Fishing on long haul or ocean passage

[CLady]

P.S.
Always take fixings for enjoying your fish.

For tacos--tortillas, tomatoes, cabbage to shred, onion, sauces
For sashimi--chopsticks, wasabi, pickled ginger, soy sauce, sesame seeds, etc.
For chowder--canned milk is a staple
For sauteeing fillets--Panco crumbs, crackers for crackers crumbs, etc.
For soup--your favorite additions for fish soup

[keyway]

I like to drag something on a hand line. Check out waay cool hand lines for ideas.
Tight lines

[slug]

Cleaning the fish at sea can be made easier and less messy by using the vessels fender board

Lash the fender board diagonally across the windward side stern pulpit

Make it secure

Then put the fish on this fender board table ... take a large nail and nail the fish ...tail...to the fender board

Once the fish is nailed to the cutting table it’s easy to clean in a seaway

Throw a bucket of water over everything to make clean up easy

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

I don’t think it’s that the deep sea has been fished out, it’s just that it’s always been a dessert. Fish congregate where there is shelter or food. Neither exist mid ocean, so you left chancing across a random hunter or a migratory school to hook something.

Commercial Fishing has indeed done serious damage in many fisheries, but those are mostly near coastal.

Here in Panama an interesting thing is happening which I saw and discussed w local fishermen on a recent fishing trip on the Pacific coast. Chinese factory ships are hanging out offshore, just out of Panamanian waters, and buying the catch from local fishermen. This has encourage much heavier commercial fishing by Panamanian fishermen who are depleting their own fisheries.

The root cause issue is of course world wide seafood demand. Stop or reduce the demand and the fisheries will recover. Sustain the demand and someone will find a way to fill it.

[n5ama]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Commercial Fishing has indeed done serious damage in many fisheries, but those are mostly near coastal.

This has encourage much heavier commercial fishing by Panamanian fishermen who are depleting their own fisheries.

My guess is its going to get harder for individual fishermen that fish in those near coastal areas to catch enough to feed their families and the Chinese aren't interested in buying those small non-commercial catches.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Great posts!! Thanks to all that contributed.

My 2 biggest concerns are...

(1) How do you know a fish is edible? (i.e. not poisonous or bad for you), and
(2) How do you filet it once it's on your deck?

[CaptSQ]

As others have noted, you should not plan on surviving on fish during a large passage (unless you bring some). On a delivery from Bermuda to St. Martin we only caught fish when we were leaving Bermuda and when close to St. Martin. 8 days of nothing. I use a boat line (parachute chord with bungee and long leader) as well as a Penn Tuna Stick with 80 lb test.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Cool Hand Luke

Great posts!! Thanks to all that contributed.

My 2 biggest concerns are...

(1) How do you know a fish is edible? (i.e. not poisonous or bad for you), and
(2) How do you filet it once it's on your deck?

(1) You don't. Avoid fishing in ciguatera areas (many tropical reef areas). Pelagic fish are normally OK.


(2) Lots of descriptions and videos all over the intertubes. Google is your friend.

[belizesailor]

Other than possible ciguattera contamination (for which there is no reliable test) there are VERY few fish that are toxic/inedible...some are just better than others.

An excellent encyclopedic coverage of every aspect of fishing from a cruising sailboat:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Scott-Ba.../dp/0071427880

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Commercial Fishing has indeed done serious damage in many fisheries, but those are mostly near coastal.


(...)

No.


In fact, deep sea fisheries have done exactly the same offshore.


Oceans have been depleted.


Neither can you in these terms say 'coastal supply has been affected' as in the oceans nothing is disconnected - you kill all inshore species = you deplete offshore species. It is a chain, and we are at one of its ends.


We are simply consuming too much, of everything.



https://foreignpolicy.com/2006/11/02...sh-in-the-sea/
https://www.zmescience.com/science/o...cean-20012016/



But hopefully for not much longer. Vide graph.



Cheers,
b.

[n5ama]

[QUOTE=belizesailor;3169574]Other than possible ciguattera contamination (for which there is no reliable test) there are VERY few fish that are toxic/inedible...some are just better than others.


I think you have to be careful with some fish that eat small poisonous fish and the poison accumulates in their flesh. I think some areas in the Caribbean have barracuda that are mildly poisonous just because of their diet.

I know that barracuda are edible and very tasty but in some locals might be a problem.

[AiniA]

We had very different results in different places. Between the Chesapeake and the West Indies just the occasional fish. Across the Pacific, almost nothing. Across the Indian Ocean we would catch a maki-mahi any time we fished. Generally a catch would provide for 3 to 4 days for four people. Once it was gone we would fish again. Usually catch a fish within a few hours.

[Lepke]

Fish like certain temperatures. Usually is a temp where their prey congregate. Tuna fishing I found 62°F a good temp line to follow. Also their eyes don't dilate, so as the sun goes up, the fish go down. You can use a planer when the sun is high. Most tuna lures mimic flying fish and trolling speed is around 6 knots. Faster is better.
40 years ago, we started tuna seasons about 1800 miles NW of Midway Island and traveled with the fish toward the West Coast, occasionally dropping down to Midway to offload our catch to a buy boat. To find the fish again, we'd look for 62°F surface water temp.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by n5ama

I think you have to be careful with some fish that eat small poisonous fish and the poison accumulates in their flesh. I think some areas in the Caribbean have barracuda that are mildly poisonous just because of their diet.


I know that barracuda are edible and very tasty but in some locals might be a problem.

Ciguatera does not originate with inheriently toxic fish, it originates with a type of dinoflagellate. The reef fish eat the algae in which this organism lives, accumulate the toxin, then bigger predator fish eat the reef fish. This is how Cuddas end up being a prime carrier of ciguatera.

The occurrence of this dinoflagellate does vary with region and thus so does risk of ciguatera poisoning. Example, I would never eat a Cudda in S Florida or N Cuba, the risk is just too high, but I do eat them in Belize & Panama where the risk is low. I do stick to the smaller ones though (theory being that smaller ones have had less time to accumulate the toxin, but Ive never seen an actual study of that).


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigu...fish_poisoning

[n5ama]

My experience has been around Cozumel. I've never had a problem eating them but some of the locals are reluctant to eat barracuda. That may be from a steady diet for those locals versus me (a very occasional diver in the area).

Most of the cuda on the reefs in Cozumel are small. I've never seen one over 3' long; however, the ones that park under the rigs in offshore Texas or Louisiana are commonly over 6' long.