Fishing Fury Wins A Tripbase Award

This one’s no April fools joke either, we’ve won for best fishing/angling blog! Tripbase is a great site for finding vacations when you just want to get away, it’s kind of like a good slot machine in that you giver a pull- and it will spin out great some results from all over the globe! Give it a shot, if not just to see what amazing destination you could go to if you left tomorrow. We’ve decided to display our award on the sidebar, so as you scroll down please applaude.

This awards category is for the best fishing blogs of 2011. To compile it, we scoured the Internet for the most passionate fishing and angling blogs out there which guide readers through the many types of fishing and angling vacation.

Whether you’re a newbie trying to work out how rod licences work or an accomplished fly fisherman looking for a helicopter tour of Russia’s salmon lakes, we’ve plucked only the best blogs from a very long list of possibilities.

All the blogs we encountered were brimming with enthusiasm – fishermen and anglers are devoted to their passion. We have had to select the blogs based on their ability to express this passion in a clear and educational way. We’ve given preference to blogs which provide photographs, even if they are just of men holding large fish. We’ve also given preference to the angling blogs which describe the sites and the surrounding area, ideally noting the nearby pubs and amenities available to fishermen.

Below is the final list of award winners. We hope that you’ll find them enlightening if you’re just starting out and edifying if you’ve got a few years experience under your belt. This is your first port of call on the way to angling heaven.

When You’re A Fisherman, You’re Always A Fisherman

Le Mouching forwarded this to me this morning, and it made my day!

Two Dollar Tattoo Project

Some of you may recall our friend Philip Barbosa from one of our epic fishing expeditions in La Paz, Mexico, where he out fished even me! And though you won’t recognize the person who did his tattoo, it’s actually Alie K., Phil’s girlfriend and creator of the new Fishing Fury logo.

Recently Phil, with the help of a few great artists, created the tattoo art project Two Dollar Tattoo. Here’s a description:

All artists participating will be expected to create unique works of tattoo art executed with only a single needle (as in single-needle configuration, No cheating using a round or a mag for any of the tattoo!). Line-work, shading, colour…all must be executed with the same needle! The size of the final product will be expected to fill the space of a “toonie”, a Canadian two-dollar coin (approximately 28mm or 1 1/8” in diameter). The artist should utilize all of the space within the circle since in this case its not just size that matters. The Two Dollar Tattoo Project is expected to be both a game of camaraderie as well as a professional courtesy for artists and industry people. The only monetary exchange for the tattoo is to be a shiny Canadian $2 coin, which can be used for sizing of the drawing and final stencil, and MUST be utilized as proof of compliance with the set parameters.

Of course Phil’s not one to create without participation, and so he got his own Two Dollar Tattoo of Ebisu – one of the seven gods of fortune, but more specifically the god of fishermen.

via Two Dollar Tattoo

Fishing Fury Renovations And Additions

That’s right, we’re moving again! I’m sure some of you have noticed the recent instability in the site, we’ve even been discussing it in the forums. We’ll we’ve got our new hosting setup and we’ve already moved our sponsors program and galleries.

The move will happen sunday night/monday morning and I hope that it’s quick and painless. While you’re waiting we invite you to our newest project, it’s still beta so be gentle!

Legendary Fishermen is a community site focused on bringing people that love fishing together. Our aim is to create a community where people can share their love of fishing, meet fellow anglers around the world, and display the infinite spectrum of wonder the fishing world has to offer.

The site is running WordPress MU and Buddy Press, We’ve never run a site like this before so we thought, why not get release early and let the needs of community dictate the direction and features of the site. Ultimately you will be able to connect with other anglers around the world, read their blogs, write your own too of course, and more! Right now the blog creation is turned off until I can figure out some of the settings and themes, but your blog url would be something like myblogname.legendaryfishermen.com, that and 500MB of space for your photos and videos all for the price of.. FREE!

Have fun and I hope to see some new members and groups when I get back from Lake Scugog tomorrow afternoon. I hope everyone is having a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.

Cerralvo Island, March 11th 2005

We wasted no time once we arrived at the beach and immediately jumped in our boat, and Dan into his. We had the same guide as before (Cayo), since he seemed to share our intense passion for catching fish. The sea was a little bit calmer this day and we were able to make very good time getting to our destination. Cayo carved his way through the waves and swells with the precision only a person who had spent their entire life on the ocean could do. The sun beat down hard on us as our guide netted bait fish. It was obvious that today was going to be a very hot day on the water, even though clouds had begun to move in. We lathered up with sun screen and headed for deeper water.

The day started slower then our previous trip. We circled the area for a quite a while before we had our first hit. It was certainly worth the wait when line started peeling off my reel. I had decided to stick with the equipment supplied by Fishermen’s Fleet this time instead of my muskie equipment. Now I was using a nice big Shimano reel spooled with forty pound line. While many anglers use a heavier line for fishing saltwater, all the reels here seemed to be spooled with the forty pound line because the main fish we are targeting (Pargo, commonly known as Snapper) have very good eyesight and don’t hit the bait on heavier line. The only drawback to using only forty pound line is that these fish are extremely strong and can reach over one hundred pounds. They immediately pull straight down into the sharp rocks below, cutting your line. The idea is to chase the fish once hooked and bring in as much line as possible. You can only hope that the fish will head toward deeper water, because if they don’t, you will more then likely loose the fish. I of course learned this first hand after battling a good size pargo for almost five minutes before my line got cut. There isn’t a whole lot you can do when these fish start to run. I tried my best to keep the rod tip up and bring in as much line as possible to no avail. When you try to bring in the fish quickly you risk the chance of breaking the line from stress, but when you reel to slow you run the risk of loosing the fish to the rocks. It requires a very precise mixture of finesse and brute strength.

Continue reading Cerralvo Island, March 11th 2005

Get Girls Fishing!

Welcome back fishing fans. We disappeared for a while, but now we are back and ready for action. A lot has happened in the last few weeks, the most exciting news of course, is that Gillian and I got engaged!

To the north temperatures are rising steadily and the taste of spring seems to be sending fishermen into a buying frenzy preparing for the upcoming season. Down here in the British Virgin Islands there are no seasons, nor do the fish migrate as they do in Florida. I haven’t taken a break from fishing in more then seven months and life is good.

After an incredible month of tarpon fishing in February the action has died off dramatically in March. Numbers of tarpon are sparse and the ones that are around are not feeding. I try and fish for tarpon at least a couple times a week, my favorite day to fish is Tuesday. About a month ago I sent out invitations too several of my friends here inviting them to Tarpon Tuesday, and each week more and more people show up. While catching the tarpon has proven difficult lately, a variety of beer people and food makes Tarpon Tuesday a successful event each and every week.

This week we will be attempting to catch sharks and we already have a large bucket full of blood and meat ready to be used as chum. With sharks exceeding eight feet in length and dangerous species such as tiger sharks and bull sharks lurking nearby, things promise to be very exciting.

Finally, for all you guys out there who hate being nagged by your significant other about how much time you spend away from her fishing, here is a how-to guide that should solve that problem!

Written by Gillian Hyde

Does your wife or girlfriend hate the fact that you fish? Does she get on your case about the amount of time you spend out on the water and with your friends? I bet you wish you knew how to get her to stop complaining, or even better, how to get her to go on the occasional trip with you. Look no further- you’re about to get some really great advice from someone (a woman no less!) who went from an anti-fishermen to being a passionate fisher(wo)man within a couple of months.

If you told me a year ago that I would be fishing on a regular basis I never, ever would have believed you. Now not only am I fishing a lot, I’m ENJOYING it! My life as I once knew it is over.

I’m your typical vegetarian; I don’t eat meat or fish primarily because I don’t like the idea of killing animals. I stopped eating fish nearly ten years ago because I don’t like the taste. As a child, I went fishing a couple times a year with cheap Canadian Tire rods, bobbers and worms, seeking out white perch in the lake behind my house.

I stopped fishing about fifteen years ago after an experience at a U-Fish (where a lot of fish are bred for catching and eating in a small man-made pond), where I got in trouble for not killing a fish after catching it. Even back then, when I was still eating meat and fish, I didn’t want to participate in the killing of the fish because it felt wrong. My step-father took the fish that I caught and slammed it against a table, killing it instantly. I was mortified, and I didn’t fish for the remainder of the day.

Continue reading Get Girls Fishing a How-To Guide For Men