May Swordfish Club Meeting May 14!

[Ron.38 Special]

Wake up everyone, its time for the May Swordfish Club meeting.
May 14, 2008, 7:00 pm at the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club.

So what's new?
OK fishing has been slow at best recently but some interesting results from those fishing.
Buoy gear reports have been so bad that a few permits have been up for sale recently and at least one moving out of the area. NMFS reports from March show only about 1600 lbs of fish reported by our buoy friends in that month.
Recreational fishing reports show a total of 7781 lbs reported since Jan compared to about 27,500 total from buoys. Not that big of a difference when you compare fishing days, etc.

One interesting report in the last few days had the rod and reelers beating most of the buoy boats, so who knows what is going on.

DAYTIME!!!!
Recent report from RJ had him going 1 for 4 and a 25lb oilfish so if that is any sign, the daytime bite may be turning back on. Hopefully we'll have some newer trip reports by meeting day with this calm weather.

What's up in DC?
Vinnie, Ron, and Tim Palmer lead the Florida deligation and its obvious that collectively we have a lot of influence in DC these days and with the mix of the three of us, we cover all bases and have been helping each other out with our individual interests for the fishery. They certainly can't do anything related to swordfish in DC without one of us having some impact.

How about the EFP's in the closed zone?

We have an update from DC and on the water and we will share all of the catch data we have. Vinnie, Tim, and myself will be getting regular updates thru the Advisory Panel on all of the FEC fishing so keep in touch to find out whats going on.

Guest Speaker

Capt. Peter Wright is our guest speaker this month and those who have been at previous meetings with him know he always has some great info to share with his definitive style.

Its going to be a great meeting so keep it on your calendar and we look forward to seeing a full house.

[iriesoul]

darn i will be at the schmidt tourney...agh

[ProfessorO]

Sounds like a good time; I'll be there tonight!! cheers, arthur

[RiskTaker]

Originally Posted by ProfessorO

Sounds like a good time; I'll be there tonight!! cheers, arthur

Ya Mon! Glad to see you again after several lunar cycles!

So much hard work, so little Island time. Cheers,

[bajakian]

This should be a great meeting. Anybody who is serious about fishing and swordfishing should be attending. Hope to see a great turnout tonight.

[weekley rehab]

how do you join this club ?

[bajakian]

Originally Posted by weekley rehab

how do you join this club ?

You get someone to sponsor you and then go to a meeting and pay the dues. If you need a sponsor, Id be glad to be yours. The next meeting is in July.

[quack quack]

So tell us about the meeting last night.

[ProfessorO]

I had a great time last night. Sorry I could not stay longer and chat
some more with such a good group of people, but it was a school night
and I needed to get the kid home.

The meeting started off with Bobby telling us and showing some video
from a fishing trip off of Venezuela aboard the Coral Sea (I hope that
is the right boat name). Nice video of some 200 lb + yellowfin being
boated. We also heard later on about his fishing in Australia on the
Tradition.

Justin gave an update of the PSATs. The last data set that arrived
showed that a fish tagged around 25 54 and the 48 line went to
the an area just offshore of Grand Cayman Island. On the way there,
it dove to a depth >4700 ft!! We are going to try to use the water
mass properties to determine if the fish swam around the west
side of Cuba or the east side. I put Vinnie and his Dad on the spot and
asked them to guess what the analysis will show; they are betting on
the east side. This fish also exhibited more basking behavior than other
tagged fish. This was the fourth SAIL club fish tag and I'll let you know
when most of the data goes up on the site (some has already). A fish was just tagged recently and there are two more tags to go out that were bought by the Swordfish Club and some funds Justin raised.

Vinnie and Ron gave an update on the Washington DC front. Mostly
fishery folks are worrying about bluefin and sharks these days. It
looks like commercial shark fishing is just about over in American
waters and everyone is singing where did the bluefin go blues. With
Tim Palmer, they presented a unified (well, as unified as any group of
3 swordfisherman can be) presence for S Florida that I'm sure was noticed.
Statistics on bycatch in the experiments in the closed zone were given;
the numbers really did not surprise anyone, except that a couple of turtles were caught and the "Turtle People" are truly a political force to deal with.

Skip introduced some new members and some old members (thanks
for the kind words) and spoke about the club and its history and about
the guest speaker, Peter Wright.

Peter talked about Australia, a bit about his career, and catching big fish,
especially boat handling skills. His main points were (i) avoid backing
down on a fish, it is too slow a procedure, (ii) big fish are like professional runners, they give it all they got, then they must rest to regain their oxygen levels, so it is important not to let them rest (so don't back down on a fish); (iii) use as a small as rod as possible because it gives you better leverage; and (iv) the changes in drag due to changes in the amount of line on the reel, the amount of line in the water, the relative position of the boat and of the fish, and the diffference between static and dynamic friction (friction decrease after you get something moving) can be substantial, at least a factor of 2 or 3. He also talked about when to and when not to increase drag. He stressed that if you run over to a fish and you regained a lot
of line, increase the drag to finish it off (remember that the drag was
twice as high with less line on, so don't be afraid to crank it up) and take it easy when the fish is hot and back it down. THANKS PETER for a great talk!!

A rod with a baitrunner reel, a bunch of shirts, videos, light-sticks, and a
Peter-donated belt and harness were raffled off. Skip and another capt
kindly donated their winnings to Mike's Ladies fishing tournament.

Anything I forgot?? cheers, arthur
PS: The HHSSSC will have a joint meeting in Hollywood in the very
near future.

[swordstalker]

Nice summary Arthur. Good seeing you and the family last night. When you have a chance, I'd like to know how to find the link to the website with the current info. that Ron was talking about.

[ProfessorO]

Thanks Mark and as always, good to see you and the crew. Here is the
URL for the currents,

UM/RSMAS HF Radar operations - Public Data Archive

My colleagues are working right now to get another site up and
running (the original site was vandalized when the instrument was
first put there and very expensive not off-the-shelf antennae were
damaged ; then there was no sand and they had to wait out the
Broward sand politics; and then the grant funding was cut ......),
so they and the rest of us will be real happy when it is up and running and providing more northern coverage.

Swrodfish tag info at
South Florida Outreach: Swordfish Pop-Up Tags
cheers, arthur

[swordstalker]

Great stuff Arthur! Thanks