Variety is the spice of life, or so the adage goes, and nothing could be truer when it comes to pursuing marlin. Each captain and crew does things a bit differently in an effort to find big fish and improve their numbers. Whether those differences come in the form of how they set up their spread, rig their terminal tackle or go about finding a particular spot to work, you'll see a wide range of styles used when chasing marlin. And, each time you step on a new boat and fish with a different crew, odds are you will learn a fresh approach to an old trick.
Here, we ask our captains four more of the big questions in offshore fishing. If you haven't read the first five yet, just pick up the February 2008 issue of Marlin Magazine...
About Our Captains
Capt. Clay Hensley's introduction to the world of big-game fishing came on his father's well-known 55-foot Hatteras, the Beastmaster, which fished throughout the Caribbean. For the last 14 years, however, Hensley has run boats around the globe, spending nine seasons in Madeira and seven in Ghana, Africa. He's fished St. Thomas, Hawaii, Mexico, Venezuela and a host of other locations, weighing in three granders and releasing nine estimated 1,000-pounders.
For more than 15 years, Capt. George Crenshaw has run boats throughout the Gulf of Mexico. He currently runs the Galati Yachts demo boat based in Orange Beach, Alabama. His long list of tournament wins in the Gulf also includes victories in the Bahamas Billfish Classic and ESPN's Billfish Xtreme Release League.
Although he grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Capt. Andy Moyes started running boats professionally in Costa Rica in 1991. He now operates Never Say Never, a 68 Hatteras, and Never Say Never Again, a 33-foot L&H, for owner Jim Carr based out of Miami. In his years as a captain, Moyes has fished Bermuda, the Bahamas, up and down the East Coast and all over Central America.
For the past five years Capt. Ryan Higgins has worked for Viking Yachts as the company's captain. Higgins got his start working as a mate out of Bud N' Mary's marina in Islamorada, Florida, during the summers while in high school and college. He's been a professional captain for nine years now and currently runs the factory demo boat, Viking 60. The Viking team fishes 15 to 20 tournaments each year from the Northeast down to Venezuela and Costa Rica, including the Gulf of Mexico and Bahamas.
Capt. Randy Jendersee has run Free Enterprise for owner Skip Dickerson for 24 years. The current Free Enterprise is a 65-foot American Custom. Before that it was a 54 Bertram and a 44 Striker before that. Based out of Miami, Jendersee has spent 18 seasons in St. Thomas and 15 in Mexico. His longest single trip took him from Florida all the way to Alaska and back. That trip took two years and eight months.
Q & A
1. What single thing do you think has changed sport fishing the most in the last 20 years or so?
Hensley: "The GPS sure makes knowing where you are much easier and more important. Bottom machines have come a long way but they've been around for a while. The GPS really opened up the sport."
Crenshaw: "I'd say the biggest change is the boats. They're so much faster, so you can get to places faster. Electronics have changed so much, too. I'd say it's between the two - the boats and the electronics. Everything is point and go. We can now get satellite info from computer on the boat, take the satellite imagery and inlay it onto the GPS and it's pretty much all there for ya. It cuts a lot of the guess-work out. Our average run is 150 miles one way, so if you screw up and go the wrong way, you're done for the entire weekend."
Moyes: "I think the biggest change is all the new locations that have opened up and all the creature comforts at these marinas in such places as the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and now Panama. Traveling is a lot more convenient these days with today's boats that have more range. The boats are self-contained and you can stay on them for long periods of time."
Higgins: "The biggest change in the sport is the boats. With the speeds we can achieve and the fuel capacity, today we're getting a lot more range and are seeing boats in more and more places. Where it was a big deal for a boat to go to Mexico 20 years ago, it's a day trip now. In our 35-plus knot boats we can leave Key West and be in Mexico in 10 hours or so. A lot of destinations used to be big deal to go to and only a handful of boats did it, but now hundreds of boats are going to Mexico, Costa Rica and Venezuela. We just had a 74 make a transatlantic on its own bottom to the Cape Verde Islands - that's a huge jump!"
Jendersee: "The biggest change is the boats themselves. Boats today are bigger and faster. It used to be that lots of places seemed far away and that is no longer the case. And, more people are traveling to remote places because they feel safer in their boats. When I started fishing in St. Thomas, we were one of 12 or so boats; now there's 50. With the fuel capacity and the speed of the boats today, you're not restricted."
2. What are your three favorite knots that you use?
Hensley: "I use a flossed Bimini for the double and pretty much on everything, including the swivels."
Crenshaw: "I don't really have any favorite knots; I crimp everything."
Moyes: "The Bimini twist, of course, a single-line Bimini on the swivel (also called a Benjamin knot) and a Yucatan knot for a light wind-on."
Higgins: "We always use a Bimini twist for the double, an Albright for connecting lines and a nail knot or uni knot for hook baits."
Jendersee: "We use a Benjamin knot on the swivel. Other than that we mostly use crimps."
3. What is your preferred technique when targeting blue marlin? Why?
Hensley: "Bait-and-switch, hands down. There's nothing more exciting, and it requires complete participation from the captain, angler and crew. It also makes for better video and photos. All the action is right there in front of you."
Crenshaw: "Up in the Gulf we pull lures, but what I really like is pitching baits back off the bridge teasers. In the Gulf the fish are not as aggressive and you can't really pitch to them. Well, you can try but you won't catch as many.
Moyes: I'd rather bait-and-switch. It's more exciting and more hands-on for the angler and the crew controlling the teasers. You can catch fish faster with more excitement on the leader."
Higgins: "We prefer pitch-bating. We'll keep our normal spread out there, and if a blue one comes up, we'll crank in the flat lines and throw out one of the larger pitches. We're comfortable catching blue marlin up to 400 pounds on smaller 20s and 30s. From being in Venezuela so much we've gotten the hang of catching larger fish on smaller tackle. I feel that when you have such light drag on the fish, it will stay up on surface and give you more of a show, and you can use the boat to get down and catch it. Once you start putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the fish I think it has a tendency to want to stay down."
Jendersee: "I think the most exciting way to catch a blue marlin is to pitch a bait to them. When you tease the fish up to the back of the boat and get bit right there, it's just more exciting than the fish grabbing a rigger bait. It's more fun for the angler to drop back, and it requires a lot more skill, too. We'll keep a big pitch bait like a mackerel ready and a smaller one like a horse ballyhoo for littler fish."
4. Do you think circle hooks are the wave of the future?
Hensley: "Circle hooks are absolutely the future, especially in places like Costa Rica and Guatemala where they do a lot of baitfishing. We've used them successfully when live-baiting, but we're usually looking for a really big fish or a world record on light tackle, and we don't use them that much. I'm seeing them used more in Hawaii for live-baiting marlin and tuna."
Crenshaw: "As far as I'm concerned circle hooks haven't made a difference to us. No one has come up with a tried-and-true way to rig a circle hook with an Islander and ballyhoo. If the tournament rule comes to pass, I'll stick to pulling plastic. On the fish we've caught with circle hooks, half were caught in the jaw and half in the guts. I haven't seen a big difference yet."
Moyes: "Circle hooks are absolutely the wave of the future when it comes to bait and switching. We've been using them since '95. I think most are afraid of them because they're something new. Just be patient with it. A lot of guys think marlin take a long time to eat the bait and they'll do a super-long drop back. That's really not needed at all. We only use a slow three count on sails. The main thing is to get used to rigging the circle hooks and just be patient - don't be in such a hurry."
Higgins: "We use circle hooks a lot and all of our guys are very good at catching fish on them. Our guys were fishing with them anyway before talk came around about making them mandatory in tournaments. When that finally starts in 2008, it's not going to be anything new for us."
Jendersee: "For me the jury is still out on circle hooks. If the fish always gets hooked in the corner of its mouth, then that's a good thing. But, it's hard to be convinced just yet. They haven't been around long enough, and I have seen some fish that were gut-hooked from circle hooks. I'm not totally convinced yet, but it all sounds good as far as conservation goes. We use them in the Pacific where it's mandatory when you troll baits, but we're still in the experimentation phase."
