest center console out here and it suits what we do. We utilize the speed and hunting ability to create a more active, engaging opportunity. I have a boss who’s into that. He likes to throw poppers and stick baits. You can’t always do that if you have an older boss who wants to sit in the cabin.”

They plan to take the Sea Hunter to Cabo and fish the tournaments in the fall. “We’re looking forward to see what we can do with a boat that has speed, bait capacity and good, technical anglers,” he says.

Splash Report: 78’ Michael Rybovich and Sons Persistence

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The latest build from Michael Rybovich and Sons Persistence is another masterpiece from the first family in custom sportfishing boats. She is state-of-the-art in every way and as you step aboard you can’t help but notice the highest quality fit and finish found only on a Rybovich. The four-stateroom layout and quarter sawn teak throughout can only be described as beautiful. Every cabinet, seam and joinery is as close to perfection as you can build. The Persistence is a meticulously hand-crafted fishing machine.

As the current Captain, Tyler Andresen explains, “from the bilge to the helm, everything is done with the utmost attention to detail. Persistence is by far one of the nicest boats I’ve ever run. When it comes to operating her she maintains any set speed with zero deviation, regardless of the sea conditions. Short chop or a big nasty swell, you just push her bow down and you get that soft dig through the waves without any chine pounding whatsoever.”

Persistence is equipped with the latest and greatest equipment and at the heart of her soul is a pair of the MTU M96L 2600 hp power package. She clips 50 knots on the pins. The Persistence will split her time based out of Florida in the winter and then chasing tuna in the Northeast during the summer and fall.

Launched: 2019
LOA: 78′
Beam: 21′
Draft: 4’8″
Top Speed: 50 kts
Cruise Speed: 38 kts
Engines: (2) MTU 16V2000M96L 2600 hp
Generators: (2) Onan MDKDS 29Kw
Fuel: 2,560 gal.
Water: 450 gal.
Displacement: 118,000 lbs.

Persistence Walkthrough

From the Salon with Michael Rybovich

Persistence Running on the Open Ocean

 

PHOTO GALLERY

For more  information on Michael Rybovich & Sons Boats please fill out the form below and our InTheBite concierge service will be happy to assist you.

 

Boat Driver OR Captain?

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By Capt. Scott “Fraz” Murie 

It seems like everyone wants to drive the boat these days. The mentality of a lot of crews these days is that the captain has the easy job. So why not get a captain’s license and be the captain?

A captain’s license is an easy piece of paper to obtain in the USA. Necessary experience? None to speak of. The easiest way to obtain a captain’s license – just enroll in a local captain’s license sea school. This school is basically a cram course that lasts about a week. It is pretty idiot-proof. All you have to do is pass some questions on rules of the road, a couple of navigation questions, a little safety and CPR and you can call yourself the big skipper.

Thankfully to obtain a bigger license such as a 200 ton or a 500 ton, you must show documented proof of sea time on that particular vessel. Still, no experience in boat handling is necessary. I have friends who have obtained a captain’s license from England where the requirements are much more stringent. If your sea time comes from a ski boat, that’s the kind of license you get: a bay license. To get a basic captain’s license in England, through the Royal Yachting Association, requires a certain amount of sea time on the tonnage you want to be licensed for.

So, what does it take to get a captain’s license in England? The requirement is one week of classroom theory and navigation law. Then a week spent at sea, one on one, with an instructor. You must prove to the instructor that you can properly operate all systems of said vessel. You must also prove that you can navigate in inland and international water, prove that you can navigate in the fog, at night, calculate fuel burn from port to port, use charts, dividers and parallel rules, and calculate your sea drift with no electronic navigational assistance.

You must prove that you are able to maneuver and dock the boat, then you receive the license only if you are considered qualified by the instructor. A much better system in my opinion. With all that said, I believe a minimum of five years on the deck and proof of knowing how to operate all systems as well as navigation is a must before thinking about climbing the ladder.

To all the owners out there looking to hire a captain to take care of your bazillion dollar investment, the old saying, “You get what you pay for” doesn’t necessarily apply these days. I’ve seen plenty of clueless boat drivers out there making top dollar. So, before you hire a captain, be sure to take the time to get character references and background checks. See if they have experience in things such as trip planning, customs, immigrations, ZARPES, crew lists, insurances, maintenance, safety, navigation, logs and financial records…the list goes on.

So, to all of those who think the captain’s job is easy – there is much more to it than driving the boat!

—That’s my two-minute warning. Fraz

So You Want to be a Captain? The Trip up the Ladder Takes Many Twists and Turns

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By Dave Ferrell

Taking the helm of a sportfishing boat, traveling the world’s oceans in pursuit of billfish, represents a “dream job” for a whole lot of people…many of which have never spent much time offshore. The image of a tanned captain, beard wagging in the sea breeze, steering the boat over the horizon with nothing but freedom and fishing on the calendar for the days ahead, fuels a lot of daydreams in corporate boardrooms all across America. It’s like being a quarterback for the Dolphins (Give me a break, I’m from Florida!) or photo editor for Playboy magazine…you just can’t imagine having a bad day at the office!

Well, you all know that while that there are some incredible perks that may come along with the job – travel to foreign hotspots; extra tournament money; insane bites; and making incredible memories. The captain’s chair, however, also comes with a whole host of pitfalls and enormous responsibilities – not the least of which is having the lives of your crew and guests in the palm of your hand.

Along with all the life-and-death stuff, a captain also takes care of a state-of-the-art piece of functional artwork that may cost many millions of dollars. You almost need to be a museum curator and an industrial engineer rolled into one to care of one of these machines, and we haven’t even started fishing yet! If all of this weren’t enough, a captain must also skillfully navigate a whole host of egos and character flaws that find their way onboard. You know the type – the psychotic mates that seemed just fine back on the dock or an owner’s guests that can drink more liquor in one day than an entire frat house consumes on homecoming weekend!

 

Factor in the competitive fishing aspect, whether that means tournament success or just keeping up with the rest of the dock every day, and the captain’s chair turns into a hot seat rather quickly if your boat doesn’t live up to the owner’s expectations. As dream jobs go, it’s one of the toughest ones there is. Amazingly enough, there’s no one route to the captain’s chair. If there ever was one single path, it’s no doubt changed dramatically over the last 25 years or so, just as certain aspects and responsibilities of the job have as well.

Run Before You Fly

One of the few things you can get captains to agree on is that you have to be a good mate before you can be a good captain. I first met Capt. Newt Cagle while he was working the deck for the legendary Capt. Butch Cox at Marlin U in the Dominican Republic. He instantly impressed me with his teak-side manner, treating my students like royalty and patiently answering all their questions as politely as possible…even the most absurd ones. He was an excellent mate and has since become a successful captain on the tournament trail. That’s not a coincidence. “A captain is only as good as his mate. A good mate really makes the captain shine. No matter how good the guy upstairs is, if you don’t have a good mate things aren’t going to go well.”

Legendary Capt. Randy Baker came to fame as one of the best mates in the world, not as a captain. He’s since made quite a name for himself upstairs as well. Baker got his start on his father’s charterboat and on the docks in Destin, Florida. He began working on private boats in his teens and soon found himself working on the most prestigious fishing team in the world, Dunaway’s fabulous Madam and Hooker operation. “I preferred the mating part in my early days. But in my opinion you can’t be a good captain unless you’ve been a good mate for a while…you really need to know both sides of it,” says Baker. “It’s very important to get on a good boat that travels and fishes a lot. You have to get some good time on the water. You definitely need to be a mate before you step up to the wheel. That way, you know what the guy’s going through down in the pit.”

Baker’s first day as a captain was on the Hooker, a pretty sweet first captain’s gig. “I mated on the boat for several years, and after a while, I became like the second captain. Whenever Trevor [Cockle] had to leave or take care of something, I’d run the boat. My first full-time captain’s job was with Jerry Dunaway when we built the 43-foot Hooker that was sent to Madeira. Fishing and working on boats is all I’ve ever done…I’ve never had a job on land.”

When it comes to fishing, Capt. Bill Harrison has done it. When he speaks of perspective, it is best to listen.

Capt. Bill Harrison got his start on Miami’s legendary Pier 5 in the early 50s. He went from working the decks of full-time charter boats to chasing blue marlin all over the Caribbean with Ralph Christianson. He agrees with Baker and Cagle and thinks it’s imperative that a captain starts out as mate.

“I like those guys who are doing the same things at 60 that they were doing at six,” says Harrison. “A lot of guys never even cared about becoming a captain. They were good mates and they enjoyed doing that. It was a 9 to 5 job for those guys back then. They were in it to make a day’s pay. They’d get off the boat and didn’t want to talk about fishing or anything like that. It was just a job. Sometimes these guys would be 30, 40 or 50 years old.”

Harrison says that the reason the mates and captains at Pier Five were so good was that they pursued a wide variety of different species. “We learned how to catch everything because we would sell it. We could catch sharks, groupers, mackerels, whatever was running we were fishing for it. This translated to learning a lot of different fishing techniques,” says Harrison.

On that first trip, Newt told me that he wanted to be the captain of a sportfishing boat for as long as he could remember…he never wanted to do anything else.

“I was very lucky to grow up around boats and fishing, so it’s all I really ever knew. My father was an owner-operator and my uncle owned a charterboat. I started out by washing boats for free, just so I could ride out and be a part of the team. I’d help the mate out, watch the baits and do anything just to learn from those guys. That’s something that’s changed quite a bit. There’s no longer any kids coming around these days with the burning desire to work on the boat or get the chance to be around the boat. Nowadays when a kid wants to go fishing, he wants to know exactly what he’s going to get paid and he already has a list of demands for me! I would do anything just to get to go fishing. I’d drive on the ride out or in, let the captain take a nap, do anything just for the chance to go. Kids today won’t even do that now. Everybody you talk to is going to give you the same story,” says Cagle.

Keeping Up Electronically

One of the greatest challenges that today’s captains face is the rapid pace at which ship’s systems evolve. From the complex navigation and communication suites on the flybridge to the electronic engine controls down below and the high-tech A/V equipment in the salon, the race to keep up with the latest and greatest, or just to keep things working properly, can run a crew ragged. Experience with how boats are put together and how all these systems operate and interact goes a long way these days.

“My Dad built several boats and I was always very involved in the build. My Dad was a very hands-on guy, so it was a sad day around here if he had to call a mechanic or someone to fix something. I try to fix everything on the boat by myself, but I also realize that a man has to realize his limitations,” says Cagle. “You can screw something up worse if you try to fix it without knowing what you are doing.”

“Nowadays you really can’t do anything with the motors. If you get a problem and try and tackle it yourself you can make it worse or mess up your warranties,” says Cagle. “One thing that has really changed things for me has been the internet. Instead of calling my Dad or other people, I can just look online. I hate to say it, but if I have a problem or project, I have no problem going online to read other people’s advice on how to go about fixing it. This is especially helpful with my electronics. Instead of pushing buttons for hours on end, I can Google the problem and find several ways to do what I need to do.”

Baker grew up around boats so maintenance and mechanicals are second nature to him, but even he takes pause when it comes to messing around too much with the today’s new engines. “I can do all the maintenance and troubleshooting to a degree, but there’s so much computer stuff going on it’s better to just have the guys hook it up to the laptop,” says Baker. “I’m kind of old school that way. It’s been a little hard keeping up with all that stuff…I’m not that computer literate myself.”

“Unfortunately, there’s no textbook to live by,” says Cagle. “There’s no standard operating procedure on how to be a boat captain or how to be a mate. It’s all about what you learned from the guys you worked for in the past. How they did things is normally how you do things. You just have to use your best judgment. There’s no manual you can refer to. The only thing you can do is hope you had a good teacher along the way.”

First Time Out

“The first time I got to run a boat by myself and take people fishing, I was 16-years-old fishing out of Oregon Inlet at Pirates Cove Marina a couple of days before the Pirate’s Cove tournament,” says Capt. Newt Cagle. We had a group of people who were going to pre-fish the tournament. My father had come down with a case of food poisoning, and he came down to the boat in the morning and asked me if I could take the party out. I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’ At first I was a little bit nervous, but soon I said, ‘Screw It, I’ve been watching him do this my whole life.’ I pulled her out of the slip, followed a charterboat out and went fishing.”

Cagle’s first day at the helm proved to be a prophetic one. “My Dad always told me to never fish in the fleet…always fish on the outskirts. John Bayliss was running the Ultra at the time and was having some real good fishing in the middle of the fleet. I was staying on the outskirts getting bite after bite, but I got sucked into the fleet and went in there for a couple of hours and didn’t catch much. Once I moved back outside, we started getting bit again. We quit early at 2:30 p.m. and caught nine white marlin. Bayliss stayed until dark and caught 11. Then as now, John Bayliss is considered one of the best in the world. So not only was I happy to get in and out of the slip, but we had a really good day of fishing following my Dad’s advice…which was pretty special.”

Cagle’s first full-time captain’s job came in a more round-about way. Cagle started running the Sea Angel a 59-Weaver. “The owner was walking up and down the dock trying to hire a captain because his one captain was leaving and a hurricane was coming,” says Cagle. “He talked to me briefly and they moved the boat to the Dominican Republic. After two or three days, I was on a plane to the DR fresh after a hurricane to step onto a boat I had never driven in my life. We went fishing the next day – my first day in the DR – and we caught two blues and sail.”