Choosing the Right Lure and Skirt Colors for Warm Water Sport Fishing

Most experienced fishermen are partial and opinionated when it comes to off-shore lures and skirt combinations, and I don’t pretend to be any different.

But most new fishermen, who don’t have enough experience to form strong opinions yet, are looking for some help and advice for trolling lure and skirt color combinations; I get calls from guys like this every day.  It is with these folks in mind that I set out to write a few articles that can give a little guidance on choosing the right lures and colors when fishing for marlin or tuna.

But catching sport fish isn’t about knowing how to confront them in the span of just a month or two; you need to know their whole cycle.  That’s the only way to truly understand what works throughout various seasons.  Make sure you read this article on the Colors of Spring, and my next about temperature and currents as well.

If you’re trying to arrange a meeting with a monster, you will need to do a little homework.

As with any battle, understanding your opponent is critical; you need to understand the fish itself. Understanding their movements and appetites, along with anticipating their behavior, will allow for greater success.

Continue reading →

It’s time for the ocean to change again.

It is not a surprise that in a fluid world nothing really ever stands still. The constant pull of the moon, the big summer hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere are equally matched by the massive cyclones of the Southern Hemisphere, and then there are the greatest ocean-movers of all, tide and temperature.

Tide and temperature move more water than all other forces combined.  Temperature is subtle, and it can go unnoticed when the top 300 feet of an entire ocean slowly cools and begins to fall.  This endless shift of surface water to the depths and deep water upwelling is a timeless tune that all ocean life must dance to.

Knowing this dance is a secret that separates the casual fisherman from the serious sportsman. This dance becomes the calendar for the commercial fisherman, and the bible for all those that make their living from the sea.

Continue reading →

Fall, a season more associated with leaves falling from trees for most, means a completely different thing to a fisherman.  It’s not the falling leaves we are concerned with, it’s the falling water that means so much to us in the later months of each year.  Warm water rises, cold water sinks.  This simple truth is the guiding principle of all our vast oceans’ movements and currents.  These very movements create the predictable patterns in ocean life that, when studied, help us determine lure size, lure color, and what a lure should imitate to attract fish.

Ocean Currents

The Conveyor is the term many oceanographers use to describe the oceans’ major currents.  If you understand the Conveyor, then you can learn the movements of the things that live in the ocean.  From the tiny to the great, all things in the ocean live inside the great conveyor, and it gives them oxygen, food, and life itself.

Ocean currents flow over vast distances: these currents push against each other and in total they create the great flow of the global conveyor belt.  An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by forces such as wind, temperature, salinity differences, and tides caused by the pull of the moon.  Other factors like underwater contours and the shape of a shore line can influence the direction or the power of a current, but typically don’t cause the current.

Continue reading →