InTheBite

G&S Boat Legacy Celebration

By

Destin Florida is known for excellent fishing, white sandy beaches, and lots of tourists.  In many circles, and they’re not small circles, Destin is known for something else.

On August 10th, in Destin, Florida, we will be honoring the history and legacy of G&S Boats.

Buddy Gentry and Steve Sauer built boats here for almost 50 years.  Steve has passed on and Buddy has retired, but the boats are still on the water.  There are 52 G&S boats scattered all over the world.  Today the boats are in the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Gabon, Morocco, Cape Verde Islands, Panama, Costa Rica,  all along the coasts of the United States, and over a dozen still operating out of Destin.

There are ports around the world – exotic places that many of us will never visit,  where people know about Destin.  What they know about us has nothing to do with promotional advertising or any of the tourist activities.  People around the world know about Destin because of Buddy Gentry and Steve Sauer, their loyal employees, and the remarkable boats they built.  They know about us through the greatest fishermen in the world who fish those boats, many of whom have Destin roots.

Destin was home to two men who for five decades built custom boats.  One day at a time.  One hull at a time.  One boat after another.  They also built a tradition that we are enormously proud of.

We hope you can join us on August 10th 5:30 pm , for a celebration on the water, at Harbor Docks, 538 Highway 98, Destin Florida.  The original home of G&S Boats.

For more information and to RSVP please contact:

Tommy Norred

Tommy2468@embarqmail.com

1-850-259-7637 call or text

Jeff Shoults

jshoults@cox.net

1-850-685-1681 call or text

Fish Finders: Then and Now

By

Fish finders – Old school to new.

This column first appeared in our June 2019 Issue Volume 18 Edition 4 of InTheBite The Professionals’ Sportfishing Magazine.

by Captain Scott “Fraz” Murie

A lot has changed since I got into the business of fishing. Electronics have become the most important tool you can have on board your boat. When considering all of the abilities of modern electronics, I sometimes think of back “in the day” – if we had a Loran and a Raytheon 735A fathometer, and a booster on our CB radio, we had it going on.

The fathometer was a paper graph machine that scrolled and was marked by a stylus needle. The stylus drawing showed the contour of the bottom and any fish or bait as it scrolled. Actually, it was a pretty amazing machine at the time. Our Loran was operated using microwave towers that transmitted signals from shore, so your range was limited and bad weather decreased its accuracy. When we would take our boat to Mexico or the Bahamas, or other faraway places, you could forget it because our Loran was useless. It was all navigating by charts, parallel rules and dividers.

Today that’s all changed. You can take a boat anywhere now and never be out of touch. You can even see at night! Our satellite systems and technology are pinpoint accurate. That brings me to the latest and greatest game changing fish finder – the new Furuno Omni Scanner.

This is a full color scanner. It scans 360 degrees in 0.54 seconds. Think about that! That is almost two full 360-degree scans per second. This scanner is a game changer when it comes to finding fish, bait, or structure. With this tool fishermen can actually identify the species of fish under the boat. They are able to mark and track a single fish, enabling the anglers to present a bait directly to the targeted fish.

This scanner has become so popular here in the Northern Gulf that I know of at least a dozen boats that had them installed during the off season – previously only a hand full of boats had them. The sonar takes the guess work out of the question, “Is there any fish or bait or structure around the boat?” It reads out several hundred yards from the boat. For instance, you might be heading south but you see something on your sonar screen that is 300 yards to the west. So, you go over there and you get covered up. The point is, you would never have made the turn to the west without the sonar. It is truly a game changer as far as finding and tracking fish.

These scanners are expensive – with a typical price tag of between 100k and 150k depending on the installation. But if you are throwing down 20k, 40k or 60k a weekend in tournaments, it’s a no brainer.  A lot of boats without the scanner are having second thoughts about betting against the sonar boats.  You can’t hardly blame them. Also, there is nothing automatic about this machine. Like anything else, you have to learn how to use it. When using it properly you are constantly panning in and out, up and down – your head is literally in the sonar all the time. It takes a lot of time to get dialed in on this machine. But once you do get it dialed in, you won’t want to go fishing without it.

Technology is an amazing thing. You need it now days to stay in the game.

 – That’s my two-minute warning. Fraz

Updates on 61st Annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament

By

LINES ARE IN THE WATER FOR DAY 4!

61st Annual Big Rock Tournament- There’s a total of 184 boats entered and the 2019 overall purse is a record-breaking $2.86 million!

Good luck to all the participants! Check back to InTheBite for updates or follow the tournament live through Reel Time Apps.

Day 4, June 13- Updated as of 11:40a.m.

UPDATE: There is 1 boat fishing today, Paved For, tight lines guys!

Full Results Click Here

Day 3, June 12

1 of 3 blue marlin releases ANNIE O has racked up so far this week- putting them 1st in the Release Division

Using the Marlin Release Ruler to measure their blue. You can find these in the ITB shopping cart!

Day 2, June 11th 

DAY 1 , JUNE 10TH

Happy 100th Year Anniversary Rybovich!

By

InTheBite celebrated with the Rybovich family at their 100th Anniversary party. We’d like to thank Michael Rybovich & Sons Yacht Sales for putting on this great event, it was an honor to be a part of!
Photos by Chris Rabil

 

InTheBite Dock Talk: Tropic Star Lodge in Pinas Bay, Panama

By

Panama’s Tropic Star Lodge has been a staple of the sportfishing landscape since 1963. The present is a very interesting time at Tropic Star.

This all access pass provides a look at one of the most unique and historic fishing operations in the world:

Read Tradition and Trajectory at Tropic Star in our latest issue of InTheBite

 

 

March Issue 2019: Hitting the Docks Now!

By

Ready for a Spring Break? Check out the March issue of InTheBite, hitting the docks now!

 

 

Team Seraphim Wins 2019 Jimmy Johnson Billfish Championship

By

KEY LARGO, Florida Keys — Team Seraphim of Ocean Reef, led by Captain Jerry Pohl of Miami, Florida, tallied 12 sailfish releases to take top honors at the two-day Billfish Championship, a main event of the Jimmy Johnson Fishing Championship Week that ended March 9 in the Florida Keys.

The Seraphim team earned $405,000 in overall prize money for the victory, as well as authentic, custom-designed Jimmy Johnson’s NBC Championship rings for each team member. [Read more…]

Broker Listing: Donnie Caison 49’ Custom Carolina Express “SPARHAWK”

By

Meet your next fishing machine! The 2010 Donnie Caison 49’ Custom Carolina Express, “SPARHAWK”, is a true cold-molded Custom Carolina built sportfish.  She is a proven fish raiser and tournament champion with a ride and fuel efficiency that are unparalleled for a vessel of her size.  “SPARHAWK” is the recipient of meticulous maintenance, continuous custom upgrades, and an electrical refit in 2018 in excess of $300,000.  If you are in the market for a beautiful, head turning, hard core custom express boat, your search should start and end with “SPARHAWK”.

Below please find a summary of highlights onboard The “SPARKHAWK”:

  • Cold molded custom Carolina construction
  •  Unparalleled ride and fuel efficiency
  •  Mezzanine seating
  •  C 9 CAT power
  •  Zeus pod drives with Joystick control
  • Skyhook dynamic positioning system
  • 2018 extensive refit
  • 8000 series GARMIN fully networked electronics package
  • FLIR night vision
  • EPLEX state of the art electrical system with touch screen breaker panel and ship board monitoring system
  • SAT TV and phone system
  • Custom full anodized aluminum tower with clear ceramic coating
  •  Ice chipper
  •  Water maker
  •  Custom faux teak painted transom and toe rail
  •  Miya Epoch US9 super HD electric teaser reels (NEW 2018)
  •  2018 custom SEA DECK on helm deck
  •  Unprecedented rod storage for over 30 rods out of sight in custom storage lockers
  •  Fresh bottom paint and prop speed 6/18 SEE MORE ON THE 2010 Donnie Caison 49’ Custom Carolina Express, “SPARHAWK” HERE

The Young Guns of Sportfishing: Chris Kubik

By

By Elliott Stark

Although you have to be pretty dedicated to fishing to buy and run a bluewater charter boat, there are some people whose desire to make a sportfishing career happen goes the extra mile. Captain Chris Kubik is one of those people. Having grown up in Atlanta, Kubik travelled to the Outer Banks in the summers as a child. When he was 16, he saved up enough to charter a boat. After catching a white marlin, he was hooked.

Growing up Kubik would read anything about fishing he could get his hands on – magazines, fishing reports, you name it. “I read a story about a guy who wanted to fish and headed to the dock to start handing out ice until he got a job fishing…So that’s what I did,” Kubik recalls.

“I loaded up my Honda Accord and headed to Oregon Inlet. I drove overnight from Atlanta, it took about nine hours. I got there early and slept in my car for an hour and I started handing out ice. I got a job on an inshore boat about three weeks later and started picking up freelance offshore trips from there,” he says.

Kubik rented a place to sleep while waiting for his fishing dreams to materialize. Does this sound like an awesome thing to do? “It definitely was not awesome. It was terrible. I rented a piece of crap trailer – it was the most God-awful place you could imagine. It was rented by the week, if that tells you anything. There was a house on some land with a bunch of trailers on the property. It was a bunch of crackheads and me. I was afraid to unload my stuff out of my car because they might have stolen it,” Kubik says.

Kubik worked on the inshore boat over the summer and soon made friends with a mate who had an extra room where he stayed. His living conditions improved and Kubik has never looked back. “Fin Gaddy had an opening,” Chris recalls. An owner/operator, Gaddy runs the Qualifier, a 54-foot Mann, out of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. “I knew the mate who was leaving and Fin let me freelance for a couple of days. I’m not sure why he hired me because to be honest at the time I was not very good… I guess he thought he could teach me and he did.”

Captain Chris Kubik – Point Runner, 60-foot Guthrie

Kubik would fish with Gaddy for ten years. Fin provides a bit of perspective on what makes Kubik such a force on the water. “He just has a competitive spirit about him. When I first met him, he’d only fished a little bit offshore. He was such a genuinely nice and sincere person that it almost made me uncomfortable,” Gaddy says with a bit of a laugh. Soon after hiring Kubik, Gaddy and the Qualifier headed to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. “He’d never caught a sailfish. After two days he’d caught 58. It was sort of a trial by fire. Chris got to learn in the right places. It was his dream to come here and fish and he made it happen.”

“Fin taught me everything I know about marlin fishing – teasers, dredges, maneuvering on fish. Attention to detail was the biggest thing – the importance of keeping everything perfect… knots, connections, everything. He is very meticulous in that regard,” Kubik recalls. “If he wanted to teach me to rig something on our day off, he would pull out five or six mackerel and show me how to do it. A lot of guys won’t do that because they don’t want to waste the bait.”

“When I left the Qualifier, I started mating on the Point Runner. I would run it when Capt. Danny Wadsworth (owner/operator) needed a day off. I worked there for three years and bought it last year,” says Kubik. The Point Runner is a 60-foot Guthrie powered by c12.9 Cats. Kubik’s operation is based out of the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. Kubik follows in one of sportfishing’s greatest traditions – the North Carolina owner/operator charterman.

When asked about the lessons he has learned along the way, Kubik provides some wise perspective. “Spend time learning before you think about moving up,” he says. Advice to young guys breaking into the industry? “Don’t feel like you deserve anything… because you don’t. These days it seems like there is a lot of entitlement. All the young kids want to be paid to ride out. Don’t be afraid to start on the bottom and work your way up. If you work hard and are motivated, you’ll succeed in fishing. If you look around at tournaments, most guys pull the same thing. But if you pay attention to detail, you can stand out.”

You can find Captain Chris Kubik and the Point Runner available for charter out of Oregon Inlet most of the year. In the winter time, Kubik runs a private boat – the Sea Hag, a 61-foot Blackwell – in Florida and Isla Mujeres. If you’d like to book a trip with Captain Chris Kubik, send him a note at Chris@pointrunner.com

or visit www.pointrunner.com.

Australia’s Fraser Island Produces Big Numbers

By

Captain Brett Alty’s 50’ custom charter boat Mistress is at it again. Upon arrival back at Fraser Island at the end of September Mistress tagged 32 marlin within just 7 days and 3hrs of fishing!  As Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees catcher was as famous for his baseball skills as for mixing metaphors, once said “ This is déjà vu all over again.”

As was reported earlier in In The Bite E-News  Mistress enjoyed outstanding success at Fraser last year as well, tagging 104 in just 42 days during the period late August to late Nov. Mistress fished through early December before returning to the Gold Coast for some much needed maintenance. All told from August through December 2017, the Mistress tagged 128 marlin in 48 days of fishing. An astounding average of 2.7 fish per boat day!

We were on our lonesome for the entire period from August to October, but in November we were joined by three motherships and 10 gameboats all sharing the most commonly used anchorage at Rooneys Point. Among them the Gold Coast boats Caboom, Special K, and French Look 111, plus the charter boat Kekoa. Word of the outstanding fishing had spread quickly.

In late February, Mistress returned to Fraser and fished another 44 days. During this period currents weren’t ideal and weather patterns dictated that most fishing was done around the New Moon.  We generally don’t find the best Moon Phase optimal; rather the week before and after the Full seems preferable.

Nevertheless Mistress managed another 71 tags to bring the total for the year ended 30 June to 199. As we were hoping for a nice round and memorable number –like 200—the 199 was a bit disappointing. How close were we to the magic 200? On the last day of the fishing year we developed the dreaded “Rubber Hook “ syndrome, going one for five for the day. Damn. The 199 marlin tagged were comprised of  150 blue marlin, 30 little blacks and 19 assorted heavy tackle blacks and stripes. That’s world class fishing by any measure. During this period we were frequently accompanied by Dave McMaster a light tackle specialist on Poledancer and we had some memorable social nights.

Then, just to cap it all off, Mistress won the Hervey Bay Gamefish Club tournament fishing against a fleet of 40 odd boats. This time fishing heavy tackle with 9 blues in the 2 ½ days of fishing. We also won this tournament in 2015 catching 15 little blacks on light tackle, and were second on a countback in 2016 to the well performed Sunshine Coast Privateer Kamikaze.

Frazer Island Background

There are some interesting aspects to the fishery at Fraser. The blues and stripes strike very aggressively. With the stripes there was none of the usual Tap—Tap— Tap. The majority just climbed on like a Blue. All the fish were in excellent condition. They were all fat. Much more so than the ones we see on the Gold Coast only a couple of hundred miles south.

There were also yellowfin tuna present ranging from a few kilos to up to 75kg out on the shelf. On one occasion there were so many yellowfin around that they were beating the Blues to the lures. Captain Brett could see blues coming up in the lure pattern, but they were being consistently beaten to the lures by frenzied yellowfin.

A new Giant Black Marlin Fishery on the Horizon?

In June/July we also tagged, and quite predictably lost quite a few, tiny little Blacks. Some vainly trying, but failing to hook themselves on lures were as small as 2kg (5 pounds)! We reported this to Dr. Julian Pepperell (Australia’s preeminent billfish scientists—and one of the world’s foremost experts) who was intrigued because he thought that fish of this size would be probably only two to three months old. If this is the case it means that they were most likely  spawned about February or March. This has quite serious ramifications as it means that there is a black marlin spawning period outside the traditional September to November Cairns breeding period. Julian requested that we keep a couple of the Heads off these tiny Blacks so that he can inspect the oeliths and more precisely determine their age.

If Julian’s initial prognosis is correct it may well lead to another Giant black marlin season, most likely somewhere near Fraser Island. No doubt when we get confirmation of Julian`s estimate we and other long range liveaboard boats will be out in the wild blue yonder doing some exploratory fishing trying to find this new breeding ground.

The 2018 Season

Mistress started its latest session at Fraser with a three day, three hour fishing trip that initially targeted little blacks. After tagging eight, in the  morning of the 3rd day the crew decided to go heavy tackle seeking a Slam. Well the Lady angler, one of the three on board, caught her first blue and then was unlucky to pull the hooks out of a stripe.

On his second trip, Captain Brett decided to fish Heavy Tackle for four days. The Mistress wound up with an absolutely outstanding 23 tags deployed from 32 strikes. All blues! That’s 5.75 blues per day. Fingers crossed  this keeps up!!

On the fourth day Captain Brett actually moved away from his spot and called a couple of his friends in. His sole charterer was worn out from fighting so many fish and his two deckies were worn out from constant work rerigging/ resetting lures and leadering fish. How’s that for a problem?

Now Mistress has done a total of 11 days and 3 hrs at Fraser since the end of September and has tagged 42 marlin comprising 33 blues, eight blacks, and one striped. That’s an astonishing average of 3.72 per day of fishing.

At the moment there are around six  boats fishing at Fraser, among them Brad Dobinson’s Special K and Captain Simon Carossi driving Assegai. Simon also has his Mothership there.

I imagine that once again there will be a fleet descend on Fraser in November. Some of the Cairns charter boats have announced their intention to come down. There will also be boats from both north and south making an extended visit around their Hervey Bay Gamefish Club Tournament attendance (Tourny 16th  to 19th Nov).

There are plenty of fish for everyone and I expect that as we fish the area more we will all learn more and enjoy an even greater level of success. As if it’s not outstanding already.

For more on the Mistress operation, or to book a trip, check out their website: http://www.fishingmistress.com/