These "FishStories" are not meant to be an enclyclopedia on different species of fish, but my ways of fishing for trophy fish. There are many ways to fish a certain species, some we will cover when they are our way or close. We will try to show differences in styles with some fish. We are aware that many of you have a different way of doing things, but we wish to give you an alternative that you may try if your way isn't working to your satisfaction.

Just to give you a little background we have fished all over North America, in 44 states, Canada, the Atlantic, Pacific, the Florida Keys, and south to the Carribbean. I scippered my own charter vessel called "Happy Hooker One" for about twenty some years in the Gulf of Mexico out of the Cortez Fishing Center docks in Bradenton, (Cortez) Florida USA. We were a Sportfishing charter, but fished most all species located in this area. We spent some of our earlier years in the charter business specializing in shark trips in Tampa Bay also. We sold Happy Hooker One in the fall of 2007 to some lovely people from Atlanta, GA. My oldest son Todd is at this time the skipper on this vessel. If you are looking for a sportfishing charter, you will do well to contact them. We amassed pictures of over 3,000 trophy fish while fishing the Gulf of Mexico. You may look at the site at www.HappyHookerOne.com or you will find some of these fish on this site.

I will be writing on many different species in the future, but at present wish to talk about some of the more conventional ways that work for a number of different sportfish. Most fish respond to food. This is the one common thing that most will agree on. Sometimes the best bait will be found swimming near your vessel. What the fish are eating is what is present. That doesn't mean that they won't eat something else that you have in your cooler or live well at the time, but if you can match the present bait and size they are used to eating, they may not notice some of your bad tackle.

By bad tackle, I mean that many go to the bait store and buy ready made rigs that would scare any intelligent fish half to death, but they think that the fish will eat it anyway just because someone sold it to them that was supposed to know what they were doing. Many tackle stores are selling what they can't get rid of, or what people buy because they don't want to spend the time to make a rig that the fish will not shy away from. The biggest part of getting a fish to eat sometimes is just not puting something in the water that it will look at twice. The more a fish looks at your bait, the more the chance it will not want to eat it. Enticing a fish to eat is an art that most do not have the time or the patience to learn much about. Instant strikes are the best way to get a hook-up in most cases.

Always try to take the place of the fish. Do you align a bait to perfection? Is the bait fresh, look tantalizing? Is your rig tied with something that is invisible in this color of water? Is your leader long enough that the fish can't notice your heavy line? The larger the fish the more likely it has come in contact with a hook at some time, or maybe many times. To attract trophy sportfish regularly, you must present the bait in a natural way, it must be fresh, the fish has to immediately look at it as free lunch! We all know there is no such a thing as free lunch, but some people and fish will always hit on something that looks like a great, delicious, fresh, free meal. This is why we have so many free lunch scams for people. Someone always bites. Fish are a lot like people in many different ways. If you pay more attention to the little things, you will certainly land more trophy fish.

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Numbering opened 01/2010