I just completed a weekend visit to Alabama and Mississippi for appearances at Academy Sports + Outdoor and Hibbett Sports. While I was there, I had a chance to talk with many people about the impact of the Gulf oil spill. When you visit the affected area it means much more than seeing the tragedy on TV from fifteen hundred miles away, so I considered it time to comment on the incident.
There has been such a widespread condemnation of the responsible party BP that I am not going to add to that, only to say the whole episode exposes man’s unpreparedness for such events. We are so quick to exploit both living and mineral resources without putting in place the necessary conservation or mitigating processes. There has been widespread commercial overexploitation of fish and shellfish in the gulf (bluefin tuna, redfish, red snapper, sharks, shrimp with consequent by-catch mortality) and extensive deep water oil drilling apparently without adequate procedures in place on site or along the coast to prevent accidents of this caliber and keep the oil from coming ashore.
Guy proudly assisting daughter Jessica
Already 2010 has seen devastating earthquakes, massive flooding, destructive typhoons, huge tornadoes, and now we are adding to this destructive scenario. In addition, we are at the beginning of what may be an active Atlantic hurricane season.
Sure, oil has been extracted from the gulf for over fifty years. Most of it safely, except for some small incidents here and there which seem acceptable to the industry. I am reminded that there are oil spills all around the world where drilling takes place but not on this level. The last major catastrophe was in 1979 in the Bay of Campeche (southern Gulf of Mexico) when the oil flowed for nearly three hundred days following an oil rig explosion. People have forgotten about that one. It was not well publicized and certainly did not have live underwater video of the tens of barrels of oil per second spewing from the broken well on our TV 24/7.
Experts say it could take a couple more months before the problem is solved. In that time the public will become accustomed to the bad news, and watch something else. Certainly Haiti does not come up on the news any more. But for the wildlife affected and for the people whose livelihood is severely interrupted, this event is as bad as a Cat 5 hurricane, an 8.0 earthquake or a terrible tornado.
The longer the oil flows, the more wildlife will be affected. Given the slow circulation of the gulf, the oil and dispersants is already killing off untold numbers of planktonic animals, fish eggs, larvae and juvenile fish which affect recruitment of these species for the next couple of years. The bluefin tuna particularly comes to mind as their spawning ground is affected by the spill. This species is already severely overexploited, and this will definitely affect the survivability of the species in the western Atlantic. While the adults of all pelagic species can avoid the oil, the juvenile stages cannot. Neither can air-breathing turtles, sea birds and mammals that have to interact with the surface.
Guy coaching son Alex. Guy and other recreational fishermen desire to leave our children and grandchildren a healthy resource legacy
Movement of surface oil and suspended oil droplets is likely to happen with slow passage out of the gulf then accelerating with the gulfstream proceeding to Cuba, Florida and the US east coast further north. The effects will be widespread as has been projected. In the mean time, over several years the remaining mass of oil will be slowly eroded through evaporation and breakdown by bacteria.
Our dependence on oil has to end at some point, the sooner the better. This accident is a very appropriate reminder that we need to turn to alternative, renewable energy sources as soon as possible. Sun, wind, hydrogen are all available and the technology exists to make meaningful changes over the next ten to twenty years.
Of course the oil companies don’t want to see this happen. This business is SO profitable that they are going to protect it indefinitely. However, while they are still in business, this event may encourage them to spend more money providing grants to gulf coast universities to assist in upgrading the scientific research work and improving our knowledge of the coastal wildlife ecosystems, nearshore marine and oceanic marine systems. In the middle of this disaster, let’s also not lose focus of the real habitat value that the offshore oil rigs have provided fish and other marine life for many years, both as working rigs and after decommissioning when the rigs are often sunk and turned into an environmentally positive Rigs-To-Reefs Program.
So how can we the public, living outside of the affected area, help? We can contribute time and dollars to the clean up process. This ecological disaster cannot be cleaned up by BP, even though they say they are going to pay for it. The effects of the spill are going to be with us for a long time. I am contributing time to do new designs printed by AFTCO to be sold through our dealers with proceeds benefiting suitable organizations on the ground who need assistance in getting the clean-up accomplished. In the same way following 9/11 I generated new designs the proceeds of which benefitted firemen and sniffer dogs in the New York area.
In the mean time dive safely and fish responsibly.
It is our collective responsibility to conserve the marine environment and maintain the biodiversity of the planet.
— Guy Harvey
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit: www.guyharveysportswear.com
Guests relaxing in the pool after a day on the water
The Big Game Is On! Memorial Day, 2010 marked the reopening of the legendary Bimini Big Game Club as a Guy Harvey Outpost Resort. Fifty one rooms and cottages, seventy five slips, Historic Alice Town and Bimini outside the front gate. Fifty miles east of Miami, perched at the edge of the mighty Gulfstream. Under brilliant blue skies, with the dazzling “Bimini blue” water as a backdrop, the opening was a picture perfect start to the launch of the new Guy Harvey Outpost system.
It wasn’t much later than 7:30 a.m. on opening morning, when the club received word that one of its guests had caught a 350 pound Blue Marlin just offshore. Certainly a good omen for the future of the Bimini Big Game Club! Before the weekend was over, there was a lot of fish dancing going on up and down the docks.
The Guy Harvey Outpost system has been created for adventure travelers and water sport enthusiasts who share Guy’s vision of respecting the oceans, land and cultures that together create the fabric of our blue planet. Unfortunately, we’re all too aware that the popularity of water-sports activities has increasingly pressured all theaters of marine biodiversity. Fortunately, the sportsman’s passion for his pursuits has brought, in fact, deepening appreciation for the stewardship each of us has in protecting the marine environment for current and future generations. That is the core mission of Guy Harvey Outpost–to create a memorable vacation experience for the entire family, and ensure each guest goes home with a greater appreciation of marine education and conservation.
From the Oceans Comes Life. The motto behind the Guy Harvey Outpost system tells the story, simply. While Ernest Hemingway may have beaten a path to Bimini before us, it inspired him to write, the now famous magazine stories and the award wining, “Islands in the Stream”. The Guy Harvey Outpost Bimini stands poised to write some new dispatches from the epicenter of sportfishing, from the very site where the first conversations about forming the IGFA were had between Hemingway and legendary angler, Michael Lerner.
Friends sharing stories and a cool one on the deck
This summer the Bimini Big Game Club, a Guy Harvey Outpost Resort & Marina takes center stage in the South Florida boating/fishing community, as it reopens after having been closed for two years. With the support of a private Los Angeles based investor, the property has been reconstructed and improved with new guestrooms, marina slips, the all new Bimini Big Game Bar & Grill (we call it the BGBG) and the stunning new Outfitter Shop, featuring Guy Harvey sportswear and a full complement of boating supplies and gear.
Always at the top of every diver’s Top-10 list, Bimini sits perched on a 2,000 ft. underwater cliff, just two miles from the docks. The Club’s full service dive shop will open in July, and the Club is excited to announce that scuba-dive legend Neal Watson has joined the Outpost team to ensure the best-in-class recreational diving service and programs.
This fall brings even more improvements, including a new spa/fitness center, new lobby and arrival experience, a lounge devoted to Hemingway and the history of Alice Town, and a Guy Harvey Theater, for enjoying the viewing of your HD videos and photographs, while also serving as a venue for guest appearances and seminars.
If you’re in or headed to South Florida or the Bahamas anytime soon, be sure to visit us. Mark the weekend of July 24th for our grand reopening party. Regardless, make a point to check in at the Bimini Big Game Club, and check us out. Help us write a new chapter in the history of Bimini that would make Hemingway proud. Become a character in our 2010 chapter and while your there, write some new history with old friends. The Big Game is On!
For reservations contact:
Bimini Big Game Club, Alice Town, North Bimini
Toll Free: (800) 867-4764
US Office: (954) 763-6025
On Island (242) 347-3391
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit: www.guyharveysportswear.com
Since I usually want to catch some other species in addition to billfish, color WILL matter on my smaller lures. I use blue, black or purple on big lures up close, in the wake, and like some red long lures because I can see that color easily. BUT, color does not matter for blue and black marlin—use your personal favorites!!!
I would strongly suggest NOT pulling a teaser, but would pull a Soft Head Magnum Super Chugger in a very short teaser position—with a single 12/0 hook located way back in the tail. I would use an 8 foot trace leader of 480 cable with a 20 foot wind on leader of 400 mono. Fish this lure right out of a rod holder in one corner—not in an outrigger. Change to a Wide Range in rough weather if the chugger jumps and flips over in rough weather. Have a fairly heavy strike drag, for example, 25 pounds and only back off when you get at least 200 yards off the reel. You won’t get a lot of bites on the very closest lure, but when you do, it will often be a really nice one!
Proper lure spread is key to gaining the fish's attention
If anything, EXCEPT a BIG blue or black marlin, tries to bite the large “Magnum” lure, I would take it away and pitch a smaller natural bait on a large spinning reel with lots of 50 pound Dacron backing and a 100 yard top shot of good mono. This is a perfect set up for striped marlin and all smaller species, as well as blues or blacks up to at least 200 pounds.
On the next short position, a flat line or a short rigger about 50 to 100 feet back, pull a Senior size wide range rigged the same way and also only let a big marlin eat it.
On the shorter of your long outriggers—say 100 to 150 foot back—pull a standard size chugger if it is calm. Pull a standard wide range if it is rough and the chugger style jumps out of the water too much. Have a single 11/0 well back in this lure on 400 mono.
Pull a standard wide range on the long rigger on at least 300 pound leader if using mono leader. Use two good 8/0 or 9/0 hooks, one well up into the head and other way back. (ALL the “way back” hooks on these lures should have the eye of the hook just barely covered by the strands of the skirts.) This is the first lure I would care about color. Use chocolate or pink, if there are any squid around, blue or blue and white if you see lots of flying fish, and green and yellow if there are mackerel or scads of this color. I also like 200 pound nylon coated cable as leader on this and other little lures. The long rigger can be up to 300 feet behind the boat.
I only ever use a single skirt on Mold Craft lures. When too many dingle dangles are cut off cut them all off and glue the inside skirt in place. You get twice the bang for your buck.
For the very long “shot gun” I would fish a small metal headed (3-5 inch) jet or bullet lure in a pink or chocolate color with a strong 8/0 or 9/0 SS hook on 300 mono. Pull the shot gun at least 50 yards back. The littlest lure will catch more fish than anything, except maybe the standard wide range, and do NOT be surprised if a 500 or even 800 pound marlin nails it!!! Again, I often use nylon coated cable for my trace leader. (Always use 2 sleeves when crimping this leader.)
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit: www.guyharveysportswear.com
Yellowfin tuna are prized by anglers for both their challenging fight and good taste
We are fortunate in the Cayman Islands to have several tuna species here, available all year round, but it is the yellowfin tuna that is preferred by anglers and commercial fisherman alike. Our preferred method of fishing them is to drift with cut bait gently sinking in the current accompanied by a lot of chum in the water. The smell of the chum brings the tuna and other game fish closer to the surface. Trolling using lures or rigged ballyhoo works well where tunas are not concentrated in one spot.
The yellowfin tend to congregate near undersea ridges. Here in the Cayman Islands this means they are found at East End, NW and SW points, and around 12-mile Bank. They are found further offshore around other oceanic seamounts such as 60-mile Bank, and Pickle Bank as well as the Sister Islands. Preferring the deep water, they linger where the current meets these obstructions and wait for baitfish to be pushed past them. Hence when fishing for yellowfin tuna, the fishermen are generally spread out on the up-current side of the bank. To see the tunas chase flying fish at the surface, frigate birds over head, will get any angler’s pulse racing.
The yellowfin tuna is the most brilliantly coloured of all the tunas with a broad stripe of golden yellow on its flanks, and bright yellow on all of its fins and finlets. The lower sides have vivid white spots and vertical streaks. I love to paint yellowfins, because of their bright colours, and wide eyed look in predator/prey interactions.
The Atlantic and Pacific forms of yellowfin have been called separate species, but all yellowfins are now considered to be a single species, found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. Large individuals with exceptionally long second dorsal and anal fins have been called Allison tuna — but these are just variations.
Yellowfin tuna grow to a fairly large size reaching 400 lbs., with most here being in the 20-120 lbs. size range. The Cayman record is a respectable 189 lbs. fish caught back in 1989. The IGFA all tackle record is 388 lbs. My daughter Jessica, has a current IGFA Junior Angler (girls) record of 198 lbs., caught in Panama in 2002.
The Yellowfin tuna is the tuna of choice in the Caymen Islands
I have spent a lot of time in Panama working on yellowfins, as some of the greatest concentrations of this species are found in the productive waters of the eastern tropical Pacific. There is a marine lab in southern Panama at Achotines, where most of the research work on yellowfins has been conducted. Adults are kept in captivity, and have been found to spawn daily as long as the water temperature is above 24°C. The production of eggs and larvae in captivity have allowed for extensive research on early life history and growth rates. This knowledge is very important when it comes to managing the fishery, particularly as the tunas migrate through the EEZ of many countries, and are fished offshore in international waters by fleets from many more countries.
Yellowfin tuna and big-eye tuna readily associate with spotted dolphins and spinner dolphins, in a unique relationship between a fish and a mammal. It has been suggested that the tunas take advantage of the dolphin’s food finding capabilities and tag along for the hunt. Once the bait schools are located the tunas and dolphin corral the bait, and then plunder the masses of fish. I have been fortunate enough to film these feeding episodes under water for my TV series, “Portraits from the Deep”.
Unfortunately many dolphins got killed in the purse seines set around them for the tuna swimming below. Purse seining was a very effective way of catching large numbers of adult tuna, with no bycatch, apart from the dolphins. Following the outrage of published numbers of dolphins dying using this method, two things happened. Firstly, those boats setting on the dolphin schools, had to free the dolphins, alive, and often used divers to accomplish this, successfully reducing dolphin mortality to almost zero.
Secondly, but tragically, the tuna boats would set purse seines on floating objects (natural and man-made) as tuna were known to associate with flotsam. As it turned out, this “flotsam fishery” caused an ecological disaster. But because it was carried on far offshore, and did not involve dolphins, the news of this destruction did not reach the consuming public’s attention. Being “dolphin safe” caused problems infinitely more serious for other species living in the open ocean.
Flotsam provides an oasis in the vast ocean under which juvenile tunas congregate, some adults, but also thousands of tons of other non-targeted fish such as mahi-mahi, many species of sharks, billfish, wahoo, jacks, sunfish, triple tails, turtles, manta rays, and juveniles of many reef species. All these, plus the juvenile tuna, ended up as bycatch and were unusable in this fishery. Thousands of tons were shoveled overboard, resulting in the unnecessary destruction of important game fish species, and the annihilation of the juvenile tunas that would in a few years have been the adults and the brood stock for the future.
It is our collective responsibility to be concerned with the resource issues facing the marine creature we target as seafood, and ensure the continued biodiversity of marine ecosystems and the survival of all marine creatures.
— Guy Harvey
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit: www.guyharveysportswear.com
Highlighting Guy's fishing in May was a blue marlin that staged an aerial display reminiscent of the featured on a number of Guy Harvey T-shirt designs
The month of May is bordering prime time for blue marlin fishing in the waters around Grand Cayman Island, my home for the last decade. In 2008, this was a month when continuing my quest to catch a blue marlin from my home waters during each month of the year would have seemed like a given — had it not been for my busy work schedule. Of course, I had anticipated these kinds of challenges and more before I even began this pursuit. For the most part, I would be limited throughout the year to fishing on weekends, and only those where I wasn’t traveling and when conditions appeared favorable. My goal was attainable, but over the course of an entire year, it was going to be a tough one to achieve.
Complicating matters further was the fact that, more often than not, I would be fishing by myself or with just one other person (sometimes experienced and at other times not) aboard my relatively small 28-foot Scout center console. I don’t have the bodies to work a typical bait and switch scenario; otherwise, I would. My best chance, then, is to troll lures. The blue marlin in the western Caribbean are generally small (120 to 160 pounds) but very aggressive, so the lures work well. My lures of choice are most often Mold Craft Soft Heads — especially the Wide Range. I seem to get most of my bites on the right short rigger where I run a black-and-red combination. On the left short I usually run a black-and-red Super Chugger. Completing the spread, I tend to run either a purple-and-black or a pink-and-white skirted combination on the long riggers, and on the stinger I troll a Junior Wide Range/ballyhoo combo.
I’ve had good success with single hook lure rigs, particularly since switching to Mustad 7691S hooks in 9/0 and 10/0 sizes. This hook, sometimes called a tuna hook, has more of a curve than the regular J hook and sticks a lot better. In 2007, I was only 4 for 16 in hooking up marlin that took my lures — a poor score. Following the suggestion of Capt. O.B. O’Bryan, I changed to the Mustad hooks and my hookup ratio increased dramatically, as evidenced by my success during the first four months of my pursuit — and a trend that would continue throughout the remainder of the year.
Testing the on-the water advantages of the newest additions to his fishing sportswear line, Guy Harvey prepares to deploy a favorite blue marlin trolling lure
Though finding time to fish in May was pretty tough, all efforts proved successful. With fishing partner Jim Sedgley on board, we caught the biggest blue marlin of the year, to date, on the northeast corner of Twelve Mile Bank. Estimated at 375 pounds, the big fish staged one of the most remarkable aerial displays I have ever witnessed from a blue marlin. Perhaps part of the reason was that Sedgley made quick work of the big fish, bringing it in quickly, where it jumped repeatedly right next to the boat. This was another one of those instances where I wished I had a video crew on board to capture the sensational action. It was a mere 30 minutes between hookup and release of that amazing marlin, after which we hooked another big blue at the other end of the bank later in the day. It too made some great jumps, but came unbuttoned in the process.
I was relieved to have been able to continue my streak of catching a marlin each of the first five months of the year, given my concerns going into May. Adding to the satisfaction was the visions burned into my mind of one of the most memorable battles with a blue marlin that I had ever witnessed. That had me eagerly anticipating June fishing, typically one of the very best times of the year to catch marlin around Grand Cayman Island, and a month where I hoped to pursue my quest in a more flexible and relaxed fashion.
— Guy Harvey
Check this blog next month for my adventures in June, 2008, as I continue my quest to catch a blue marlin every month of the year.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit: www.guyharveysportswear.com
In 2006, Dr. Shelley Clarke of Imperial College, UK, in collaboration with the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida conducted the first quantitative assessment of the number of sharks being killed by surveying fin markets. As part of this pioneering study, they estimated that 1.5 to 4 million hammerhead sharks are killed per year by commercial fishers just to satisfy the demands of the international fin trade! And these staggering figures are conservative because they only account for the three large hammerhead species (great, scalloped and smooth hammerheads) of the nine known species, and don’t include the many hammerheads killed that don’t end up in the fin markets. The actual number of hammerhead sharks killed worldwide is undoubtedly larger.
What accounts for this large-scale slaughter of one of the ocean’s most charismatic and evolutionarily distinctive creatures? It’s ironic that although hammerhead shark meat is considered of very low food quality in most commercial markets, their fins fetch amongst the highest prices in the world fin trade. Depending on the species, average wholesale prices for hammerhead shark fins range from U.S. $88-135 per kilogram of unprocessed fins – that’s 2-4 times more than the price of fresh tuna fillets in most U.S. grocery stores!
As you might imagine, this high market value for hammerhead shark fins has created enormous economic incentives to exploit them. The three large hammerhead species are distributed in tropical to temperate waters worldwide, and the absence of fisheries management by most nations, has resulted in their severe overfishing globally. The data shows that even in U.S waters where some management is practiced, hammerhead populations have declined over 80%! It makes the population status and future outlook for hammerheads in most parts of their range pretty dire.
These overfishing concerns resulted in the U.S. and Palau co-sponsoring a proposal to the March 2010 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to list all three large hammerheads on Appendix II of the international treaty. This listing would have triggered strong restrictions to international trade in fins from these species, reducing the economic incentives to continue unabated, ecologically damaging overfishing. Unfortunately, Japan and its allied countries were strongly opposed to such a listing and launched a major effort to defeat the proposal. In the final analysis even though the majority of nations voted in support of the listing, the measure failed because it did not receive the two-thirds vote required for adoption (final vote was 75 in support, 45 against and 14 abstentions).
With the failure of the listing proposal to be adopted by CITES, unregulated fishing and trade in fins will continue with the real risk that hammerhead populations in many parts of their range will be extirpated or at the very least reduced to the point of ecological extinction. This will not only add another significant disruption to the proper working of our ocean ecosystems, but is also ethically deplorable.
So what’s to be done now to try and conserve hammerhead sharks? The Guy Harvey Research Institute scientists and their collaborators from the Save Our Seas Foundation are working quickly to collect scientific data on the population status of hammerhead sharks worldwide, and develop rapid DNA forensics tools that can be used to track the origin of fins in the market to their geographic origins. This information is essential to bolster the case (get more supporting votes) for international trade restrictions at the next CITES meeting, and for supporting implementation of protective fishery regulations for hammerhead sharks by individual countries.
Thank you for your continued support of the conservation research and policy initiatives that are being worked on to prevent these amazing and unique sharks from being commercially overfished into oblivion.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy HarveySportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
Restricting angler access can prevent the grandfather (Milt Shedd) from sharing with the grandson (Casey Shedd) his first bluefin catch
On April 16-17, 2010 the Administrator of NOAA Dr. Jane Lubchenco and Eric Schwaab head of NMFS hosted the Saltwater Recreational Fishing Summit in Alexandria, Virginia. Over 100 leaders from the recreational fishing community attended to convey the needs of our community to our government officials. Success or failure of this effort can only be determined over time by future actions of NOAA and NMFS. As the Chairman of the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) Government Affairs Committee and Co-Chair of the International Gamefish Association (IGFA) Fisheries and Conservation Committee, I was asked to speak on the importance of Angler Access. The following are those remarks:
“Public access to the public marine resource is critical for both practical and emotional reasons. On the practical side is the loss of opportunity caused by restricting access, which is greater than meets the eye. Closed areas typically target the best habitat locations. That is where the fish are, so that is where fishermen need to be to catch them. Leaving for example even 95% of a given area open and preventing access in the other 5% that contains the good habitat can easily reduce fishing success by 50%, 60%, 70% or more. If you don’t understand fish and fishing 5% is no big deal. If you are an angler you understand that it can mean the difference between success and failure.
When we lose access, the resource suffers because it loses its most important supporters. Anglers contributed over $604 million in 2009 for fishing license fees and an additional over $700 million in excise taxes on fishing tackle and motor boat fuels. These monies provide the backbone of funding for fishery resource management efforts in the states. Over the last half century anglers have contributed over $30 billion to resource management. What group will replace those dollars if the unintended consequence of restricting access causes anglers to stop fishing and buying licenses and fishing tackle? If anglers are forced off the water, who will replace that data source for catch, biological and economic information?
Another reason angler access is critical is that it helps support an important economic contribution. The 13 million saltwater anglers in the US generate 533,000 jobs and contribute $82.2 Billion to the nation’s economy. Most important for the resource, this economic benefit is generated by taking only 3% of the US harvest while the commercial sector takes the other 97% and at the same time provides fewer jobs. A major frustration in our community is that there seems to be a growing trend of not recognizing these important angler contributions to the economy and the resource. Recent evidence of this trend can be seen by what is now transpiring in California with excessive no fishing zones, it can be seen by President Obama’s draft report of the national ocean policy, and can be seen by draconian fishery management measures under Magnuson-Stevens. We are not the enemy of the resource. We are its most important supporters and that should be recognized. NOAA needs to follow the lead of the Department of Interior by recognizing the benefits & value of the recreational fishing community and give us access priority with ocean policy.
Earlier I mentioned that to understand the angler access issue you also need to understand the emotional and personal factor. While it is true that we must catch fish to have a valuable fishing experience, fishing is about the family. It is a relationship activity passed down typically from father or grandfather to son or daughter. Everybody in this room who fishes can think not only of the moment, but the exact spot where you had a memorable fishing experience with a family member or friend. Right now where you sit take a second to think about it. I see some smiles. That means many of you can already see that spot in your mind. To the rest of the world that location may not be so different from another, but to you it is part of your experiences and part of your quality of life.
I understand first hand this emotional issue with access restrictions. I live in Laguna Beach California where the environmentalists are on pace to eliminate all fishing (even catch and release) for 5 of the 7 miles of my cities’ coast line from the shore out to about 3 miles. This stretch is the best habitat in all of Orange County. I fish and dive 30-40 days a year from my kayak right in the middle of the area that is about to be closed. When the environmentalists tell me it is no big deal you can just go fish someplace else, I think of the spot where my son caught his first legal halibut. I think of hundreds of other memories and all I can do other then scream in frustration is to simply shake my head and walk away knowing I can’t make them understand because their experience with the ocean is so different than mine. Theirs comes mainly from reading books or looking at maps, photos or TV. Mine comes from real on the water experiences which translates into memories I cherish.
The vast majority of anglers are not against all closures. What we are against is restricting our access without a significant proven fishery benefit to overcome our personal loss and the loss to the resource and the economy. We are against closures put in place without proper data to support them and without considering the socioeconomic consequences. The ocean is a public resource and the fishing public deserves to receive the highest priority for its future use.
The Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge Tournament Series
Catch and Release Shark Tournament Hailed as a Model for Sport Fishing Enthusiasts and Marine Conservationists
The Tournament Series will be an all-release shark fishing tournament off the Southwest Florida coast, beginning with a qualifying round April 30 – May 2 at Burnt Store Marina in Lee County and concluding with a Grand Championship Finale May 21-23 at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota County. The grand prize, based on fifteen, two-man team entries, is $10,000 with additional payouts through fifth place. Incentives will also be offered for a variety of bonuses, including largest shark and recaptured tags. The entire competition will be filmed for network broadcast.
To reduce landing times, innovative competitive guidelines require the use of heavy conventional tackle (no spinning reels), an 80 pound minimum line class and inline, non-stainless steel circle hooks. There is a five-foot minimum length for all qualifying species, which include: shortfin mako, tiger, great hammer, scalloped hammer, dusky, sand tiger, bull, lemon, sandbar, spinner, blacktip and nurse sharks. All animals will be measured in the water and identified by anglers at boat side before being tagged, either conventionally or with satellite tracking tags. Tail snares and other special equipment will be used for angler and animal safety, as well as for the expedient handling and release of sharks.
“For the first time, what we call a ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ shark tournament will be transformed into a true spectator sport,” said Sean Paxton. He and his brother, Brooks, known as the Shark Brothers, are tournament directors and architects of the event’s unique format. Along with Co-Director and Associate Producer, Captain Robert Moore, they state, “Our shared vision for this tournament is to effectively combine the goals of sport, science and conservation, while giving participants and spectators the most exciting, entertaining and educational shark-infested, multimedia spectacle found anywhere on the planet.”
In 2009, the Paxtons, and Robert E. Hueter, Ph D., Director of Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research (CSR), teamed up with renowned marine wildlife artist, scientist and conservationist, Dr. Guy Harvey to present this innovative competitive event designed to serve as a model for responsible sport fishing and conservation.
“The Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge Tournament Series will be a uniquely exciting event for participants, spectators and everyone who cares about the future of our oceans,” Guy Harvey said.
Joining tournament directors, Mote and Guy Harvey in this ambitious effort are partners and supporters: Ray Judah, Lee County Commissioner; Luke Tipple, Director of Shark-Free Marinas Initiative; Florida Gulf Coast University and other advocates of effective environmental stewardship.
Dr. Robert Hueter, director of Mote’s Center for Shark Research, will oversee the scientific aspects of the tournament. In addition to using standard tagging methods, some of the sharks will be outfitted with satellite tags in a cooperative effort with Lee County and the Florida Gulf Coast University so researchers and the general public can track their movements immediately after release.
Hueter has built specific scientific objectives into the tournament and collaborative research project. Anticipated results include:
- Documentation of shark species composition, relative abundance and size/sex data
- Migratory behavior and stock identification data from conventional tagging studies
- Post-release survivorship estimates
- Identification of shark critical habitats, including nursery ground
Teams participating in the Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge will be trained to conventionally tag all qualifying sharks over 5 feet in length to earn points.
One priority in this project will be to satellite-tag certain candidate species including large female great hammerheads (Sphyrna mokarran) which are found in the tournament region in April-May, often pregnant. The pupping grounds for this species in the eastern Gulf of Mexico are relatively unknown, and satellite tags on these large sharks will help to elucidate the location of these critical habitats. Once the shark is measured and scored by the competing anglers, it will be handed off to the research team who will place a satellite tag and release the fish.
For all event details and contact information, visit:
TheUltimateSharkChallenge.com
Additional info:
GuyHarveyOceanFoundation.org
Mote.org
Photos provided by: The Shark Brothers & Captain Robert Moore
His quick-dry Performance fishing shirt, new to the Guy Harvey Sportswear line, gets a good soaking from Guy's release of another blue marlin at boat-side
April through June is generally considered the best time of the year to catch blue marlin in the waters around Grand Cayman. This is tournament season, and April of 2008 offered a measure of added intrigue because new blue marlin records had been set early in the month at nearby Barbados (505 pounds) and Trinidad (824 pounds). That had me eager with anticipation that big fish might move through our area, and a feeling that this could prove to be the opportune time for someone to break the Cayman Island blue marlin record of 584 pounds set back in 1984. That fish serves as a benchmark for establishing the minimum qualifying weight for those who participate each April in the annual Cayman Islands International Tournament. During the competition, any marlin caught that’s under 584 pounds must be released. I’m proud to say that catch-and-release is alive and well in the Cayman Islands.
My opportunity to fish the four-day tournament, which took place from April 17 to 20, was at the invite of owner Fu Liem and Capt. David Carmichael aboard their 50-foot “sailboat” Java Knight. It was a bit of an unconventional approach, but nevertheless, on April 19, our team made history by becoming the first to catch a blue marlin from a sailboat while fishing in a Cayman Islands tournament. While under sail, we caught and released a 140-pound blue at the south end of Twelve Mile Bank, plus managed two other bites that day, one of which I estimated to be a marlin of about 350 pounds.
One of a number of Guy Harvey's paintings of a blue marlin intending to feed on dolphin fish, the same species Guy caught in April just prior to a marlin hookup
On the Thursday following the tournament, I boarded Makaira II after a day’s work to see if I could once again catch a marlin by myself. With just a couple hours of fishing time to work with, I trolled up a big dolphinfish off Papagallo, then after a few circles in the same area, had a fine blue marlin inhale my shotgun. The fish pulled hard then jumped where I could see it was bigger than the usual. It was a 45-minute battle of maneuvering the boat and fighting the fish before I could get the marlin close enough to grab the leader. As I tried to hold her close and reach for my camera, the 300-pound class fish made a quick move and broke the leader. Not bad, though, for a two-hour jaunt. I had left at 3 p.m. and returned home by 5 — and I had extended my streak of catching a blue marlin from my boat for each of the first four months of the year.
A couple of days later, the really big blues that I was hoping, if not expecting to see migrate through Cayman waters finally did arrive. During a charter trip aboard Hit ‘N’ Run, captained by Derrin Ebanks, the crew teamed up to catch a monster blue marlin that weighed 610 pounds, making it the largest fish of the species ever caught on rod and reel in the Cayman Islands. It was an epic five-hour battle to subdue the record-size blue, but because several anglers took turns fighting the fish, it did not qualify as an official Cayman Islands line-class record.
—Guy Harvey
Check this blog next month for my adventures in May, 2008, as I continue my quest to catch a blue marlin every month of the year
How much of the color range a marlin can see is still an open question
Among the questions I get asked the most, two of the most frequent are: “What colors do you prefer in marlin lures?” or “Can marlin see color?”
Answer number one is “I don’t really care” — which is only partially true. I tend to prefer colors that I can see. I like colors that allow me to quickly see the lure when I glance back at the baits. Red catches my eye and so does white. Purple isn’t bad, and an orange and black combo is quickly picked up by my eye when I look back at the lure spread.
I also like colors that remind me of something that actually exists in the world of marlin food stuff. Blue and white reminds me of flying fish. Both purple, and a combo of red, white, and blue look a lot like the color I see when I get a side view of skip jack tuna surfing down the waves. Yellow and green is the color of small dolphin fish and some of the scad mackerel that most bill fish regularly snack on. I have had great success on chocolate or reddish brown lures that look to me like squid and stay down and DON’T make a bubble trail. I think it doesn’t really matter.
The answer to the second question is “No one really knows.” We have a few ways of making educated guesses but there is still some argument among the top bill fish scientists about what bill fish can see.
There is no doubt that some fish (including tuna) have excellent color vision. The rainbow hued reef fish species that divers and snorkelers revel in should have color vision — Why else would they be colored like that? — and they do. They live near the surface where all the colors of the spectrum still exist and use color displays for a wide range of behavior including mating, species recognition, and territorial defense.
Bill fish cannot be kept alive in a confined space. We can only look at their eyes and compare them to the eyes of other species: fish, mammals, or reptiles and compare the physiology. From sophisticated experiments on other animals we know which types of cells are necessary to see color. Marlin eyes are mainly lacking in the types of cells known as “cone” cells needed for color vision.
Scientists can also analyze the chemicals present in the specialized cells that send the signals to the brain. Marlin retinal cells have a high proportion of the photo active chemicals known from other species to respond to the wave lengths of light in the part of the spectrum we call blue but have little of the chemicals for other colors. The inference has been that marlin see mainly shades of blue (the only color left at extreme depths), but can’t distinguish between other colors and are “color blind”. A new study by an Australian researcher indicates that marlin might have some limited ability to perceive color.
The only CERTAIN thing about lure color is that if the lure does not first attract a fisherman it will not get used. If it does not get used it will not get bitten. No marlin, anywhere in the world, has ever stolen a lure from a tackle shop or out of a tackle drawer.
I once brought in a particularly ugly, over skirted, all white with rust stains, lure, that ran like an old rag that a client had asked me to put out. When asked why, I said, “it didn’t run very well as it had too many skirts.”
“I’ve already weighed one over 1,000 pounds and another over 900 pounds on that lure” was the hurt reply at my rejection of his favorite lure.
Needless to say I put it back out and left it out!!!
I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
