The Katie C. Sawyer Podcast

Ep. 03 Mike Calabrese: Kite vs. Dredge Fishing for Sailfish

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In this conversation, Mike Calabrese discusses his history and experience in fisheries throughout the globe. He explains the technique of kite fishing in South Florida and the importance of bait culture. Mike also discusses the sailfish migration and their preferences for different types of bait. In this conversation, Mike Calabrese discusses the differences between kite fishing and trolling for sailfish, highlighting the advantages and challenges of each method. He also explains the impact of seaweed and grass on fishing success and the relationship between seaweed and baitfish. Mike shares insights on water clarity, cold weather, and its effect on fishing. He delves into the technique of hooking a fish while kite fishing and the importance of angles. Additionally, the conversation discusses teaser fishing and the importance of quality dredges. Mike then introduces Firetailz, which offers lightweight and durable artificial dredge baits for fishing.

 

Videos by Dave Collier

 

https://www.firetailz.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/fire_tailz?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

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TRANSCRIPT

Katie (00:03.18)

What's up you guys? Welcome to the KDC Sawyer podcast. I'm your host Katie and today I'm sitting with Mike Calabrese. Mike, thank you so much for joining us. Where are you sitting in from?

Mike Calabrese (00:15.719)

Hey, Katie, glad to be here. I am at my home today in Jupiter, Florida, South Florida.

Katie (00:21.838)

Is that where you're from originally?

Mike Calabrese (00:24.327)

Somewhat, I'm from a little further south, Pompano Beach, Broward County, and my work and stuff on boats had brought me up this way the last few years, so decided to call Jupiter home.

Katie (00:36.524)

Jupiter is a really, really pretty place. What's your experience? Give us a little bit of rundown of your fishing history, your experience in the field.

Mike Calabrese (00:40.071)

Great town.

Mike Calabrese (00:47.268)

Oh boy, okay. So growing up in South Florida, obviously near the water, fishing was always a thing as a kid. Started out freshwater, bass fishing in the canals where I grew up. And then that elevated into my buddy's dad was in a boat rental club. We used to take a boat out and go catch mahi. And then I went to a high school where I met some friends with boats and that led to...

some tournament fishing with some friends from high school, which we got pretty good at, and ultimately took up work on boats in my early 20s, kind of undecided as to a career, had a connection on a boat, and the rest is history. Never look back.

Katie (01:32.879)

So you're fishing, you're fishing with predominantly southern Florida for a good chunk of your early years, correct? Or your early in the industry years.

Mike Calabrese (01:42.947)

Yep, that's right. I worked for a program that we pretty much did South Florida kite fishing and then we go to Key West a lot. But mostly Florida before a new job and taking on some travel in my mid -20s after the first job I had which is mostly South Florida based.

Katie (02:02.832)

Where did you go once you started traveling?

Mike Calabrese (02:06.469)

Um, so after the first job, I went to school to get my captain's license. I met a fellow there, uh, who was also a fisherman. We became friends in class. And, uh, after this class, uh, he reached out, asked me if I wanted to help deliver a boat, um, from Stewart to Panama, I believe. And, um, I had nothing else going on. I said, sure, let's do it. And, um, met a captain there. It was an American custom yacht. Uh, had a good trip.

ended up going back for another delivery which brought me from Costa Rica to Cabo San Lucas where I ended up meeting another boat that was in need of a crewman and that was a boat called the Patriot, a big 80 foot Monterey, Captain Terry Stancil and his wife Bonnie and the timing was right there. I met them in Cabo San Lucas and came back a little while later to start my work there for several years I worked on the Patriot.

That was a great learning experience, great program. Fished the Gulf of Mexico and then eventually we towed the boat with a mothership across the Pacific down to Tahiti onto the Kingdom of Tonga and then New Zealand was the distance of that travel. It was a very outstanding trip, yeah.

Katie (03:26.707)

That's so cool. That's amazing. Okay. So when did you start in Cava with Patriot? Like, what year?

Mike Calabrese (03:37.67)

That would have been probably around 2005, 2006? Yep.

Katie (03:44.147)

And so, what were you fishing there? Were you fishing like the finger bank, Gordo? What were you fishing in Cabo?

Mike Calabrese (03:49.894)

I had missed the big striped marlin season there up the way there at Mag Bay. They had done it previously before I got there. I was actually there for a little while and then we brought the boat back to the Gulf of Mexico that summer. We caught some striped marlin out front, but never the big number stuff that folks are seeing now.

Katie (04:09.94)

Were you... Was that your first exposure to like marlin fishing?

Mike Calabrese (04:15.237)

Uh, somewhat. Um, I did have a stint with a friend of mine who, uh, family had a boat and I second mated that, uh, in St. Thomas for a season, which was another great learning experience, blue marlin fishing in St. Thomas. Uh, but other than that, yeah, I had minimal, minimal marlin experience until that point.

Katie (04:35.541)

So the St. Thomas Marlin fishery is pretty, I've never done it myself, but it's like, I don't want to say rat blues, but like small blue marlin, correct? Like kind of similar to Costa Rica or am I off?

Mike Calabrese (04:45.477)

Huh?

No, St. Thomas is actually known for bigger average quality size fish. Probably 250 to 500 is, you know, but it gets a little rougher there. The fish are angry there. They're very aggressive. Good average size fish, probably average three plus and aggressive and good teaser bites and people love it there for the angry fish. And it would be probably starting in June, but it seems...

Katie (04:55.158)

Okay.

Katie (05:11.095)

What's the season in St. Thomas?

Mike Calabrese (05:17.701)

you know, a little later, the best times I would say would be August, September, October, perhaps lately. Late summer. Mm -hmm.

Katie (05:23.704)

Nice. Super cool. So, man, I hadn't realized that you were towed on a mothership across the Pacific Ocean. That's a story for another time. I'm going to try not to focus on that because I have a million other questions I want to ask you. But you kind of you caught me off guard. You blew me away there a little bit. But OK, cool. So growing up in South Florida, you were doing the now you mentioned the kite fishing. That's something that.

Mike Calabrese (05:38.413)

Yeah, okay.

Katie (05:53.081)

I actually didn't know even was a thing until well after I had started kite fishing for Yellowfin Tuna in the Pacific with Artificial. And I came in, this is for the listener, I came into, back to the Gulf of Mexico and was starting to work with an organization that had me in South Florida for a little while and I called Mike up and I was like, hey, I need to understand this kite fishing industry. Like, why are we?

why are we flying kites for sailfish and why only here? So Mike, can you give us some some insight on that?

Mike Calabrese (06:31.268)

Yeah, so I mean, I certainly didn't invent it or anything like that. I guess down in Miami in the 1950s or so, a fellow figured out how to build and fly a kite and dangle some baits from it with release clips. Basically in South Florida, it's kind of a function of our geography. We have a very steep drop off off the coast. It drops off pretty quick. Therefore the lane that the fish

tend to hang out and travel in is quite narrow. So for example, typical sailfish depth here, a lot of places, call it 100 to 200 feet of water. As you get down to South Florida, it's a fairly tightly compressed lane. With that being said, trolling can be difficult to stay in that area, to maximize your fishing in that lane. This fella,

I know Bob Lewis was one of the first guys to build a kiter. Those are the first kites from Miami there. Great idea. What it does is it enables you to, almost like an outrigger, get multiple baits away from the boat and also fish them on the surface of the water where sailfish like to come up and feed. It's very visual. You get to see the bite often. It's a fun way to fish. It's pretty efficient. Yeah, it's a fun way to fish.

Katie (07:57.821)

That's cool. So what you guys are doing is you're using the kites to put the baits in a very specific area because there's only a small surface area where these fish are most likely going to be congregating and feeding.

Mike Calabrese (08:13.636)

Right, so, you know, that's the thing about any fishing is you never exactly know where the fish are gonna be as far as depth of water, location. But basically we'll take the wind direction, wind direction combined with current, and that's how you decide to where you're gonna put your boat and how your kites are gonna angle behind the boat and what depth of water they're gonna be in. So we'll fish two kites.

typically, you can do more, some people fish three. But we'll take two kites and we'll, those are each on their own kite rod, which is an electric rod, short, like a teaser rod, and that has braided kite line on there and clips that catch as the kite goes out. And typically we'll fish three rods per kite. We'll take little split shot sinkers and we'll weight the kites in the corners to,

kick them either left or right and once again depending on the wind direction how much kick or bank do you need to essentially we're making a fence for these fish that are migrating south at the same time as the boats drifting north we're almost intercepting schools of fish and your three kite baits are designed as you know you basically want to cover as much ground as possible to cut off these fish moving south.

as your boat moves north, typically.

Katie (09:42.432)

So how do you have, if you have one kite and three baits from each kite, how do you keep your baits separated? Because they're live baits, right?

Mike Calabrese (09:51.297)

Yep, yep. So the clips are distanced apart. So a standard setup is you'll let your kite out, clip your kite on, let it out. About 100 feet comes your first clip, which will be your long. Now the kite rods are outboard typically in the covering board of the boat or in the wings outboard. And then you have your rocket launcher or whatever inside and that will hold your rods. So you'll have three rods on the right side.

and the furthest inside is your long, then middle, then short would be closest to the kite rod. And it's important just to keep those in order as you let your kite out and fish, bring your kite in, those rods all stay in order. So when you do get a fish on and you pop out of the clip and you have to get tight to your fish, you're not tangling with the other ones. So those baits are spaced out on the kite line. The kite's about 100 feet from the first clip and then we...

65, 75 feet apart are the clips and that's what keeps your baits apart hanging there in the water. Yeah, so if you get a fish is when it gets tricky, you know, having to pop out of the clip and then lift, oftentimes you have to lift up the other baits out of the water so your fish in line can pass underneath as you get tight to your fish. So.

Katie (11:10.402)

Man, so how many anglers do you have generally? Do you have one per rod, one per bait, or do you have to...

Mike Calabrese (11:17.027)

In a perfect world, yes. Yeah, just like trolling, I mean the more people holding rods, the better because, you know, just like trolling, if you can see the bite coming or, you know, you're in free spool, obviously with your thumb on the reel, anticipating the bite, you're ahead of the game, you got a better chance at hooking your fish and feeding the fish without it feeling anything weird.

Katie (11:38.979)

Because those sailfish in South Florida aren't very big. Most of my sailfish experience is in the Pacific and they're quite a bit bigger than they are in the Atlantic. So how much are these fish weighing approximately?

Mike Calabrese (11:46.529)

Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (11:51.138)

Yeah, I'd say the average fish is probably around 40 pounds. I mean, they're, they're, they are, you know, they vary in size. Some, some days they run bigger. Some days you notice they're a little smaller. But I will say, you know, where they might not be as big as the Pacific sailfish, they, they do fight quite a bit harder. They're a little, you know, they can, they tend to go deeper on you during the battle sometimes, change directions very crazily. They're, they're wild fish.

And there's no telling, you know, one minute they could be jumping out here to the left and then the next minute they're 200 feet over that way and you got a big belly in your line. Trolling, you know, once again, like in the Pacific there, you hook a fish, put the boat on a turn. They tend to stay in the middle of the circle, you know, of your turn. Hooking a fish on a kite, there's no telling where it's going to go sometimes. So it can be a little tricky with all those baits.

Katie (12:30.244)

Ha!

Katie (12:47.588)

interesting.

Mike Calabrese (12:51.65)

in the water hanging. Also the boat spins to go catch the fish and now you've got kites wrapping around your tower with your baits off your bow. Sometimes you get a bite while your baits are off the bow catching another fish but it's very much a team effort and the more people you have that are competent and helpful the better you're going to do. Just like trolling.

Katie (13:15.941)

Yeah, all the more reason to have somebody on every single rod, every single line and bait.

Mike Calabrese (13:20.534)

Absolutely, yep, paying attention watching your baits, you know We have the floats or markers that we fish kite fishing a lot of the trolling guys make fun of them calling bobbers, but It's a pink styrofoam float, which is it's a visual indicator for us on the boat. You know that your long bait might be 250 feet away from you or something, but you know, it's hard to see your bait in the water Plus you want your bait a little underwater. You don't always see your bait. I

we're actually watching our pink styrofoam floats, which are at the top of our 15 foot leaders. So those we're trying to keep above the water. And when you do get a nervous bait or a bite happening, that thing kind of starts to show, you know, some funny activity and I might be getting a bite here, my bait's nervous. So we're staring at pink floats all day long basically. And then.

Katie (14:11.143)

That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, when we were fishing kites, we'd have just one kite, I mean, one kite and then one artificial on it. And we'd have to tie like a fluorescent ribbon to it just to have an idea of where the heck that was. Because you just, if you're doing your job right, you can't see your line. You can't see your bait. So, I had a question, but I'm gonna go real quick.

Mike Calabrese (14:25.183)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (14:32.385)

That's right. Yeah.

Katie (14:39.301)

Fishing for the Pacific sails, with so much experience fishing for Pacific as well as South Florida, the smaller ones. Do you find that there's a difference in the bite? Like are the smaller sailfish more finicky when they eat?

Mike Calabrese (14:54.337)

Um, it depends. Um, some days and, and, you know, I don't think any fishermen completely knows the answer to this. You know, you have people talk about the moon, the tide, you know, this, that, and the other thing we like to make excuses, let's say when things don't work out. But, uh, I will say that you tend to get, uh, more aggression out of fish when they're traveling in a pack. So for example, if you get a really aggressive bite, um,

it's an indication that there might be more fish with that fish because of the competition factor. Typically lazy, sometimes these sailfish are extremely finicky, fussy. They could come up and look at your bait, we call it window shoppers, because on the kite you're sitting still, you're able to actually sit there and watch it all happen. And sometimes a fish will come up and eyeball your bait, swim a circle around it. Just an...

swim off like it was not interested. For whatever reason, it happens. Other days they're chewing the paint off the boat. So you just got to go to know, I say. Sometimes it could be the bait. We often think, we always carry different kinds of bait. A few different staple species of bait that tournament boats are going to go with. If you had that happen to you, sometimes you say, oh, maybe he didn't want my...

my goggle eye maybe he wanted a herring but who knows you know we don't they don't talk to us but all you can do is take that information and try to you know if you got to change your bait for the next one or something but they are fin they can be very finicky especially in certain weather conditions you know weather I call them weather fish down here they're extremely you know they're they're feeding is a lot based upon weather.

cold fronts, I can elaborate on that. Yep.

Katie (16:52.875)

How so? Tell me more.

Mike Calabrese (16:54.846)

In South Florida, in the winter time is sailfish time. And when the wind, we get cold fronts, north wind, cold temperatures is typically when you get the fish biting. I believe it has to do with the colder water temperatures of the north pushing them down. Then they start to fight the current of the water. They're traveling south, they're stemming the current. They got to use more energy to swim south.

With that cold weather comes north wind which makes big waves against the current. So when that happens, just last week, we can get into this, but we had a big event here. We had finally got a couple real strong cold fronts where we got down in the 40s for South Florida. It real cold and the fish finally showed up. So when it gets real good like that, they get to biting, they get to moving.

Katie (17:43.86)

Whoa.

Mike Calabrese (17:53.053)

tailing sailfish, which I'm sure you've seen in Cabo San Lucas or the Strait Marlin, but you know, when the wave direction gets right, they'll pop up on the surface and try to catch a ride with the waves. And that's when the really big numbers come through in Miami last week, you know, 60 fish, tailing fish, people, people riding around in their towers. And it's super fun. You know, once again, a lot of people might downgrade or denigrate the spinning rod.

Katie (18:11.661)

That's crazy.

Mike Calabrese (18:22.173)

However, it's a fun way to fish, site fishing, casting at tailing sailfish. But other than that, yeah, the weather, the weather, they like cold, they like the cold snaps here in South Florida for sure. Get some going.

Katie (18:29.101)

Nice. So are you?

Katie (18:35.309)

That's awesome. And I like that theory behind it too. The, um, so are y 'all flying kites as well as sight casting when that happens?

Mike Calabrese (18:45.212)

Yeah, depending upon how many are tailing. If you're flying kites, you're pointed into the wind anyhow, into the sea. So the captain or another guy can typically look for fish while the rest of the crew is fishing out the back with the kites. Eyes are ahead of the water looking for fish that are going to be coming by the boat where you can also, you can catch them while you're kite fishing. Oftentimes you'll see a tailor, they'll fade out and then they'll pop up on your kite baits, you know.

Once again the kite baits kind of cut them off on their route. So Yeah, but sometimes we'll swim right by the boat too. We had yeah We had like a school of about eight fish the other day that we could we never got a bite You know, they just faded underneath the boat and didn't pop up on us, which is unfortunate but Very frustrating Yeah, it's uh Yeah, and we were kite fishing and we were hoping they would it would pop up on the baits

Katie (19:19.311)

That's so cool.

Katie (19:31.279)

How frustrating. Especially with there being eight of them. That's crazy.

Mike Calabrese (19:43.259)

just didn't happen there but it's kind of a helpless feeling when something like that happens or same thing if you cast sometimes you can hit a perfect cast on these fish or whatever and they just still don't want to eat it for whatever reason and on to the next one. Yeah they're not all maybe they were caught maybe they were who knows but not interested.

Katie (19:55.631)

I'll just knock them on the head with it and they won't eat it.

Katie (20:05.36)

How fascinating. So before we, I want to get into the bait culture a little bit, but before we do that, can you tell me the approximate distance y 'all are drifting? Because that's what you're doing, right? Once you set your kites, you set yourself up to drift down, down the fishing zone, correct?

Mike Calabrese (20:25.051)

I lost you there for one second, I have repeat that question.

Katie (20:28.049)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to get into the bait culture, but before we do that, can you tell me a little bit about this fishing zone? So you already said there's a narrow alley in which these fish are migrating in the southern side of Florida. And you're setting up, from what I understand, you set up a drift and you set your kites out and then you drift down sea while fishing for these fish. And how...

Like how long is that drift? Like how many miles is this fishing zone that y 'all generally target?

Mike Calabrese (21:00.41)

Okay, yeah, that's a great question. So, um, so you could drift depending on the wind direction. Obviously, if you have an east wind, you're going to be getting, you know, the waves are going to want to push you shallower. It's all about staying in that depth that the captain feels are your best chances. You know, naturally sailfish, they can be in a hundred feet of water. They could be in 200 feet of water. They can be in 300 feet of water anywhere really, but the captain puts the boat where he thinks they're going to be. Typically we have.

North current, which means the water is moving south to north and your boat will be moving north. Now you could, you know, depending on the action, you can ride it out as long as you want. If you're, if you're in the depth that makes you happy, oftentimes you'll catch fish and then the captain will run back and get south again to try to come back over that same stretch of water or even go further south to try to re -intercept that body of fish that just came through.

So that's really the only, you know, the way you have to look at it is that these fish are moving north to south, or even if they're holding their ground on a piece of bottom or bait, the water is moving north. So, you know, that's the million dollar question is when to move, when to reset, when to run back, how far to run back, you know, how deep, all that stuff is the real stuff that separates the winners from the losers.

Katie (22:29.033)

Yeah, so I mean there's a huge tournament culture in South Florida. So when you've got these big events going on, how many boats are fishing this pretty small area?

Mike Calabrese (22:42.583)

Yeah, so I think most tournaments these days about 50 boats give or take and then the tournaments have boundaries. Some tournaments are based out of a certain inlet. For example, let's say the tournaments out of Palm Beach. They might make the boundary 30 miles in each direction. So you have a 60 mile fishing range. Other tournaments, we have one coming up soon here called the Jimmy Johnson. We also just had one called the Sailfish Challenge.

was a big boundary format to where as boats can choose any inlet they want to fish out of. For example, if you're from Miami, you can fish down there or from Palm Beach, you can fish up here, wherever you want to fish, which adds a challenge to it because the days leading up to it is everybody's wondering where the fish are, where's the best fishing. Boats making last minute moves from Miami to Palm Beach the night before, it's all common and vice versa.

It's very important to keep your ear to the ground and communicate with other fishermen about what they saw, what they caught, conditions. But yeah, I mean, you know, last week it was, they were biting from Stewart to Key Largo. And you could, yeah, the best fishing was down there south of Ocean Reef. However, there was boats catching 30 fish out here at Jupiter. And...

Katie (23:55.832)

Wow.

Mike Calabrese (24:08.694)

There was a tournament a couple days later and everybody was thinking Miami was going to be the spot and it ended up being to the north was where the tournament was won up here. So you have to be fluid. You have to be able to adapt and adjust to the ever changing fishery we have, which changes overnight, unfortunately, you know, because we have the Gulfstream and the water's essentially flying by our coast here, which means different bodies of water coming in and going, you know, frequently.

Katie (24:38.202)

with different nutrients in it, different levels of float some and all of that. Now, current water temp, all of it.

Mike Calabrese (24:38.453)

It's hard. That's right. For sure.

Mike Calabrese (24:48.629)

Just yesterday, or yeah, fished a two day tournament the first day, the water, we saw tons of man o' wars. There was probably some of the most I've ever seen in my life, hundreds. And they were actually grabbing, they would grab your kite baits. If they drifted too closely, you'd have to lift your bait because these man o' wars would find them and get them. And anyhow, saw a pile of them on Friday. Yesterday we go out there and hardly didn't see as many. There wasn't nearly as many.

Katie (25:09.21)

frustrating.

Mike Calabrese (25:18.388)

the water color was different you know it's it changes you gotta react and adapt you know it's all part of the challenge yeah it's all part of the challenge

Katie (25:25.883)

And all the more reason to be fishing consistently during the season to stay competitive. Right? Yeah. So the bait culture down there is pretty specific.

Mike Calabrese (25:34.996)

For sure, yep. What's that?

Mike Calabrese (25:41.364)

B.

Oh yeah, people are fanatical about me for sure. It's very important.

Katie (25:47.484)

Well, and which makes sense, but you mentioned herring, gogoli. What's your favorite kind of bait? What do you make sure you have? And how do you make sure that your bait is healthiest for your tournament, your tournaments or your fun fishing?

Mike Calabrese (26:04.852)

Yep, so basically there's three main baits. You got the Goggle Eyes, Threadfin Herring, or Greenies. Looks like a big pilchard or something, almost like a baby tarpon. And then Spanish Sardines, which are probably the most sought after bait, the sardines. However, they also tend to get bit up a lot by bonitas and other critters. So Goggle Eyes are the main staple.

source of bait here. The thing about Goggle Eyes is they're caught at night. So most people end up buying bait from bait guys that go out and do it at night. Very hard to obtain Goggle Eyes sometimes. A lot of times the bait guys even in Palm Beach will trailer their boats all the way to the Keys to catch them in abundance so they can have enough to make it worthwhile to do it.

So anyhow, Goggle Eyes, shoot, lately they've been upwards of $200 a dozen here in Palm Beach, which is crazy. Yeah, it used to be, I remember growing up, it was $40 a dozen, and $20 a dozen for Pilchards. Now you're looking at, it was up to 120 for Gogs, and then during tournament season, they've been tough to catch lately. The prices are around $200 a dozen for these things. And those baits, the Goggle Eye's good because,

Katie (27:09.695)

Dang. Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (27:32.529)

It's a hardy bait. It's typically a little bigger, probably, you know, eight inches or so, and they're strong. They're a great bait for your long kite baits, which is the furthest one from the boat. It's got the most wind effect on that kite bait, blowing your line in the air. So you want to, on your long bait, typically you want a big hardy bait. Goggolize are known for just kicking their tails off and being, putting out good vibes and strong, you know, strong.

vibrations and splashing. So definitely goggle eyes. If there's only one bait you could have, it'd probably be a goggle eye. Lately we've also had access to threadfin herrings, which are like I said, like a big pilcher greenies. Those are all over the place too, from Costa Rica to Louisiana, obviously in Texas, I'm sure. Those are great sailfish baits. We call them scale baits. Definitely more fragile, a little more sensitive to

you know when you bridle your bait you gotta be more careful with the scale baits you don't want to knock the scales off of them so there's that fine line of you know how hard you can grip your bait versus squeezing it to death to you know put a needle through it and sew it on but that's all part of the part of it is to keep your baits as nice and healthy as possible when you can get them in the water with that being said also people will obtain their bait early on and they will pen it up we have we make bait pens

Sometimes they're plastic round floating wells. Sometimes we have cages that we sink for goggle eyes. And then we feed our baits. They have pellet food. Some people, I've seen people have timers with automatic fish feeders. So if they're not there one day, their bait's still gonna get fed or whatever. Of course, if you can get some fresh scraps of bonitas or anything like that, it's always good to feed your bait. So.

Just like any living thing, the better their diet is, the more healthy they're going to be. And when you put them out there on the hook, hopefully they're going to last long and splash around. Healthy bait, strong bait. So that's, yeah. I mean, the best boats, they typically will have their bait a long time ahead of a tournament. They'll have it all fed up and seasoned. And you know.

Katie (29:37.957)

the better they're gonna perform. Yeah, make a scene. Fight, make a scene.

Mike Calabrese (29:57.007)

keep accurate quantities of what they got, how many they bring each day, because it's a grind to catch bait and to keep it. It's at least half the battle on this thing for sure, is having good bait for sure.

Katie (30:11.174)

It's a sail fishing tournament and a sail fishing culture, but it's really just we're keeping a bunch of bait healthy and seeing whose bait can outperform the other. Didn't you?

Mike Calabrese (30:21.261)

Yeah, somewhat. I mean, ultimately, you got to be in the right place, in my opinion. There's no substitute for being on top of the fish. But yes, bait is important, for sure. Just like trolling, you know, when you're doing your balihooze and prepping your balihooze and, you know, some of them the head breaks and you got a batch where they're weak, you know, you say, shoot, you know, this isn't good. Your color on the tape, you know, you want to put your best bait forward, for sure.

Katie (30:33.862)

Didn't you tell me that -

Mike Calabrese (30:52.309)

and any fishing.

Katie (30:52.392)

When these guys are feeding their baits, bonita, fish, something that's gonna give them a healthier appeal because it's what they're eating kind of in the wild, right? They get that same nutrients. Didn't you tell me that they have like their own like dock bait blenders and how does that process work?

Mike Calabrese (31:15.309)

Yeah, I mean, it depends on everybody has their own way of doing things. I personally have a blender in my dock box that I'll, when I catch bonitas, I'll cut bonita strips. I'll save those for wahoo fishing, planer fishing, but you can take the meat and it's that good red meat and it's got a lot of good nutrients, I'm sure. But yeah, I'll take that. I'll blend it up with salt water. And to me, that's easier than just cutting it. We're trying to...

make life as easy as possible to some degree. But yeah, the blender works well for me. Blend up some scrap meats, even if you got, you know, we'll save like the roe from Mahi's, the roe. Any kind of scrap meat is good, good fresh food for the fish and yeah, they'll eat it.

Katie (31:55.593)

Nice.

Katie (32:02.857)

That's a great way to use all sides of the fish that you're catching and put it back into the sport recreationally. I love that.

Mike Calabrese (32:09.26)

Yeah, it's all work and ultimately the hard work hopefully will pay off for you. Doesn't always, but having good bait is, it's one of the things we can control. So we're gonna put, we're gonna do it.

Katie (32:24.489)

What about the sardines? You spoke a little bit about the scales, the goggle eyes, and then what about the sardines?

Mike Calabrese (32:30.924)

Sardines are great. We've had definitely had some of our best fishing typically to the south in the Florida Keys or if the fish are tailing a sardines a great bait to cast at a fish because of they'll stay on the surface when they hit the water as opposed to like a goggle eye will want to swim down. Sardines are just very elusive, they're very hard to obtain.

Katie (32:50.633)

one down.

Mike Calabrese (32:57.419)

people go great distances to try to catch them and have them in their arsenal. And like I said, it's a great bait. There have been tournaments won on sardines indeed, but I haven't had sardines this year. Up north here in Palm Beach and stuff, it seems like a Goggle Eyes is a great bait. But when you get down towards the Keys there and Ocean Reef, you know, there's...

We can catch sardines here too, certain times of year. In the summer, they're all over the place in Jupiter. It's all you want. This time of year, they're not around. Some boats, like I said, they'll travel. The programs that do this full -time, they'll have their bait boat. They'll have a center console. If they have a sport fish boat, they'll have a secondary center console that they'll go run around in.

Katie (33:30.721)

Interesting.

Mike Calabrese (33:50.635)

leave out of Fort Lauderdale, run to Miami or beyond to catch sardines, bring them back, pen them up for a month before the tournament. That's the extent people will go to have sardines. And whether they pay or not, time can only tell. There's been times, we used to fish a lot in Key West, in the sailfish tournament in Key West. And...

We would spend so much time catching sardines before the tournament. Even on a, there was a lay day, we'd fish, you know, we'd fish three days in a row and then have a lay day. And we'd go run 60 miles to catch sardines on a lay day. And sometimes we'd only catch a dozen, you know, and a lot of effort into that. And sometimes, you know, in hindsight, it's like, oh, maybe we didn't need them or maybe we didn't need to do that. But, you know, once again, if you can control something and you make the effort, you're trying to do it to have the right bait.

Katie (34:31.369)

Oh my gosh.

Mike Calabrese (34:46.859)

Yeah, so the sardines Definitely one of the sailfishes favorite food because if you go down there to like Isla, Moheres, Mexico Which is also in the Atlantic or the Caribbean here same fish essentially They're there feasting on sardines. That's that's the predominant bait That brings the sailfish to that area massive schools of sardines and cigar minnows, but Sailfish love it's I would say it's like they're

probably one of their favorite natural foods to eat. For sure. Yeah.

Katie (35:20.105)

Man, that's so cool. Okay, I have a question for you because, and I want to make sure I understand this correctly. So the Isla season is December, January, February, right?

Mike Calabrese (35:32.213)

Pretty much, yeah.

Katie (35:33.193)

And then we have the South Florida season that's February, March, April.

Mike Calabrese (35:41.715)

Lately, yes, in the past, tournaments used to start in October, November, and they still do some of them, but for whatever reason, the season seems to have been shifting later on here. The last few years, the best bite has occurred towards the end of February, early March. Maybe it's just when the water temperatures finally get cool enough to the north where the fish have to come down at that point.

Katie (36:07.369)

Yeah, so that's my question. So how are those, if those fish are moving north to south, but the season is earlier in Isla, how is that working? Like are they, are they going up? Are they going north and then coming back down? Like are they circulating? Do we know what those fish are doing? Do you understand my question? Did I make that sense?

Mike Calabrese (36:26.955)

I don't think we know. I think it's a great question. It's the million dollar question once again that even the wealthiest of people and best fishermen don't have the answers to. But I would say those are different bodies of fish. I feel like those fish down in the Yucatan area, they probably spend their majority of their time down that way somewhere, perhaps into the Gulf of Mexico in the Campeche or whatever.

Katie (36:53.321)

The southern gulf, yeah. Uh huh.

Mike Calabrese (36:54.983)

Yeah, like the rest of the year, wherever the sardines probably go is where they go. But yeah, I mean, there's been tags. I don't know if the Billfish Foundation has ever had a tag return from Mexico to South Florida or vice versa. I'm sure it's happened. But yeah, and then also you get fish off the Carolinas. South Carolina had great sailfish and I think in maybe like October or...

Katie (37:10.577)

How interesting? We'll have to ask.

Mike Calabrese (37:23.671)

September this year, late season, you know, great sail fishing for them up north of us here. So I think we're seeing, I think the U .S. has an East Coast population of sailfish and then perhaps the ones down there in the Yucatan are different fish, I would say. Not, yeah.

Katie (37:41.329)

Yeah, the ones we get a general, like a pretty good sailfish bite sometimes in the southern Gulf of Mexico out of South Texas. I want to say late July, August, September it can get pretty good. So that's really interesting. Yeah, I didn't know if that's something that we know.

Mike Calabrese (37:50.095)

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Mike Calabrese (38:00.551)

It could be those fish.

I don't think anybody does. I think it's, yeah, it's scientists that study the water, plankton, chlorophyll, temperature, those factors are probably where they are.

Katie (38:17.361)

Because I think it's interesting that your speculation, your hypothesis is that they're two different bodies of fish because from what I do understand is that sailfish, they don't really go very far from what we know on tagging data and tagging research. So, right? So,

Mike Calabrese (38:34.311)

Right. Yeah, I mean, I would think so. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Katie (38:39.121)

Yeah, that's super interesting. As opposed to like blue marlin, which have crossed the ocean. They like cross ocean basins, not as much as bluefin tuna or as regularly as bluefin tuna. But they're all considered highly migratory species, but their migration vary. And I think that it's interesting that these fish are so small. The sailfish are the, I mean, I believe is the fastest fish in the ocean. Right. Do you know that?

Mike Calabrese (38:49.127)

Right.

Mike Calabrese (39:06.375)

I think that's what they say and it makes sense, you know, based upon their size of their tail with how thin they are and their mass. You know, they're thinner than a marlin so they probably slide through the water a lot easier, I'd say. So yeah, they're neat. They're crazy when you hook one, especially, you know, kite fishing, trolling, whatever, however you hook it. But like I said, they can be out here to the left a couple hundred feet and then next minute they're going the other way and you got a big belly in your line.

jumping all over the ocean.

Katie (39:37.361)

It kind of reminds me of the difference between a big blue marlin and a little blue marlin. Like those little blues, they'll just, they're so agile. They've got all that just spunk of a marlin, but with a lot more agility. So I want to go a little bit into trolling. Am I wrong when I say that from what I understand, north of Stewart, Florida, your fishing teams start trolling?

Mike Calabrese (39:51.109)

Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

Katie (40:06.993)

instead of kite fishing, is that right?

Mike Calabrese (40:09.829)

Yeah, that's pretty pretty accurate. There's some boats that'll go... So if you look at Florida on a map or a chart, you know, Palm Beach is where... North of Palm Beach is where our coastline starts to jog off to the west, to the northwest. However, the shelf pretty much continues straight north. So with that being said, Palm Beach is very close. To get to 100 feet of water, you're looking at, you know, whatever, a mile, let's call it.

Jupiter here a little north about 10 miles north of Palm Beach you've got to go about 3 miles because the coast starts to jog northwest there. Stewart, you're going further 5 -6 miles. And then Fort Pierce even further. So anyhow, the shelf broadens the further north you go. There's more area where the fish can be. Palm Beach in the south, very compressed, very narrow lane of 100 -200 feet of water.

up that way, Stewart, Fort Peterson North, spread out. Fish can be, you know, all over the place. A lot of potential habitat. So guys, you know, they troll for them because they can cover ground. And it's also his historical tradition. It's how they were raised doing it. I will say now you're seeing a few more guys out of Stewart starting to kite fish. They're realizing that it's quite effective. It's a little bit more relaxing.

way to fish. Let's say you have a charter or a guest on the boat, you're essentially kind of sitting still. It's a little more enjoyable in that you don't have to hold the reel, you're not holding the pressure of the bait, dragging it seven, eight knots along or whatever on your thumb. You're sitting still and you're watching your baits. But yeah, the trolling thing is essentially due to the geography, I'd say, up further north there. The guy's got to cover more ground.

And yeah, but you're seeing more guys starting to kite fish out that way too now.

Katie (42:09.521)

I find it interesting that the kite fishing is starting to kind of spread up that northern area.

That's interesting. I didn't see it.

Mike Calabrese (42:16.87)

People are realizing, you know, why not make my life easier and catch more fish for my clients, if you will. I mean, I heard a guy, a steward...

Katie (42:26.129)

So long as getting live bait is not an issue. Because...

Mike Calabrese (42:29.99)

Correct, correct. Yeah, and it can be an issue. Stuart typically has good bait availability. They have a lot of those threadfin greenies up there. You know, boats, they can go out and catch them in the morning on their way out. And, you know, it's, especially if you've got a three or four foot sea, you know, kite fishing is going to be more comfortable as well for folks that aren't, you know, if they're chartering a boat or something like that. It's more comfortable, more productive.

better chance of hooking a fish basically being that it's a live bait that they're you know the boats not moving forward it's easier in some regards it's also challenging in other ways as well compared to trolling but like I said I heard a Stuart captain on the radio the other day talking about how he man I can't believe we just figured this kite thing out you know lately here it's can't believe we haven't been doing it longer what a pleasure it is to fish kites.

Katie (43:06.14)

Ah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.

Katie (43:25.756)

Aww, that's super cool. Okay, that's new. Interesting. Um...

Mike Calabrese (43:27.686)

So yeah, I mean, well, I feel like people, yeah, I feel like a lot of guys disparage it because they don't know how to do it. And it's a fear thing, you know, but the reality is I feel like if you want to be a good fisherman, you should be good at all types of fishing and yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's fun.

Katie (43:45.009)

Exactly and try, try it. Who knows maybe you don't like it, maybe it doesn't work for you, maybe you have a different theory elsewhere, but you're never gonna actually know if you don't give it a go. So.

Mike Calabrese (43:57.254)

I think one of the hard things with kite fishing, sorry to interrupt, is that all three of your lines are on the kite line. So let's say your long bait gets a bite. Let's say you get a kingfish, chops your bait in half. Now you've got to bring in all three rods to change that one bait. So if you're the only mate in the cockpit, kite fishing can be a nightmare because it takes hands, it takes help. If you've got a good crew and some good help, it's all good.

Katie (44:00.253)

No, you're good.

Mike Calabrese (44:25.765)

You know trolling you get a bite you're just dealing with that one rod reel it in put a new bait on send it back out kite fishing you gotta bring the kite in bring all three rods in you know there's ways to work around that but if you're short -handed it can be an absolute nightmare especially if you got a lot of critters biting bonitas kingfish whatever you know you need help seaweed as well absolutely yeah you can get bait grass on your bait and then if you can't get it off you gotta start over again.

Katie (44:44.126)

What about grass? Is that an issue?

Mike Calabrese (44:55.271)

It's a pain for sure. Yeah. But I will say I like seaweed for fishing because, you know, lately we haven't seen much seaweed all winter long. Now there's a little bit of scattered grass in town and the sailfish are here. I think it's got something to do with the whole basis of the food chain. The seaweed for sure. Plankton. Yeah, it starts with the plankton and that and bait and sailfish follow.

Katie (44:56.255)

That is a pain. Seaweed's always a pain, no matter what. So for...

Katie (45:25.536)

attracting the bigger fish. Wow, that makes me happy to hear that. Is the seaweed you're seeing, what's the word I'm looking for? Is it all condensed? Is it all sitting together? Is it floating together? Is it pretty spread out? Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (45:27.815)

That's right.

Mike Calabrese (45:37.862)

It's scattered grass as we call it. It's live, the bright live sargassum weed, which is a good indicator as well that it's alive. Saw all those man o' wars. Yeah, it's little small clumps and I've noticed it anywhere I fish, up to Ocean City, Maryland, all that when you're getting bit, you're trying to figure out is there anything to it and oftentimes I'll notice bits of seaweed in the water. It's good thing.

Katie (46:05.632)

So you feel like when you're, you feel like when in your experience when you're seeing pretty consistent seaweed, you're seeing more bites. Did I, did I surmise that correctly?

Mike Calabrese (46:15.239)

It depends, I guess. I'm not.

I mean in the summertime here sometimes we get giant clumps and mats of seaweed, you know can walk on it. That I don't want to fish in, you that's not what I'm talking about. It seems to be when you got that good live water with flying fish and you know whatever the bait, whatever the plankton source is but you know it's almost, I just noticed the other day we were catching sailfish and there's little bits of little small pieces of scattered grass around and I've...

I said, man, I've seen this before when we've been getting bit. I've seen this before. So that's just how I think.

Katie (46:52.352)

Is that blue water what you're looking for too? Do you see a difference in the water clarity down there? Or up there? Over there?

Mike Calabrese (47:00.486)

Uh, yeah, I mean, definitely, definitely water in color is a thing. However, just when you think you got that figured out, you know, the sailfish will spin it up on you. Uh, last week the water was quite greenish. It was, it was green, blue, green, but more green and blue and they were snapping in it, you know, and, uh, when it was more about the weather those days, it was, it got very cold, you know, here in South Florida, that's what it takes to get the fish going is that.

Katie (47:07.839)

Hmm.

Mike Calabrese (47:29.446)

cold, cold weather. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie (47:29.504)

Cold snap. How cool. That's a nice little nugget of information right there. So I want to get a little bit into trolling, troll fishing. If the listener doesn't know anything about trolling, and I think you did a great job explaining the kites, can you give us just a little synopsis on what trolling is and what parts of the world do that?

Mike Calabrese (47:36.134)

I was saying...

Uh huh.

Mike Calabrese (47:51.566)

Yeah, trolling, probably the most popular way to fish obviously throughout the world. And the last few years guys have gotten to kind of go in more to bait as opposed to lures. Obviously big marlin guys still will pull artificial lures for blue marlin with J hooks. But what we're seeing is everybody essentially fishing the same spread essentially, which is swimming, balihoo, chin weighted, circle hooks, light tackle, lighter leaders.

you know dredges, squid chain teasers and then from there you can you know customize you know everybody's got their own little things of what color squid chain or what color islanders on the dredge or whatever. I think you just got to drive over the fish personally but uh yeah trolling trolling is a thing and it's fun the re I like trolling because fishing teasers is fun getting fish behind a teaser.

teasing them up to the back of the boat is the most exciting thing I'd say in fishing a blue marlin on a teaser that just as you've I'm sure you've seen it a million times follow it to the back of the boat that the teaser is hanging from the outrigger it's still trying to eat it in the air swimming under it and it's it's just super exciting so that that's that's probably my favorite thing for sure is a blue marlin on a teaser but then you know yeah Costa Rica you know you're getting a bunch of sailfish bites as well on a teaser.

Katie (49:03.103)

Yeah.

Katie (49:07.267)

You can't beat it.

Mike Calabrese (49:18.862)

And it's just fun. It's fun being able to see the bite, to feed the fish 15 feet off the transom, the art of hooking a fish, letting them eat it, letting the reel roll, pushing the drag up. It's all fun. Missing the fish. A lot of misses.

Katie (49:37.476)

And it's very different because, you know what I'm saying? Missing the fish, having them come back for just the head of the ballyhoo if they're real hungry. Does that count as a miss? No. But if you get it on the Sand Cocho, you did not miss. So, shoot, I got distracted. Yeah, and you can cover quite a bit more ground trolling and the differentiation is, you know, well, there's a lot of differences, but.

Mike Calabrese (49:46.092)

Yep.

If you catch it.

Exactly. But yeah, trolling is great.

Mike Calabrese (50:01.796)

Yes.

Katie (50:07.365)

When you're kite fishing, you're live baiting. So you touched on this a little bit earlier, Mike, when you said that it's easier, well, relatively, it all, nuances aside, that when you have a live bait and you feed the fish, it's one thing that's very different from when you're trolling and you get a bite on a sailfish and you have to feed the fish. Can you, like, I feel like that's what you said. I've never live baited.

fed a sailfish, so I don't know. Can you explain why one would be more complicated or what the differences would be if they're both equally complicated?

Mike Calabrese (50:45.634)

So yeah, they both have their challenges. The trolling bit is like the boat's moving ahead. So you're holding the reel in free spool with your thumb on the reel and there's pressure on the spool with your thumb because of your holding your bait. And once again, some guys are using bigger chin weights. So down here in Costa Rica we're fishing like a three quarter ounce chin weight. That's more pressure on your thumb when you're fishing, when you're in free spool waiting for the bite.

So if you get a blind bite, you don't see it coming, you know, it goes zero to 60 pretty darn quick, which can lead to a lot of backlashes, blow ups to the reel, burnt thumbs, all that good stuff. That's what's harder about trolling is the speed of the boat and the fact that you're already holding the spool with pressure with your thumb. So when something pulls on it and you don't let go, you don't make that transition soft enough.

you get a backlash essentially the reel will blow up on you or whatever and that's the hard part about trolling is that 0 to 60 in one second you know kite fishing yeah a long rigger bite you know let's face it you don't see them all coming you know and to do it you know you're going to have your best chance holding the rod with the reel and free spool clicker off you know if you're

Katie (51:55.209)

Cause they can be sneaky.

Mike Calabrese (52:11.426)

able to do that with as many anglers if you have enough anglers. But yeah, the boat moving ahead, that transition to letting the spool roll freely, well, after you had your thumb already on it and take your thumb off, it can get dicey pretty quick with the troll stuff. Kite fishing, challenging in other ways. So we're fishing that cork above a 15 foot leader with a lead on the line above the snap swivel.

The purpose of the lead in kite fishing is to add weight to your whole thing so that the wind, because you have all that fishing line in the air, which the wind is blowing, which is wanting to pull your bait out of the water basically. So.

Katie (52:53.514)

Is the lead above the cork or below the cork?

Mike Calabrese (52:56.673)

Well, some people put it above, typically it's right below the cork. You'll slide, you know, got a bimini twist, you'll put a solid stainless ring, which is what goes in the clip, the ring. Then you got your cork, then you got your weight. And then the weight, the amount of weight is based upon how much wind you have those days. But that's a whole nother factor in, so you're kite fishing, you're sitting still, essentially, you're drifting, you're bumping into the wind, into the waves, or whatever you're doing.

But you get a bite, you see your cork start to walk off or dot, you know, something funky is going on, you're getting a bite. You can't just dump it because you'll drop the weight on the fish's head. It's not the same as trolling in that, you know, if you go to like a full free spool, you're going to drop that weight in the water and then the fish is definitely going to feel that going on. So kite fishing, a lot of your fish, they come up jumping. So you're getting a bite.

You're doing everything perfect, you're a little bit of thumb, just minimal to let the fish walk off and not feel any different pressure you're trying to do. Oftentimes they come up jumping, which is the challenge, which is where things go wrong typically. It's a cause of panic for a lot of people. What do I do now? The fish is jumping all over the place. Your line is still in the clip. And Wendy, the big...

Katie (54:06.093)

Mm -hmm.

Katie (54:21.806)

Are you at full strike?

Mike Calabrese (54:24.353)

No, so this is the question is when do you engage the reel? When do you attempt to pop your clip and get tight to the fish? So, me personally, if a fish comes up jumping, I actually at that point I want to put my weight down in the water because that way the fish is dragging the line and the weight behind it. If it's jumping, that line is always gonna be coming out down the body of the fish behind it. And you're putting...

Katie (54:53.743)

That makes perfect sense.

Mike Calabrese (54:54.154)

and it's dragging belly into water. Yeah, so if you have a fish jumping in the air and you try to pop your clip, you're pulling on it from above and that's usually when you'll pull the hook out or pull the bait out. I think when they come up jumping, I think they got stung with the hook. I think the hook point has stung them. It might not be all the way through the barb or through the corner, but they're stung and...

Katie (55:21.453)

Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (55:23.009)

That's why they're jumping like crazy. And at that point, you know, I've been, I've been doing a little more angling this year than ever before actually. And, uh, um, you know, I will wait until the fish settles down before attempting to pop out of the clip and get tight to the fish off the rod. You want to, you want, it's all angles, essentially. It's all angles. And yeah, you don't want to pull, you know, up or pull, you know, you want the fish to be swimming away from you.

Katie (55:42.543)

That's so interesting.

Mike Calabrese (55:52.385)

down in the water, you want to get that low angle on coming tight and letting that circle hook find its home. So...

Katie (56:00.368)

Because like, because when you're trolling, if you get bit and you're feeding your fish and your fish comes up jumping before you engage the strike, the drag, more often than not, you're going to lose the fish and you have to get your rod tip down, keep that line in the water as much as possible, which is exactly, essentially the same principle you just said. So I love that. I love that makes total sense. But what a how interesting, you know, thinking about it with the with the line up in this in the.

Mike Calabrese (56:07.425)

Mm -hmm. Yep.

You're not going to catch it. Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (56:18.689)

Same premise.

Mike Calabrese (56:23.486)

Yeah.

Katie (56:30.224)

in the air, in the sky with the kite still, because it's still in the clip when you get eaten, and then with that weight, man, that was cool. I'm really, yeah, I'm really excited you said that.

Mike Calabrese (56:32.288)

Right. Yep. Correct. Yep.

angles. And then you have the weight too, like I was saying, it's neat. It's all physics, it's all geometry. And once again, you have the weight on your kite line, which is totally different than trolling. If that fish is jumping a hundred miles an hour, he's towing that weight and all that belly of the line through the water. People don't realize like you got to back off your drag. There's a lot more force and pressure down near the hook on the leader than most people.

probably recognize when that fish is going 60 miles an hour through the water.

Katie (57:12.273)

Yeah, and especially like the more the more line you have in the water the more pressure there is.

Mike Calabrese (57:17.791)

more belly, more drag, yep, depending on if it's a windy day, you have ounce and a half of lead instead of a half ounce, you know, that's a bigger egg sinker, that's more drag in the water. So this is where the angling skill would come into play as far as not breaking fish off or pulling hooks and stuff like that, pulling the bait out of their mouth. Yeah.

Katie (57:26.162)

That's a lot.

Katie (57:40.916)

Man, that's cool. Time has flown by. I did not realize we've already been talking for about an hour. I really want to touch on, you mentioned teaser fishing and that it's your favorite too. My personal favorite is Blue Marlin Bait and Switch, right? I love having teasers, no hooks in the water, two dredges in the water, which can be considered, some people call them teasers as well, submerged teasers. And then to pitch a

Mike Calabrese (57:48.511)

Great, yeah.

Mike Calabrese (57:58.431)

Absolutely.

Katie (58:10.101)

baited, like a hooked bait out to the marlin after you take the teaser away. Can you, I know that, I mean, firetails is one of my favorite artificial dredge baits, if not the number one to me on our operation. We had at, in the mag season this last year, we had a Tinker dredge, Tinker mackerel dredge from your new firetail strips and absolutely loved that thing. It was so rad. Can you tell our listeners a little bit?

Mike Calabrese (58:29.503)

Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (58:35.232)

Thank you.

Katie (58:37.429)

about your firetails project, because I want to hear all about it.

Mike Calabrese (58:39.615)

Yeah, thank you very much. So I'm also a mate. I've been a mate for 20 years on private sport fish boats. Captain as well. However, I've only had a couple. I've stuck with my jobs. I've had great jobs, worked for great captains, and I've had longevity in my jobs, which is still a mate. However, I like to work efficiently and smartly. We used to go to Isla Mujeres fishing for sailfish.

That was my first real. I you know I did all the other travels with the ship and all that down the Pacific I never I never knew about dredge fishing You know I wish I could go back with what I know now honestly however yeah, so I get down there to Mexico and I get to learn this stuff and You know a lot of people think you know if you have all mullet on your dredge you're gonna do better right so we're all Ballyhoo dredge whatever natural dredge equals better fishing I I

I learned that's not the case in my opinion. Being in the right place, presenting your baits on the right angle, you know, tacks with the sea, all those sort of things, being in the right place, in my opinion, are far more important than what you have on your dredge. And even your hook baits are far more important as far as how they're presenting and swimming. So anyhow, we used to fish a ton, rig a bunch of bait, and you know.

We would fish many days in a row. After fishing, I'd have to have dinner on a boat. It never ended, it was long hours. And we were fishing, yeah, back then there was rubber shads, which are, you know, they look great, they work great. But durability wise, like, you know, they get a bite, the tail rip off. And so people started using the mud flaps, which once again, very cool. I personally...

Katie (01:00:14.488)

No, it never ends.

Katie (01:00:31.705)

And the mud flaps are essentially for the listener that doesn't know it's a tuna silhouette. So it looks like a tuna swimming from below, from the low, if a marlin looks up at it.

Mike Calabrese (01:00:38.8)

Correct.

Right. Yep, they got the pectoral fins, which is great. You know, got a great silhouette. However, I like action. I like, I feel like especially if you're going to go under the water, actions is going to help you. You know, if you, if you're pulling something on the surface, you know, marlin lure, something that bubbles, makes smoke, it's easier to trick a fish when they're looking up at something. But when they can size something up from next to it underwater, you know, I personally want my baits to wiggle.

So anyway, I started thinking outside the box, thinking of how I can make... Yep. You're good.

Katie (01:01:12.22)

Well hold on, hold on, pause real quick. Pause real quick, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I want to make sure that the listener knows a dredge is essentially, it's pulled underwater, a couple feet underwater, and it's designed to simulate a school of bait. And these fish, these billfish specifically, they're visual feeders, and they really like to go after, just like all things in the wild, they'll go after the weakest link. So if you see a school of bait swimming,

Mike Calabrese (01:01:23.196)

Mm -hmm.

Katie (01:01:39.868)

and then you see one bait swimming behind it, AKA a hooked ballyhoo, that fish is more likely to go off of the flat line, the hooked ballyhoo, and feed off of there, right? Which is attached to a fishing rod. And hopefully an angler holding the reel, like we were talking about earlier. So that's what these dredges are. So go on, Mike, you started thinking.

Mike Calabrese (01:01:45.34)

Flatline.

Mike Calabrese (01:01:52.734)

Yep. Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (01:01:59.421)

Yeah, so, you know, your boat obviously is not supposed to be out there in the natural environment. It's a man -made thing, giant boat, propeller spinning. The fish will swim right up to the back of a boat, right? I mean, they're curious, but the boat is the biggest teaser is what I'm saying. And then the next thing they'll see hopefully are the dredges, which are closest to the boat in the wash there, outside the wash. But yeah, we're mimicking a school of bait and you know.

Katie (01:02:10.685)

making a bunch of noise.

Mike Calabrese (01:02:29.18)

If you want to have 36 baits on your dredge, it's a heck of a lot of work. It's a heck of a lot of money in mullet or ballyhoo that ultimately don't even last all day per se. You might even have to change them. It's a ton of work, which is okay, but sometimes if you've got to fish 12 days in a row, there's different influences. So we would mix in artificials. I just got to thinking there's got to be a better way than...

Katie (01:02:38.685)

They don't.

Katie (01:02:48.189)

It's brutal. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of money.

Mike Calabrese (01:02:59.226)

existing products that are available. So I just you know started playing around there was a canvas shop behind where my boat was docked in Fort Lauderdale and You know that guy helped me out with like some stitching and sewing and stuff and yeah, we came up with fabric fabric strips essentially that You know, they swim very well We got color They're lightweight

So therefore dredge fishing used to be a big pain. You'd break dredges all the time. You'd always be fixing broken stuff, fixing washed out baits. Now...

Katie (01:03:35.102)

And the more remote you are, the harder it is to get quality gear. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (01:03:37.948)

Yeah, I mean, freezers, now it's just gotten easier and less breakage, less wear and tear on stuff. And it's making life easier for folks. And once again, I'm a believer in you gotta drive over the fish. I think sonar has proven, and that's a whole nother thing, but sonar has proven you gotta drive over these fish to get bit pretty much. Anyhow.

Katie (01:03:58.047)

Yep.

Mike Calabrese (01:04:07.324)

Firetales are great, helping people. Yeah, I'm here in my office actually. Absolutely. So most recently, I have a great manufacturer made here in the USA. My guys are up there in Ohio doing a great job. And they came to me and they said, Mike, we figured out we can print on the vinyl. And I said, this is what I've been waiting for. This is my second manufacturer. In addition to my...

Katie (01:04:08.767)

Do you have any with you? You want to show us a couple?

Katie (01:04:31.649)

That's what we've all been waiting for.

Mike Calabrese (01:04:35.964)

I have another job, you know, fire tails has kind of taken a back burner. However, it's starting to get a little more popular. And now that I have this ability to print, I got to right away, I got out my paint brushes, because I've always messed with, like, I liked art, I liked painting, drawing fish as a kid, I always drew marlins in my school books and stuff. And here I am now able to create my own designs and have them appear on these baits.

So it's pretty cool. I'll grab one for you. Yeah, it's uh...

Katie (01:05:05.859)

That's so cool. Yeah. I mean, our operation, we've been using firetails on our dredges, either both dredges or definitely at least one dredge since, I want to say 2018, maybe earlier. But I do remember our first time in Mags, we had a white firetails dredge and I have GoPro footage from that dredge of a stripey that just, he won't leave. He won't leave it. He's just slurping on them.

Mike Calabrese (01:05:21.052)

Nice.

Mike Calabrese (01:05:31.739)

Yes, I remember that one. That's awesome. No, it's great to... I've been at it... Sorry, I'm grabbing my stuff here. I've been at it for... It's been about 10 years. 10 years I've been working at this, you know, and the original design was bulky and, you know, I learned nothing, you know, nothing happens overnight ultimately. And so anyway, we got the printed ones now.

Katie (01:05:55.107)

No.

Katie (01:05:59.331)

Oh my gosh, I love that one so much.

Mike Calabrese (01:05:59.866)

You know, this is a Tinker Mackerel. So I just, you know, based upon my experiences in the ocean and all that, I based these on trying to make it look as real as possible. So we got different species. We got a Mahi, Mahi, Mahi. Yep, yep. So we can demonstrate that as well, but just a couple more. There's a Bonita. We catch a lot of those. And then most recently I had a customer from California say, Mike, have you thought about...

Katie (01:06:10.915)

So show us how you put a weight in there.

Katie (01:06:22.084)

Looks so good.

Mike Calabrese (01:06:29.723)

squid actually I had but this is before I was it was before I had a printing ability I was gonna like cut fringes in the back of it look kinda silly I abandoned the idea so now that I could paint and print this guy said how about a squid I said and I ended up whipping up a few paint patterns and this is a squid

Katie (01:06:46.757)

Those are sick. That one's currently sold out on your website, right?

Mike Calabrese (01:06:52.282)

Yes, yes, we're flying through these things and trying to keep up

Katie (01:06:53.957)

Cause everybody wants them because the Pacific you guys, like the pink squid is where it's at on these sailfish.

Mike Calabrese (01:07:03.29)

Yeah, it seems to be there is something to do with the color red, which is the first color to disappear in the spectrum underwater. In fact, we used to paint our dredges red and on when the camera was up close, it would be red. But if you jump into water and watch the dredge go by from 20 feet away, it's essentially invisible, which it works. So I'm guessing that's why squids are red is to try to be invisible underwater to predators. But.

Katie (01:07:29.51)

even more camouflaged. My blue water spearfish spearfishing wetsuits all red and yeah they don't see me coming.

Mike Calabrese (01:07:35.066)

okay cool yeah definitely works let me grab a rig I'll show you how to rig yeah simplicity and keeping our lives simple because heck a maids job there's tons of other stuff to always be doing especially if you have you know if you got to sit down at the dinner table with your owners at night or something you know long days very long days exactly so you know there's there's

Katie (01:07:57.349)

Mm -hmm after cooking and then cleaning afterwards. Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (01:08:05.72)

I don't feel there's anything particularly wrong with an artificial dredge. Now, you know, a lot here in South Florida, the Stewart guys, the Fort Pierce guys, they're religious upon their mullets and their baits and that's okay, you know, in tournaments, all good. However, it doesn't guarantee good fishing by any stretch, you know, you're still got to drive over them, the fish still have to be there. Anyhow, we...

Katie (01:08:27.623)

A lot of teams too, they'll have like pre -rigged artificial dredge, they'll have dredge baits ready for the tournament and that way you can easily change them out. And one thing I really like about these firetails is they're super easy to change out.

Mike Calabrese (01:08:37.719)

Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (01:08:42.393)

Mm -hmm. Minimal drag, minimal, you know, easy to unclip, all that. So, yeah, typically we'll just, I mean, you can, people can put stuff in front of them. A lot of folks like to use islanders or dusters, sea witches, whatever. These baits have their own color, so I don't really feel like you need that stuff. What I do is I just take, make a little rig, which is just a piece of monofilament with a weight.

and that is designed to go up through the through the through the bait and there's a stitch in the nose that this comes out of. Let's see if I can get this here. But that's that's the rig and that's how we rig these things.

Katie (01:09:26.216)

It's super easy.

Mike Calabrese (01:09:28.186)

Yeah. Anyhow. Here it goes.

Mike Calabrese (01:09:36.154)

So then you're left with just a little, little mono loop that'll attach to your dredge and that's it. Simple, simple and easy.

Katie (01:09:43.751)

with a little paper clip.

Mike Calabrese (01:09:46.521)

Right on the dredge, yep. And then the other advantages to these lightweight strips is that you can put more on your dredge. So for example, where you might only fish two per arm in the past, you could put three per arm or even four per arm, you could put droppers. You could make a giant dredge that you can still rip in when a blue marlin shows up on your bridge teaser. You can still rip the dredge in with your 24 volt LP.

Katie (01:09:48.551)

That's awesome.

Mike Calabrese (01:10:14.841)

and not hurt anything and not break the dredge and not hurt anything basically. Super light, comes in easy.

Katie (01:10:18.375)

because they're so much lighter than your, they're even lighter than mudflaps and there's less resistance, there's less drag. And then also you don't want your marlin to get its face all up in the dredge because it gets a big bite out of something artificial or even like a rig mullet and it's most likely gonna go ahead and get out of there.

Mike Calabrese (01:10:39.928)

Potentially. Yeah, I mean you're we're trying to raise these fish up from the deep I mean it's once again the boats I fished on clearly it seems like you know even if you don't have a sonar they'll mark fish on the sounder I Just marked one a hundred feet down. You know that they're down there I got I got videos that show them raising from the depths and You know they hear the boat the harmonics of the boat they the whitewash whatever and and hopefully they see that that wiggle

of the dredge against the silhouette, against the sky, you know, and your spread is what attracts them. You know, got your hook, like you said, they're looking for that weak link, whether it's the flat line or your squid chain with the chase bait. You know, that's what gets them fired up is your spread and mimicking, you know, I guess a school of bait fish in the ocean running for its life.

Katie (01:11:36.874)

That's awesome. I really like that you called the boat the first teaser because, um, for sure, like, I don't know if you have you ever heard a feeding frenzy underwater? Like a big old frickin' feeding frenzy. It's so loud. It is so loud, you guys. And this these boat, these boats are making a lot of noise and these fish are responding to it. So like,

Mike Calabrese (01:11:42.071)

For sure. Well think about it.

Mike Calabrese (01:11:49.794)

Uh, I can't say I have. I can't say I have.

Wow. Cool.

Katie (01:12:05.898)

Mike you just said, they're coming up from the deep. They're like, hey, something's going on. Then you got this school of fish next to it. They're like, okay, I see you. And then, oh, look at that, a straggler. I'm ready for it. I mean...

Mike Calabrese (01:12:06.263)

Mm -hmm.

Mike Calabrese (01:12:16.759)

I mean, if they were that smart, they would say, this boat's not supposed to be here. This isn't right. I'm not doing this. You know, let's face it. They're not that smart. I think, I think the speed, once again, in trolling, I think if you get a fish swimming fast enough, they can't think as clearly, perhaps process their thoughts when they get to swim in to match the speed of a boat or a fleeing bait. And you trick them, you know, you trick them basically with, yeah. But I don't, I think speed is...

Katie (01:12:22.507)

No.

Katie (01:12:38.793)

Mm -hmm. Yep. With their primordial thoughts.

Mike Calabrese (01:12:45.175)

Speed is a huge factor in, you know, obviously you can't hang this from a kite sitting still and have a fish bite it. It's probably not gonna happen. You gotta be moving it fast to get it to wiggle and get this fish to flip the switch.

Katie (01:12:52.043)

Right.

Katie (01:12:58.349)

We'll make sure to put some dredge footage on this video. If you guys are listening to this podcast, come check it out on YouTube. We'll put some dredge footage on here so you guys can really see the way those firetails look when they're swimming, like Mike said, because they make a lot of noise. And by noise, I mean they have a lot of movement. And they're really enticing for these fish. Mike, I have one last question for you. We need to wrap up, but what is it for you that...

Mike Calabrese (01:13:03.543)

awesome.

Katie (01:13:27.917)

gets you coming back to the water every single day.

Mike Calabrese (01:13:33.718)

Oh, it's definite. You know, I think about this all the time because of how much I've been fishing lately and all the early mornings and the grind, but it's the life experiences that are, you can't get on the couch. You can't get sitting at home, watching TV. Fishing is, there's all kinds of challenges, all kinds of emotions in a single day, a wide variety of emotional roller coaster things and it's living. And you know, you're out there away from,

the rat race. You know, yeah, what's not to love? You know, it has its moments when you got to go 100 miles and six to eight foot seas and you know, got to wake up at, that alarm goes off at two in the morning or whatever, but you know, it's tough to put a value on the ride home after a great day of fishing in beautiful weather, a successful day with your friends or buddies and you just had a great day catching fish and you know, that's the best.

Katie (01:14:17.167)

Yeah.

Mike Calabrese (01:14:32.535)

So it's the life experiences and the feelings you get from all the success and failures. Stuff you can't get sitting on the couch, for sure.

Katie (01:14:40.495)

and failures.

Katie (01:14:44.688)

I love it, absolutely, 100%. Because even when you fail out there, you're still learning and you're still living and you're still feeling that fricking drive. I love it, that's awesome. Cool, Mike, well thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you if they want to follow more of your adventures or check out these firetails?

Mike Calabrese (01:14:51.242)

Mm -hmm.

For sure. Absolutely.

Got it.

Mike Calabrese (01:15:05.972)

Yeah, thank you Katie. It's Instagram. I have the firetails on Instagram. It's a little underscore in between F -I -R -E -T -A -I -L -Z. Here's my sticker. But that's the business. And yeah, I work full time here in South Florida on a boat. And I do some freelance fishing as well. And yeah, Instagram, I guess these days.

Katie (01:15:20.784)

Nice.

Mike Calabrese (01:15:35.828)

And I got a Facebook too. It's my name, Mike. Yep. So.

Katie (01:15:39.185)

Awesome. Thanks so much, Mike. You guys are here to hear Katie C. Sawyer podcasts. Don't forget to like and subscribe and thank you so much for checking us out!

 

 

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The Katie C. Sawyer PodcastBy Katie C. Sawyer
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