With larger and larger fish comes larger and larger tackle. In order to rig properly for some fish, a crimp is necessary to form the connection in 200-400 lb test rather than a hand tied knot...
#MacroMonday Fish: Revealed
Mystery Fish: Revealed
Preserve Your Catch-Homemade Vacuum Sealer
Florida Keys Yellowtail
A Fisherman's Most Important Tool
Good rod and reel combos, great weather, and the right bait. I think we can all agree that these are key variables to catching not only more fish, but also bigger fish. But, one vital tool you may take for granted might surprise you, your eyes. Often times, if you hadn't have seen that Cobia just under the surface trailing a leatherback turtle or that bull Mahi swimming down a swell
Best Last Day Ever! Scott Walker Slams in Mexico!
Aboard the Ringleader, a 63 foot Weaver, Capt. Scott Walker gets ready for the last day of this trip. Mexico has been good to the crew with amazing food like Scott's Tuna Salad (Click Here for his awesome recipe) local treats and some of the best fishing in the World.
How We Roll In Mexico-Blackfin Tuna Recipe
Scott Walker's Personal Blackfin Tuna Recipe From Mexico
Appetizer
1. Take the sweet shoulder meat of a medium blackfin and chill it for one hour then slice thin and serve with soy sauce and wasabi paste.
Lunch
2. Make a pan out of foil ,double thick, and place rest of tuna sliced 1 inch thick on hot grill. Pour Old Bay liberally over it all. After 10 minutes flip fish over and add some more Old Bay to taste. When spatula can cut fish clean through it done. Use spatula to transfer directly to bowl.
3. Add mayo and finely chopped sweet onions and peppers. Stir until coated with mayo.
4. Serve on freshest bread possible with a lime or lemon garnish and some hot sauce.
5. BAMM!
6. That's how we roll in Mexico.
How To Make A Perfect Haywire Twist, FAST!
When you watch a professional do something, they do it with practiced perfection. It could be anything...watch how a stone mason who has been doing his craft since he was 20 builds something. It looks easy, smooth and effortless. Watch how a professional golfer hits a chip shot, an artist draw a quick sketch...anything.
Why does it look easy? That is a very simple answer. It looks easy because it is done with absolute practiced perfection. What you are watching is muscle memory and fine tuned, refined techniques to get the absolute best results.
Fishing knots are no different than any of the other skills I mentioned above. They require practice, lots of it. When you do practice, your hands begin to move more efficiently and the knots get tied very quickly.
The Haywire Twist is a very easy knot to tie. We use it anytime we are going to connect a swivel or hook to solid wire to prevent the toothy fish from cutting out line. As a charter Captain and commercial fisherman in Key West, Steve Rodger fishes for King Mackerel, Spanish Mackerel, Cero Mackerel, Wahoo, Barracuda, and Sharks. Each of these fish will go through heavy fluorocarbon leader in seconds so he uses solid wire alot.
This video is one of my favorites because it not only goes through the knot and shows you how to twist a few up, but the video goes further and shows you how fast a professional fisherman should be able to tie a Haywire Twist.
Watch how Steve's hands move and I believe that you will be able to tie them faster yourself. Also notice how each one is identical to the next.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Walker's Tuna Salad
What do you do with the odd shaped end pieces off of your Tuna steaks?
Scott Walker shows you how to make an unbelievable Tuna Salad with the end pieces and...a microwave!
Check it out here:
Scott Walker's Go-To Knot
It is hard to argue with Scott Walker's success rate. His knots are strong, his tackle is meticulously rigged and cared for and his boat is impeccable.
When Scott says something works, it is best to listen. You see, Scott doesn't take anyone's word for things that work. He begins a process of testing and retesting until he is satisfied. My experience with Scott is that his process takes alot longer than others and involves alot more testing.
When you get on Scott's boat, every rod looks exactly the same. Every leader is the same length and every knot is exactly the same. This is no accident nor is it an OCD Captain gone crazy. Scott has found precisely what works and replicates it every time.
His go-to knot for tying on a hook is the snell knot.
Check out the way he ties it here:
4 Steps To Prepare Hook Baits
Last week we saw Scott Walker change his Swordfish rod over to a rig to pull a 60 pound dredge for Marlin fishing and he taught us how to properly make a crimp. Today, we see him rig his hook baits in a 4 step process.
Of all the Captains I have ever fished with, Capt. Scott Walker has always impressed me with the way he prepares his tackle. It is meticulously rigged with great concentration to details and it all looks exactly the same. Scott has found what works for him and he does not deviate from the winning formula. The result is success in tournaments and success for his anglers.
Scott goes through the way he rigs his hook baits for Blue Marlin step by step in an easy to follow instructional video. Notice how he doesnt fully rig 1 bait at a time, rather, he gets everything ready, measured and perfect and then starts to rig the baits.
Check out this video:
How To Make A Perfect Crimp To Pull A Heavy Dredge
As the seasons change, our gear must also change. Scott Walker is taking his Swordfish rod and converting it to a rig for pulling a dredge for Blue Marlin. The dredge that he will pull is very heavy and resistant. The tackle has to be strong to simply pull it all day but also has to be strong enough to withstand (hopefully) many attacks on the dredge through the day.
One of the changes that has to occur is to cut the terminal end off the Swordfish tackle and crimp a swivel onto the end of the line with a thimble and protector.
Scott goes step by step through the process of making this crimp and shows you precisely how to crimp for maximum strength and durability. Of course, there are tons of other uses for a crimp beyond pulling a dredge and Scott's instructions apply anywhere you may need a super strong crimp.
Check it out here:
How To Filet And Prepare A Tripletail
Scott Walker Nets A Beautiful Tripletail with the Frabill Power Stow Net
How do you clean and cook a Tripletail?
In case you didn't know...Steve Rodger is a funny dude. He has a way of explaining things that just makes you smile as compares the marine world to things in the regular world.
In this video, Steve tells you about the fish, Tripletail. Many people may not know what a Tripletail is, but Steve explains how they feed, hide and live in a funny way. One thing some people may not know about Tripletail is that they are one of the very finest table fish in the ocean.
After Steve explains the inner workings of the Tripletail's brain and methods of hiding from predators, he shows you how to clean it and cook it. Enjoy!
Step By Step: How to Filet a Yellowfin Tuna
We have alot of people asking about how to clean and prepare all the different fish we catch. This year, we really tried to shoot lots of video with step by step instructions on just what we do.
Want to see how Scott Walker cleans a Yellowfin Tuna? Here is a video of him showing you how to clean a fresh Yellowfin he just caught.
Scott is using a Bubba Blade 9 Inch Flex knife and gives you step by step instructions on exactly where to make the cuts to pull two beautiful loins off the fish.
Yellowfin is one of our favorite fish to catch and to eat. If you have a great Yellowfin recipe, post it to the comments.
How to throw a cast net
The number one question that we receive is most definitely associated with cast nets. Most people want to know how to throw one better and make sure that it opens every time.
For us, cast nets are a tool like a hammer is to a carpenter. There is no way around it, we use cast nets just about every day. It has been said that "Necessity is the mother of invention" and that is completely true when that is related to Florida Keys fishing guides and cast nets.
There is not one way to throw a cast net. I would not even say that there is a right or wrong way to throw a net...there is just the way it needs to be thrown to make sure it opens on the school of bait when it appears.
No one really cares how you get the net set up. No one is judged on their setup, but everyone is judged on the spread of the net and the harshest critics are the baitfish. Either you cover them or you don't. If you able to pancake the net every time, you will catch bait faster than the rest of the boats and you will be on the fishing spot sooner. This means that you have more time to fish and will likely catch a ton more fish. Guys who struggle to open the net get to the fishing spot late and may only have one chance to set up for the rest of the afternoon. Throw after throw, the net gets heavier and heavier and you get more and more tired. The chances of making the best throw of the day go down. Conversely get your bait in one throw and you are set and on your way to having a great day. You will have happy customers and that usually means big tips!
It would be great to be able to say that we have never thrown a net that looks like a banana, or worse...doesn't open at all, but that just wouldn't be honest. Everyone has bad throws and everyone has made a bad throw when bait is being tough and suffered the consequences described above. That is why everyone has a different way to throw the net. The guys who really know how to throw a net have practiced and come up with their own way to throw the net. It may be very similar to someone else, but chances are that there are subtleties that make each throw unique.
In this video, we go over the way that each of us sets up the net and prepares for a throw. It is interesting that we throw the net very differently from one another but it looks very similar when it hits the water. This is because we have had to learn how...trial by fire...when the bait is tough and every throw counts.
The second most asked question is regarding the size of the nets we choose and why. I think we answer that in this video as well.
Check out this video and let us know if it helps you throw the net better.
The two ways that we described in the video are by no means the only ways to throw a net. There are as many ways as there are fishermen. Those are just the ways that have worked for us.
As an example, of another way to set up and throw, Jake Perry who is right handed, throws the net left handed. We shot a quick slow motion video of him throwing as well. Notice the difference in the way that he throws.
Some people have thrown a net a certain way for years but may not want to put the net in their mouth any more, or some dont like the shoulder set up. Check out the 3 different ways that we throw the net and maybe try a different approach.
Shoot a video and send it to us. We may do another post with even more styles of throwing.
Featured
Cleaning and Cooking Red Snapper
Cleaning and Cooking Red Snapper
We get alot of questions about how to clean fish and how to cook it. As professional fishermen, we are fortunate to be able to have a large supply of fish available to us year round.
Red Snapper are one of the finest eating fish in the ocean and are available over a broad area. You cant always keep them, but when you can, you are in for a treat.
Steve Rodger shows you how to clean them and gives suggestions for how he likes to cook them both grilled and fried. Steve is an advocate of simple recipes and gives you 2-3 ideas on how to clean and cook not only Red Snapper but also any of the Snappers and many other white meat fish.
Steve uses a 7 inch Bubba Blade and goes through exactly where to make the cuts and how to remove the skin. Fileting a Red Snapper is extremely similar to tons of other fish and all the snapper family so if you need to brush up on your fish cleaning skills, check out this video.
You can also go to our website and see the full length episode of us catching Red Snapper in Louisiana and see exclusive web content on all the gear we used and tons of other information only available at http://www.intothebluefishing.com/
How do I catch more and bigger snappers and groupers?
How do I catch more and bigger snappers and groupers?
Man, we get this question all the time. Everyone wants to catch bigger bottom fish...including us!
Here is a great tip that you need to incorporate immediately if you are not already doing this...what is it?...
Mix sand with your chum and send your bait to the bottom inside the chum ball. Also, simply dropping sand/chum balls to the bottom in the area you are fishing gets the chum to where the fish are. When you just put out a chum bag, you are only getting the chum to the surface of the water and maybe a couple of feet below. This is great for Yellowtails, but the grouper has no idea that chum is even there.
Here is Steve in a quick video to show you how it is done
Photog Blog- By Jason Stemple
Red, White and Blue Show
sunrise at the marina, looks like a good start to the day. nikon d800, 16mm, f/4.0, 1/30 sec
fire in the sky. nikon d300s, 70mm, f/4.0, 1/80 sec
The day we shot the Red, White and Blue show was probably my favorite day of the trip. We arrived at the marina and loaded gear into the two boats while an amazing sunset exploded the sky with color. As we rolled out into the channels that led us to the Mississippi it became clear that this would be by far, the calmest day we had seen. We stopped on our way out to cast net some mullet, then headed out a little ways to Sabiki up some blue runners as well. I was on the fishing boat from the start, so was able to shoot some good bait catching shots and some other detail stuff that I hadn’t been able to do from the camera boat.
a nice run out the mississippi. nikon d800, 16mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec
The little sharks were quick to join the blue runner party, so as Scott and Steve loaded up the livewells, I shot some underwater of the little bait stealers. I use a GoPro on a long extendable pole for this kind of shot, it allows me to stay dry and to switch quickly back and forth between underwater and regular photography. The little sharks were fired up after eating a couple of runners, and would come right up to investigate the GoPro with mouths open. I had to dodge the teeth and bump them a few times, but got some fun shots. In about 20 minutes, we were full of bait and settled in for another half hour run out to a deep rig that Captain Billy Wells hoped was holding tuna.
Quickly after arrival at the rig, we saw tuna busting the surface, so they tossed out a few freebies and dropped back a couple of baits and quickly came tight. Scott made quick work of a little Yellowfin, which Steve handled and released. Scott dropped another bait back and a few minutes later called out “white marlin”. He had just seen a quick glimpse of a rounded dorsal working his bait and blurted it out. He came off the declaration a bit as he talked through what he had seen, “could have been a shark…” But he was determined to find out, a moment later he felt the bite, and dropped the bait back so that the fish could eat. Then he reeled down on it, setting the circle hook, the line came tight and the rod bent under the pressure, but there was no jump. Probably just a shark we all thought. But Walker had just come from a summer of amazing white marlin fishing in Maryland, so certainly nobody would want to call his instincts into question. A moment later it launched proving his call correct, and then kept jumping putting on a great aerial display.
Scott loves white marlin almost as much as sailfish, so hooking this fish 1200 miles from where he was catching them a couple of days earlier was awesome. The fight lasted about 25 minutes and when they pulled the fish along boatside, they realized that it was about a 100lb fish, which could have won a lot of money at the tournaments that Scott had been fishing back in Maryland. After a nice release we circled back around to the original position a little ways off the rig.
Now it was Steve’s turn. In the next half hour or so, they caught a few little tuna and worked through some sharks then Steve got a big bite. It became apparent quickly that he was locked into a pretty big yellowfin and that this might take a little while. After about a half hour, he got it to the surface, but with a cameraman in the water and the camera boat coming over for a shot, each time it came up, it would sound again. I was able to use the extended battle to my advantage to get some underwater shots of the tuna and a hammerhead that was investigating the activity. Eventually they brought the tuna on board and again we circled back to deploy more baits.
blue marlin launching. nikon d300s, 150mm, f/4.5, 1/5000 sec
another blue jump. nikon d300s, 200mm, f/4.5, 1/5000 sec
This time they dropped back a little tuna with the other baits to see if there were any bigger marlin around, and it turns out there were. A half-hour after catching the tuna, Steve’s marlin bait got hit hard, and a big blue marlin went airborne. Next, it did a series of jumps right past the rig before circling back around us. The fight went on for about 10 minutes before the big fish broke off, leaving us in silence. Despite losing the big blue, it had been a great day. They went on to catch a few more little tuna before a nice relatively smooth ride back to the docks.
blue marlin tailwalking past the rig before breaking off. nikon d300s, 70mm, f/4.5, 1/5000 sec
Photog Blog- By Jason Stemple
Cobia and Tripletail Show
getting ready to pull up to the first cobia rig. gopro hero3+, f2.8, 1/2500 sec,
This show is really a tale of two very different kinds of fish and different kinds of fishing. As I discussed last week, the wind had been hammering us on and off (mostly on) during our stay in Louisiana, so we had to come up with options that kept us in the fish and out of 10 foot seas. On last week’s show you saw one of those options, as we fished a nearshore rig for red snapper. Another close in option was to go rig to rig searching for cobia. Cobia are strong aggressive fish and are also great on the dinner table. They can be deep at times, but are just as likely to be cruising the surface circling a rig, where they can be sightfished.
a jig heading right for two surface cruising cobias. nikon d300s, 110mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec
scott bringing the first cobia to the boat. nikon d800, 28mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec
steve helping out with the frabill net. nikon d800, 22mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec
So the drill was to pull up to a rig and look around on the surface while casting jigs and letting them drop down a ways next to the rig before retrieving them. There is no lack of structure out in the Gulf and it didn’t take us long to find a couple of big brown bombers cruising the surface. Scott hooked one quickly on a jig and its partner sank out of sight before Steve could double it up. Steve kept casting as they will often hang around a hooked fish, but we never saw the second fish again. It took a little while, but Scott got the fish boatside and Steve scooped it up in the Frabill net then it took a nice cool ice bath. A half hour later Scott hooked another nice cobia and they repeated the scenario.
cobia number two on board. nikon d300s, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec
The tripletail fishing was a little bit different. While they do love structure, we found them in the bay where we were catching bait for the red snapper show just drifting on the surface. So for tripletail, the technique would be to drift the bay with the wind and current looking for single tripletails floating on the surface, then cast live shrimp to them. So we set up on the upwind side of the bay and drifted. We seemed a little overboated, with 2 boats in the upper 30’ range fishing in 15 feet of water, but you roll with the hand you are dealt. And besides, the tower on the 39’ Yellowfin gave them a great height advantage for sightfishing. So Scott, Steve and Captain Kevin Beach from Mexican Gulf Fishing Company were all in the tower with a couple of light spinning rods and a bucket of shrimp.
steve hooked up with a nice tripletail. nikon d800, 35mm, f/9.0, 1/500 sec
Tripletail are funny creature, they will float on their side drifting on the surface or right up against some sort of structure mimicking trash until something smaller swims up to use them as structure themselves, and gulp! When you first see them floating they look like a plastic grocery bag or some other trash until you can get a closer look. We ended up seeing 5 or 6 in our first drift and Steve was able to hook two, getting one to the boat and into the ice. It was Steve’s biggest tripletail to date and he later gave a little clinic on cleaning them back at the dock.
out of the net, into the yeti! nikon d300s, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec
Quote of the day “Homie’s like a band-aid” Steve said as he explained how they stick to structure.
tripletail at the fish cleaning station. nikon d800, 98mm, f/5.0, 1/2500 sec