Sailfish City - Stuart Florida Community Site

Today through Saturday.

Artificials Only Inshore Fishing Tournament, Squid Lips Grill, 1660 Indian River Drive, Sebastian.

 Snook, trout, redfish.

Payout: $500 for first in each division.

Captains meeting 6:30 PM today.

Entry: $50.

Info: www.TCFCircuit.com or call (772) 633-8800

Stuart, Florida is the location for Surf Central’s Treasure Chest Pro-Am surfing tournament.  The competition begins this Saturday, March 29th 2008 at 8:00 AM and continues until the following weekend ending Sunday, April 6th 2008.

There will be a wide array of categories and brackets surfers will compete in:

• Groms (up to 13 years old)
• Juniors (14 to 17)
• Mens (18 to 35)
• Masters (36+)
• Open Longboard
• Flanigan’s Pro Longboard
• Open Women’s (Shortboard)
• Costa Del Mar Airshow
• Pro Skins event
• Bono’s Stand-up Paddleboarding

Stand-up paddleboarding is a rapidly growing sport and is all the buzz in Hawaii and California.  This will be the first time the sport was represented in a contest in Florida and possibly the entire East Coast.  Celebrities have been recently featured in photographs on-line and in magazines paddleboarding because of the core-training benefits the sport has to offer.

RESULTS HERE

There is a great article on catch and release survival rates of Sailfish over at CyberAngler.com. Many people seem to think that the most effective way to improve Sailfish survival after release is using a circle hook rather than a J hook. In this article by Captain Ray Rosher, he discusses other conservation topics that most people tend to overlook.

One of the first points he discusses is that the type of hook you use is not the most important factor in making sure the fish survives after release. While circle hooks do help in preventing gut hooking, Capt. Rosher suggests that a J-hook could be used successfully as long as you avoid accessive drop back. If you aren’t sure which hook to go with, the circle hook is the better option. The J-hook is a tried and true hook that many anglers love, but this type of hook is being banned from most Sailfish tournaments in the modern era.

One idea of what determines whether a sailfish will live or die after release is actually the fight time. We all live for the fight with the fish, it’s why we do it. But if you want to make sure to do what is best for the fish, try to keep the fight as short as possible. The longer the fight, the more stress that gets put on the fish, the greater the chance the fish won’t survive.

Probably one of the most critical factors in fish survival is how the fish is handled. Most pictures you see of caught and released sailfish has the fish up on deck or being held by the angler for a photo op. When the fish is flopping around on deck or being handled, the slime coat on his scales is being wiped away. This coat helps to protect the fish against infection and the more the gets wiped away the greater the chance the fish will die days later. The best way to help conserve the fish population is to keep the fish in the water, have your photo taken leaning over the side with the fish in the water. This minimizes the contact the fish will have with human hands or gloves, the deck and even the side of the boat. If you must take the fish out of the water, do it quickly and try to make minimal contact, and try not to let the fish bang against the side of the boat while lifting it out of the water. When you are ready to release, try swimming the fish along side the boat until it seems like he has some renewed energy before release.

One of the last points is how you cut the fish lose. To many anglers will tug the leader to snap it if they can’t remove the hook, this causes an enormous amount of pressure on the fish, tearing additional tissue and causing more stress, reducing the chances of the fishes survival. The best method is to cut the leader with either a sportsman’s knife or a pair of fishing pliers. Don’t worry about leaving the hook in the fish, many sailfish have been caught with old hooks still in their mouths, better to leave the hook and cut the leader than to have to handle the fish excessively to wiggle the hook out.