The Katie C. Sawyer Podcast by Katie C. Sawyer

May 22, 2024 Ep.06 Jeremy Cox: Mongo Offshore Challenge and Fishing the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Jeremy Cox, Captain of the Lolita fishing team and co-founder of the Mongo Offshore Challenge, shares his fishing journey and the success of their recent fishing trip. The conversation covers topics such as Jeremy's fishing background, the Mongo Offshore Challenge, and their recent catch of a 704-pound blue marlin. They discuss the tournament format, the significance of the catch, and the importance of preserving and studying these fish. Jeremy also talks about the excitement of lure fishing and the thrill of anticipation. The conversation highlights the joy of fishing and the special moments shared with family and friends. The conversation revolves around the experience of catching marlin in the Gulf of Mexico and the importance of sustainable fishing practices. The guests discuss their recent catch of a 700-pound marlin and the challenges they faced during the fishing trip. They also touch on the significance of donating the meat from the catch to charities and zoos. The conversation highlights the love and passion marlin fishermen have for the species and their efforts to protect and conserve them. The guests also discuss the science and research that can be conducted using these rare event species. Additionally, they talk about the process of catching live bait in the Gulf of Mexico and the strategies they use to keep the bait fresh and alive. In this conversation, Jeremy from the Lolita Fishing Team discusses the evolution of live baiting in offshore fishing. He explains how the use of live bait tubes has become a common practice and how it has improved the ability to keep bait alive for longer periods. Jeremy also talks about the importance of fresh and frisky bait in attracting fish and shares tips on handling and caring for bait to keep it in optimal condition. He emphasizes the significance of structure, such as oil rigs, in creating fish aggregating devices (FADs) and attracting a variety of fish species. Jeremy also mentions the potential for future expansion of the Mongo Offshore Tournament to the East Coast and internationally.

Mongo Offshore Challenge East Coast Registration

https://www.reeltimeapps.com/live/tournaments/2024-mongo-offshore-east-coast/register

Mongo App:

Iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mongo-offshore-challenge/id1516755470

Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reeltimeapps.mongo&pcampaignid=web_share

Keywords

fishing, blue marlin, tournament, Mongo Offshore Challenge, Gulf of Mexico, Lolita fishing team, catch, celebration, preservation, marlin, Gulf of Mexico, sustainable fishing, catch and release, fishing tournaments, conservation, live bait, tuna tubes, live baiting, offshore fishing, bait tubes, fresh bait, frisky bait, handling bait, oil rigs, fish aggregating devices, FADs, structure, Mongo Offshore Tournament

Takeaways

Jeremy Cox shares his fishing journey and the success of their recent fishing trip

The Mongo Offshore Challenge is a season-long tournament that awards the biggest fish caught in various categories

The Lolita fishing team caught a 704-pound blue marlin during the Hurricane Open tournament

The catch was celebrated with family and friends, and the fish was donated to science for research purposes

Lure fishing provides a unique thrill and anticipation for anglers

Preserving and studying these fish is important for understanding their reproduction and population Marlin fishermen are passionate about the species and work towards their conservation and sustainability.

Donating the meat from caught marlin to charities and zoos is a way to reduce waste and benefit the community.

Catching live bait in the Gulf of Mexico can be challenging, especially during the day when the bait goes deep.

Tuna tubes are used to keep live bait fresh and alive during fishing trips.

The conversation highlights the importance of responsible fishing practices and the role of fishermen in scientific research and data collection. Live baiting has evolved over the years, with the use of live bait tubes becoming a common practice in offshore fishing.

Fresh and frisky bait is essential in attracting fish, and there are techniques to handle and care for bait to keep it in optimal condition.

Oil rigs serve as fish aggregating devices (FADs) by providing structure and attracting a variety of fish species.

The Mongo Offshore Tournament is a popular fishing tournament that focuses on the Gulf of Mexico, but there are plans to expand to the East Coast and potentially internationally.

Transcript:

Katie (00:00.206)

In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Captain Jeremy Cox as we dive into the Gulf of Mexico blue marlin fishery with big fish stories, tips on how to handle and maximize the health of your bait and why the oil rigs play such a valuable role in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

Katie (00:27.886)

Welcome to the KDC Sawyer podcast. I'm your host Katie. And today I'm sitting with the captain of the Lolita fishing team. He's also the co -founder of the Mongo Offshore Challenge. Jeremy Cox, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with me today. No problem. Thank you so much for having us. It's my pleasure. Well, we've been talking about doing this for a long time and I'm really glad it worked out the way it did because you guys just had a

heck of a fishing trip out of Grand Isle, Louisiana last week, which I really want to get into you guys. Spoiler alert. They caught a 704 pound blue Marlin, but Jeremy, tell us a little bit about you. Where are you from? What's your fishing experience and how did you get to where you are today? so, let's see. I'm, I was born in Maryland. Actually, my, my family's from Maryland. move my.

family moved us to Pensacola, Florida back in the early 80s. And so I grew up in Florida. I was raised in Florida. I think I was two years old when we moved to Florida, Pensacola. And man, first fishing memory is like four years old. My brother, JD, which is also co -founder of the Mongo, he's my older brother by seven years. He took me fishing in a lake behind, you know, in our neighborhood behind our lake.

caught a bass like the first trip and I was hooked. I was like man this is the thing now I probably pestered him every day after that can we go fishing can we go fishing you know we're going fishing and so that progressed into an addiction of fishing and my mom took me on a fishing charter when I was 10 years old out of Ocean City Maryland and I saw the mate you know back there with us and you know this guy driving the boat which was you know I learned was a captain and

and we caught some tuna and I was like, these guys do this for a living? And my mom's like, yeah, this is what they do, you know? And I was like, man, I want to do that when I grow up. So my brother had a baseball scholarship. He went off to college and played baseball and moved to Birmingham, Alabama. And me and him always talked about owning our charter boat. So I got into the fishing industry. Like my first job was first fishing related jobs working at a place called Boaters World. They're out of business now, but.

Katie (02:50.766)

very like West Marine, it was around for years and it was a big box store for marine supplies and marine sales. So I worked there and figured that'd be a good opportunity to meet other fishermen. So long story short, met other captains and landed a mate job and started mating and me and my brother, that's what we were gonna pursue is our own charter boat career. And you know, I'm skipping a lot of stuff, but Hurricane Ivan hit in 2004 and sort of...

hit us back to reality. It's like, man, we saw all these charter boats lose their whole livelihood with their boats getting wrecked and the whole season sort of thrown out the door, at least in our little town. And we're like, maybe that's not the smartest idea for us. We didn't have a lot of money anyway. We wanted to get in those charter boat things. I mean, so I had a lot of friends in the private industry. And we were charter fishing. We were mating and captain. By that time, JD moved down to Pensacola. And we were both mating on different boats. And I did some captain work.

started in the private sector. So I was like, man, that's probably the better route, more secure, you know, and then it's, you know, you got somebody else paying for everything and you get paid to go fishing, paid to kick, you know, a lot more waxing and toilet fixing than fishing, but yeah, it's all part of the, all part of it. Yeah. So, but it's awesome. So, you know, that's, that's how I got into the captain, you know, and in that whole time, you know, I was doing sales, you know, I worked for a

Long time I worked for a distributor. We sold fish and tackle to tackle stores. And then I was a tackle sales rep for a while. We represented a dial and play Jake and other other brands. And I did that for collectively for about 12 years while I was doing captain work on the side in the private world. I had an orange beach, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida, Destin, Florida. But now currently I run the Lolita to 72 foot Viking out of Destin, Florida.

and been working for this family for this is the ninth summer. Great family. They're awesome. Yeah, we're like fam. They treat me to treat us like family and just a great, great time. And yeah, this weekend. So we, we called the art person. Yeah. no, no, no. I haven't interrupted you. Sorry guys. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. No, that's so cool. So are you out of Orange Beach now? Are you based out of Orange Beach now? I'm.

Katie (05:15.47)

We keep the boat Lolita, we keep it behind Bo Shamps and Destin. That's where we keep the boat year round. That's right, you just said that. No, yeah, we come to Orange Beach a lot. We're sort of a traveling boat in the summertime, so we're rarely home during the summer, but the wintertime's fall through spring, we're parked behind Bo Shamps. We spend a good amount of time in Grand Isle, Louisiana. The owners have a camp there in Grand Isle. Nice. Yeah, so we get to spend, well now it's about two months a year out of Grand Isle.

a month in the spring. What two months is that? So we're just getting off of this month. So it's a March, you know, late March to well, actually this year it was early April through early May. You know, we're home in Orange Beach now for some work. So about a month, you know, in the late spring and then a month in a late summer, we used to go there late July and stay through late August. Yeah, it's really good fishing over there that time of year. Yeah. Are you, out of Grand Isle, are you...

doing a lot of tuna fishing as well as blue marlin fishing. Correct. Yes, they love to catch tuna and blue marlin, that's pretty much it. That's all they would like to get. We do very little bottom fishing. It's primarily tuna and marlin fishing, which is... I mean, the fishing up there in the northern Gulf for those two species is incredible. And the fact that you've, I mean, you essentially grew up for the most part fishing the northern Gulf of Mexico, right? That's right.

That's cool because I'm from Texas, right? That's where I claim as my hometown. But I, my Gulf of Mexico fishing experience is extremely limited. So, I have so many questions for you and I'm really excited to have a Gulf guy on the podcast. we've had South Florida, we've had Kona and now here we go into the Gulf and we're right in that tournament season. Now, do you want to tell me a little bit about the Mongo Offshore Challenge? It's a 153 day.

regional challenge, right? That's right. So yeah, so me and my brother was involved in this private world of fishing and tournament fishing. I think our first tournament we fished together was in 2007 on a boat called the Sunset. I fished several tournaments in like 2004, 2005, but JD was able to move down from Birmingham, get out of, he was in natural disaster work as well. And anyway, he,

Katie (07:34.382)

He was able to fish with me in 2007, our first tournament together on a boat called Sunset. We fished Biloxi and we won it. First tournament we fished together. my gosh. What'd you win it with? 531 Blue Marlin. Yeah, and it caught on the first morning of the first hour of the first morning.

is like totally spoiled. Like JD's like, I like this tournament fishing stuff. This is pretty awesome. Yeah. It's always, it doesn't always work out like that, but that was really special. We did it with our best friend and mentor, Matt Dunn, which he's not really in the, in the sport fishing game anymore. He switched over to yacht world and he's doing, you know, he works for, you know, runs a big yachty yacht now, but,

Man, so we made a lot of memories fishing. We had a really good run there with him for about six or seven years. Did really well in the golf circuit. And that was right when live baiting was sort of getting really, really popular. We were primarily trollers on that boat, but yeah, that was cool. So.

What do you mean primarily trawlers like lures? Yeah, lures. We were, we were lure fishing. We still actually are passionate. I don't know that I would have fell in love with blue marlin fishing if I would have started out just sitting soaking live baits. it's something about the anticipation of rigging the night before the days before. And you got your lures out and you're re -skirting and putting new hook sets on. You're like, maybe that's going to be this color. You know, you got, you know, we need more trawlers. We need more spiked lures.

Yeah, you know, going to the tackle store and like, man, we got to buy this one. This is the one. man, look at the head. You know, it's just, I don't know, something about that anticipation and like, you know, the what if they eat this one? yeah, they should eat this one. It's this color. look, it's a dolphin color. We got to match the hatch. I mean, all that stuff is just like fun, you know, rather than feeding them what they eat all day long. Of course they're going to eat a tuna. Of course they're going to eat it. Yeah. It's like, you know, we do it and it works.

Katie (09:36.782)

We have to do it in time efficient up here. You have to live bait to be consistent. But it's, you know, you're not really tricking them anymore. You know, when you're lure fishing, it feels like, man, it's like bass fishing. I'd much rather bass fish with a spinner bait or a plastic worm than throwing a live shiner out there. They're going to eat a live shiner, but it's just something special about it. And so yeah, it's definitely progressed. We came in when it was...

And the northern golf is mainly lure and, you know, in natural baits, you know, you're pulling islander, you know, about who combos is, you know, everybody still pulls and then they work 100%. They work. And that's just, I don't know, something special about, about that. And if we were started out live baiting, I don't know that I would have had the same excitement about it. Now we sort of mix it up a little bit. We do some trolling and we do a lot of live baiting. it's the primarily way we fish up here. We're very, very spoiled.

with this Northern Gulf fishery with these old rigs. I mean, you have giant fads everywhere. So they hold fish. We're going to go a little off topic for a minute because I have a lot of questions for you. No, this is great. I love it. You're giving me great content. So in that tournament, so we won that tournament. I'll go back to the Mongo. Obviously, it's why you have us on here. But us tournament fishing, we saw the progress and we're on fast boats.

And then we started running the Lolita. I started running that in 2016, and it was a slow Hatteras, a 23 knot Hatteras. And we also, when we first started fishing, there's a lot of express boats. In the early 2000s, in these big weekend tournaments in golf, there's a lot of smaller express boats. There's a lot of slower, you know, Bartrams and Hatteras. And everybody's competing. But as the fleet, you know, got more technologically advanced and bigger horsepower engines.

It's a speed race now, so whoever has the fastest boat has more fishing time. And it's a huge, huge deal. We're running 150 to 250 miles one way. So if you're doing that, you know, and you're getting there two, three hours before everybody else, or at least before the slow boats, the slow boats don't really have a chance, you know, unless you get lucky and run over one. So we were like, man, it'd be awesome if there was a tournament that had like a, that would level the playing field that would give them.

Katie (11:54.83)

Same amount of time for everybody. Doesn't matter how fast you are, how slow you are. If you have a big giant Viking or a little center console, everybody's on a level playing field. And so that's how that progressed, that birth, that idea of like, man, all right, let's just have a season long event and put the lines in. Whenever you leave the dock, you're in the tournament from May 1st to September 30th. So if you can, and we're all about the big fish, Mongo meaning huge. So if you catch a giant fish.

between May 1st and September 30th, you can win it. And we count your weights in tournaments, and we count your weights on fun fishing trips. We set up these weigh stations all over the Gulf, and you can go in anywhere. We have 20 weigh stations in the Gulf of Mexico from all the way in South Texas all the way to Naples, Florida. So you go in and weigh your fish, and if you have the biggest fish at the end of the season, you win the pot. Blue Marlin, Swordfish, Tuna, Dolphin, and Wahoo.

So yeah, it's really, really fun. We started it five years ago. It had 66 teams that first year and this year. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And COVID year too, which is crazy. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, our first year we had 66 teams. We have a bit of a network. We've been around, we know a lot of guys. So we were able to call up a lot of captains like, what do you think about this format? Would you fish it? And they're like, yeah, that's awesome. Heck yeah, man. Because you always catch your biggest fish on your fun trips anyway. Yeah.

Yeah, typically. I mean, you're going out there for a million dollar tournament and you catch the big one the day before practicing, you know, so now we can celebrate that fish and reward, you know, whoever catches the bigger ones, all kinds of cool things for that format that makes it neat. But yeah, so so that's where it came from. And then now this year is our fifth year we've had a we have 150 teams and over half a million dollars in the pot.

That's crazy in the Gulf of Mexico because you guys have branched out to other fisheries now, right? That's right. So we started the East Coast three years ago. This is our third season in the East Coast. We're trying to grow that East Coast. We don't have the network that we have in the Gulf because we grew up in the Gulf. We know everybody. So we're working on growing that network over there, getting some key individuals, key captains on board. But there's already, and registration is still open for the East Coast until June 30th. So teams.

Katie (14:12.782)

fishing from Cape Cod all the way down to Florida can register for the Mongo up until June 30th and pick which category you want to get in. You don't have to get in swordfish if you don't, if you're not a sword fisherman, just get into mahi or whatever you're fishing for. What's the registration fee? So it's alacarte. So each, each one's different. So the mahi and the wahoo are 500 a piece for the season. That's nothing.

You know, we burn in that much an hour out of some of these boats and fuel. So, and then a swordfish is 15, excuse me. Swordfish is a thousand for the season, for the season. yellowfin and big eye are a thousand a piece for the season. And then blue marlin is 2 ,500 for the season. So you'll, if you want to get in all categories, like 6 ,500 bucks for the board. Yeah. And you're in from every time your boat leaves the dock, whether you're fishing two times a year or a hundred times a year, you're, you're in there.

And what did the winner of the Gulf of Mexico last year make and what did they weigh on blue marlin? I think their payday was like 130 ,000 last year and it was a 727 pound blue marlin caught in the bluxy tournament. So he won two tournaments with one fish. I love it. I love that. Yeah. A boat called the salt shaker with Captain Dennis Bennett. And I remember that.

Believe it or not, they also won the mahi. They caught the mahi in the ECBC tournament and won like another 50 grand with the mahi. So they really cashed in last year. That's so sick. And their mahi was 60 pounds, 59 .9 pounds, 60 pound mahi in the Gulf of Mexico. It was totally unheard of. I haven't seen a 60 pounder. That is massive. I haven't seen a 50 pounder in the Gulf in years. The only fish I've seen that big was in like Costa Rica, Central Pacific.

Panama. That's, that's where I've seen the mahi get that even close to that big. But again, my golf experience is pretty limited. Sure. One thing is different, you know, Mongo, golf on that a minute, but we have very big minimums. So there's not a whole lot of fish weighed in the Mongo throughout the season. One, it's a winner take all. So once something huge is on the board, you're not going to weigh in anything smaller anymore. And then our limits are high. Like mahi has got to be 40 pounds to even qualify.

Katie (16:31.278)

Wahoo's 60 pounds, Yellowfin's 140 pounds. Blue Marlin's 118 inches. Which is like the federal, you guys, the federal minimum is 99 inches. And a lot of tournaments go 112 inches. So it's definitely progressed over the years. Typically last year was 110 for all the tournaments and this last weekend was 112 for this last weekend.

Yeah, because people are going in figuring them out and they're starting to weigh in more and more and more. So they're trying to inch those links up to not take so many of them. And that's one reason we wanted to just pay one place. You know, one, we just wanted to award the biggest fish of the season. And then two, we didn't want to kill a bunch of extra ones. And then typically the blue morn... Actually, I'm trying to think, other than the first year in the Mongo...

Every other blue marlin has been caught, or the winner was caught in another tournament. So the first year, the first year was a state record fish caught the day after the, the world cup on July 5th. They were out there for the world cup. They stayed out another day, caught this giant fish. If they would have called in the world cup, they would have won a whole lot more money. Obviously fly usually has, I don't know, well over a million dollars in that, in that world cup pot.

But they ended up winning, I think they won like 90 grand or something like that extra. Yeah, that they were. I mean, how cool that you guys are giving that opportunity, you know, like I Drake when we were in Madeira, we saw a real big fish on July 3rd and didn't see it again. But it's just, you know, it's funny how they dance around that date. I feel like those sightings really, really go around the 4th of July. If you guys are wondering what we're talking about, the World Cup is a tournament that's around the world based on your specific time zone on the 4th of July.

and we'll have Fly Navarro on for a podcast coming into that. So stay posted. But Jeremy, I guess natural integration. Tell us about your fish this last week. So this last week in the Lolita, the boat I worked for, my owners are gracious enough to get in. They know we put the tournament on. They're totally supportive and supporting of it. It's me, my brother JD and my best friend, Brian Johnson. We were the founders of the Mongo and we also all three work on the Lolita.

Katie (18:56.366)

So my brother's a mate and Brian comes on for tournaments and it's been just a great team. We all get along so well. And so they're always gracious enough to, hey, we'll get into, you know, we never twist our arm or nothing. They like the idea, they like the format. And so they've got in every year and we've never weighed in on qualifying fish during that time for the Mongo. But this year, our first, actually it's our second trip of the season, but our first tournament of the year.

fishing the hurricane open out of Grand Isle, Louisiana this past weekend. And we catch a 704 pounder, which is a nice one. It's 122 inches. It's our biggest one yet. And man, we are so ecstatic. Congratulations. It was money or no money. It's actually sort of special for my owners and my owner's family because they've had a camp on Grand Isle, Louisiana for they call it a camp. It's a beach house and it's nice beach house now, but.

It was camp since the 50s, late 50s. This family has had many traditions of going down there and spending time together every summer. And it's been, you know, it's something where everybody can go and be around each other. And it's, they're a really close knit family anyway. And they fish the tarpaulios and fish some other things over the years, but they've never weighed anything huge there in Grand Isle. So this has always been like a dream of theirs. And to do it in Grand Isle just makes it that much more special. We didn't.

Like I said, we want some money, but it wasn't about the money. It was about that memory that they got to make with their family members. And they brought their 90 year old grandfather down here to celebrate with us. And he's, you know, yeah, his wife was Lolita. She passed away, but that's had to name the boat after. So he was able to come down and celebrate. And it was just so special. It was really, really cool. And we're able to, you know, not only celebrate that fish and won some money with that fish and.

Now we're on the board with the Mongo, which, you know, extra special for me, JD and Brian. I mean, it's really, really cool to be able to do that. But, but you reached out to us and now we were able to donate that fish to science, which is awesome. And we also flayed up a bunch of the meat. Everybody's sharing the meat. We actually, my brother's smoking some up, making some fish dip out of it. Yes. Smoked blue marlin. That's the way to do it. Yep. We got some, some art being made from it. you know, some, the bill and the tail and some prints. And so it's.

Katie (21:19.758)

It's not a wasted fish, it's a celebrated fish. And now we got, we had kids down there taking pictures with it. It's just inspiring kids. I mean kids, the thing is, is like what a lot of people don't realize is when these fish are brought back to the dock, like the kids that see it, it's such a lasting impression. Because I mean, even for the adults that have never seen anything like that, like to see a creature from the ocean, a fish from the ocean of that size and magnitude and what it takes.

to bring something like that in and what type of possibilities there are out there. It just opens so many doors. And I'm really, I was really stoked when I reached out to you, you were all on board about the donating. And next, you guys, the next podcast is gonna be Jeremy Higgs over at the University of Southern Mississippi. And that's exactly who these samples are going to. So Jeremy, I had you like.

what we cut the head and we kept some of the innards and we're going to get to age that fish and, and learn a lot about the reproduction and the phases of the fish. So it's blue marlin are females when they're of that size and they're going to get to do reproductive histology on there and we're going to learn a lot about it. And I just think it's so cool that you guys were on board and just sharing that on this podcast is so important because you know, when these fish are brought in, there's so much more that can be done with them than even just.

you know, taking the tournament win. Like you said, I love that you're showcasing the celebration of that life. Tell us a story about catching the fish. Like what did it eat? And, yeah, so, we fished some, a very popular area called, we call it the ghetto. it's just, some shallow, well, it's not shallow. It's, it's close to land rigs. I guess you could say it's a, it's a rig that are

the floating rigs that are closest to the Alabama line. We're fishing out of Louisiana, but everybody knows the ghetto. If you fish in the northern Gulf Coast, you know it's the ghetto. It's the Rampowl and Petronas and Marlin Rig and Horn Mountain. It's these rigs that's been there for years and years and years. Probably some of the early rigs that were floaters are the ghetto. And they've added on to them. And we got hundreds of rigs that we could choose from. So, ghetto's in the shallower waters. It's about 3 ,000 feet and it's working its way up the bank. And,

Katie (23:37.07)

I saw some good current in there, like a good eddy being built. We use Hilton's to do our research before we go to figure out exactly what the current's doing, the temperature's doing, and all that. We saw this eddy being formed in there, and I was like, man, it's got some good water pushing in there. Also, Bluefin was still open, so if we accidentally happened to catch one, it wasn't closed yet. It's like, all right, if we get one, we could probably take her home if she ends up.

Accidentally, you know eating one of our live baits that we use for blue marlin which they do typically this time of year And then there's huge tune in that area this time of year had some reports today before Several boats catching actually one boat called a 200 pounder another boat called 185 pounder all in this area. Yep And then several boats have caught blue marlin over the last couple days. So I was like, all right, let's go in there most of the fleet's gonna go to greens Canyon another area south of Louisiana and

Maybe it won't be as so many boats over there. Anyway, we made the call. Go over there. And the bait's a little hard to catch, a little concern. As we get there, the bait's really, really deep. Typically in the daytime, we're trolling around the rigs, try to catch live bait first to fill up our tubes. At nighttime, you're jigging, using butterfly jigs and whatnot around the oil rigs. They all come to the lights and usually up shallower. And you can jig them all night, fill up your tubes. But in the daytime, you've got to be a little creative and catch them on the troll.

There was a lot of different techniques guys used, but they were really deep, really hard to catch. So we were like, all right, at least to the rigs that we stopped at. So we switched over to trolling. That first day we're trolling, nothing. We got to watch another boat that was live baiting catch a couple of fish. So we're like, all right, well, there's fish around. We'll load the tubes tonight and we'll start in the morning and do some live baiting. So we did that. We filled up our tubes at night at a rig and then pulled over to our first stop.

It was a drill ship and first bait in the water. It was a porpoise. Porpoise came up and ate our bait and they just, they're so smart. Yeah. They hated this fisherman. They're beautiful, awesome creatures, but they came up. Yeah. You're fishing. Yeah. You don't want when they're eating your bait. They're amazing how they eat it too. They missed the hook. They know where the hook is. They bite it right behind and they just like suck out everything. You just, all you have left on your, on your hook is the head of your bait. And they did that like first, first bait in.

Katie (25:57.678)

Corpus and I'm marking someone's sonar and like these all look like porpoise to me. So let's let's just go. So we went three miles away to the next rig and there's nobody there. There was like four boats or five boats fishing with us at that first one. So there's multiple reasons why I wanted to leave. So we lit we left one over there and there's only other one ended up being one other boat fishing with us there and marked a couple in the sonar. We hooked one fish, jumped them off within like two minutes. It was a

hindsight it was a male. It was a smaller fish. And we found that over the years that that'll happen a whole lot. You'll catch them. You'll catch a small one and you go back and catch the big one or you'll catch the big one and you go back and catch a small one. It seems like they run together this time of year. It's typical to find a big fish with a small fish or multiple. I'm so curious to find out if your fish was spawning. Multiple small fish. A lot of times.

So anyway, I marked one, we hooked that one, lost it, put the baits back out, and I saw another mark going over to the rig. So we were using Omniso Nars. Actually, I'm using an MAQ. I love it. It's awesome. So we go over to the rig, put the baits out, drag it over top of it, and I lose the mark. I can't find it. And a lot of times that means they're coming up about to eat your bait. You know, you're in your prop watch or whatnot. Nothing. About five minutes goes by, I mark something else.

up ahead of me so we pulled the boat up about maybe a football field's length and there she is. She eats the bait immediately, starts dumping it. What you have like a blackfin or bonita? Yep, that morning all we could call it was blackfin. A little football size maybe about that big. And yeah, Aida immediately dumped a bunch of line. We're using 130 class reels with 130 pound line on there. We do have backing and she...

My angler gets in there, Jordan Womack, he fights it for two hours straight. A hot, hard fight. Not a whole lot of jumping, but just a ton of dogging, ton of left and right and down sea, up sea. The fish was crazy. Really, really strong fish. We got one look at it, like two jumps. There's a video we just put up there on Instagram yesterday. You can see the only two jumps. That's the only two times she came out of the water. And she doesn't really look that big in that video. She's pretty far away. And,

Katie (28:17.134)

We see it's a solid fish, but we get the measurement stick out, like, all right, it might be 112, we'll see. And then two hours into the fight after, he's like, all right, this fish is super strong. It's big. And then she sounds. Sounds all the way down to the bottom, way back into the backing. We're probably a thousand feet out of line in our angler's life. You guys, sounding is when, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremy, but sounding is when that fish goes essentially straight up and down and it's deep. Like it's just deep.

A lot of times when they do that, we try to, captains call a lot of big blue marlin that try to tag and release them. You're trying to keep them up on top because the worst thing you want is from the sound because they'll die. Typically when they sound that deep, they're stroking out, they're giving out. That's all. If you keep them up top, you can usually tag them really quick and release them and be done. So she sounded and we're like, man, we're in for the long haul now. We're already two hours in, which is a long time. Yeah, usually tagging these fish.

If we're tagging the fish, even the big ones, you can get them in 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour. But anyway, sort of all like defeated after that point. my goodness, we're two hours in, we haven't really saw her again. She's sounded and way back into the backing, our angler is just like totally gassed. He's puking, he's puking all over himself. He's pale in the face. He's like a bodybuilder guy.

His arms are shaking, his legs are shaking. So we've got to get him dehydrated, get him cooled down, pouring water all over him. And then the family's just totally around him. The team's just around, like, you're not quitting. You're staying in this. You're going to get this fish. Just totally positive talking, because he's like, I don't know if I can get this thing anymore. Yeah. I mean, he's done his thing. Yeah. So in that.

When they do that, and she's done fighting, like she sounds and then it's done, done taking more line. We go to full drag and at that process you got to plane them up. You got to, you know, you're pulling forward, getting a little bit of scope in the line where the line starts coming up a little bit and you're backing down really hard, reeling that slack and then doing it again. So basically what your rod was doing before, the boat's doing now. So the boat's pulling up and then you're reeling down. You're pulling up, reeling down about 40, 50 feet at a time. So it takes another three hours to get that fish.

Katie (30:32.782)

Hold on, I want to pause you real quick. I really like that you brought up the planing and how it's done because a handful of times when we've been fishing, it's just a really important skill for captains, crews, and anglers to know. A lot of times it can even potentially save a fish. If you have a fish that gets tail wrapped early on in a fight and you're not going to be able to get its head turned. So tail wrapped is when the line's wrapped around the tail of the fish.

And if you can't get its head turned, a lot of times that fish is just gonna be swimming down. But if you recognize it early on, if the angler and the captain recognize it early on, you guys can start planing that fish up and get it up to the boat before it dies. Because if it's tail wrapped and it gets pulled backwards for too long, it's gonna asphyxiate because it can't breathe.

moving backwards. So planing is a really, really important skill in the field of ethical angling. And then of course, in situations like these where, where you have a deep fish that's just gone. And I mean, also when they're that big, it's really interesting, Jeremy, because when they're that big, it's almost like they can't fight as long as the smaller ones. Like, do you think that that plays a key, like a role in it? And what about the like, how, how warm was the water?

I'm just curious. 77. That's pretty cool actually for Northern Gulf. Yeah. It'll warm up. I'm surprised. Yeah. It's, it's, it's been cut off from the loop current that area. So if you go down in greens, it's probably 79 now, somewhere around there. the loop current is probably 80, but you know, this current is down there in greens is probably that, but up, up where we're fishing is still a little cooler because it's sort of been cut off. it's getting most of its water from out in the canyon out to the east of it. And that water is all 76, 77.

Is that pretty regular with the seasons? Sometimes that loop current, you look on Hilton's and watch it come up. It'll come up from the Yucatan, make a hard ride over towards Tampa and loop back down. And then off of that northern part, you'll get eddies that'll curl up into that Louisiana, Alabama area. And those eddies are bringing in that nice fresh nutrients that you want. You want that counterclockwise eddy that brings up fish, brings up all the nutrients from the bottom. And you got to...

Katie (32:50.926)

Clockwise, it's pushing everything down. Altimeter's down and it seems like everything's deeper. But yeah, this time of year, it'll be all sort of weird and squirrely. We always like to fish after a really big storm, like a big south pushing storm. A lot of south wind, southeast wind. Sort of like the pocket and people are familiar with Chubb and down there. Anytime you've got something pushing everything into the shallow water, it seems to get better in there.

And that near that shallower water just sort of stacks everything up. So we like doing that. but it was, you know, the, anyway, there's fish in there. There's fish everywhere. People caught fish this weekend all over the place. We were just sort of right place, right time. And then we're capitalized once we did get that fish on, everybody worked together as a good team. And, you know, we didn't make any mistakes. If we would have made a mistake, we would have lost that fish. Cause once we got that fish in the hook was hooked outside end, which is.

already hard, you know, you lose them right at the beginning. It's probably when he chased that circle hook, when he was, when he was chasing that blackfin, that blackfin probably swirled around his head weird, got him somehow. And then that hook was hooked to the outside end. So when he came in, you could grab the hook and it just went, doop, it like barely came out. And then we had like two wraps, we had like two wraps around the tail that probably saved us, you know, saved that fish, you know, saved us getting that fish.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because if it would have been hooked outside in and he sounded and we'd just been pulling him up like this, it would eventually just work this pulled it out because it just and then she would have died in vain. Yeah. And then it starts with ater and nobody got to celebrate. Yeah. All that. So yeah, it was really special the way it worked out. So many so many things worked in its way. It was a blessing for sure. Were y 'all surprised when she came?

when y 'all got her up and she was 122 inches long? Yes, well, actually she popped up way far away. So, you know, we're playing in and once you get them up, you're playing in a dead fish up from that deep. Once you get up to like 200 feet above that thermocline, they'll just pop up and she popped up. Interesting. Yeah, she popped up probably 200 feet away. And so when she popped up tail first, we probably we knew that she was probably tail wrapped, but we didn't know it popped up tail wrap. Our hearts sort of sank. man, I hope she ain't like a 400 pounder, you know.

Katie (35:07.438)

come up tail up tail up. And then we, you know, now this is all sort of sucks, you know, we don't, we don't win nothing. And you know, we just killed a smaller fish. So she popped up tail up and we saw the tail sticking out of the water and we're getting back and down, back and down to the fish that JD can grab the leader, pull her over and the tail gets bigger and she gets longer. And we're like, okay, all right. And then JD gets her boat side and we're like, holy moly. Nobody says anything to each other until we, until we get her, you can watch that video. We're getting her in a boat.

Brian and Ryan, the owner, start pulling her to boat and they get her in and then everybody's like, whoa. You know, we didn't want to say anything. Exhale. Yeah, exhale. And then we measured her. Yeah, we knew she was big and then we measured her and now she's a mongo. You know, now she's over one eighteen. We're like, yeah, we're high five. And it was so awesome. It was very, very special. We've killed it. We've killed a fish with these owners a few years ago, but it wasn't a mongo. It was like a five forty or five.

30 or something like that we caught in Blocsie. Which length was approximately? It was like 112, 113 I think was the length. Yeah you guys 118 is a really damn big fish. Yeah. Like it's a big fish. A special fish. In 122. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And I, in the video, I mean it looked like you guys didn't even have a flying gaff out. Like you all just had your tuna gaff. Yeah we did have a flyer out. We decided we didn't need it once we got boat sided and we just stick it.

regular stick gaff in there, straight gaff. And we did that and then we'd just get a new surround her, around her bill and then we were able to sort of guide her in that way. But yeah, it worked out really, really good that way. It was cool. It was very, very special fish. And then now it's like the dilemma of, all right, did we stay out here? The fishing's good. We ain't got a tuna yet. We came out here for a big tuna too. And we made the decision of going on in. So we...

because we're in the Mongo. Because now we're gonna lose, we didn't want to lose any weight. And we wanted to explain how you lose weight. So a lot of times on the deck, they'll just lose weight. They're losing fluids the whole time, blood and other things. And we didn't have that many holes in her, but we had a couple of holes in her. A lot of times they'll just lose weight sitting on the deck. And it kept on going through our minds like, man, if she is a Mongo, she's still got, we got all season for 88 teams to try to beat her.

Katie (37:30.414)

But if we lose by like two or three pounds, we're going to be hitting ourselves in the face for not taking it. It's only three hours away to the weigh station. So it's a fast boat. So we go. And our plans are to come out either later that evening or that night and try to get a tuna. And we get in. We have a couple of mechanical issues I'm a little nervous about. So we decide not to go out. We just hung her up. We're 700 pounds. We're all having a great time.

to see if somebody else can beat her. So nobody else beat her and we won that weekend tournament, which we're super excited about. And then, congratulations. See what happens in the market. Now it gives us a little bit later. You know, it was the 118 everybody was shooting for now it's a 700 pounder set by shooting for. So what is that? I don't know. It could be a 118, a really fat one, but typically probably, you know, that probably is going to save a few fish of being killed is in our thoughts, unless it's in a weekend tournament, you know, if it's on a fun trip, they're going to think twice about killing if it's.

you know, 600 pound or something like that. So, yeah, that's cool. Which is really cool. Yeah. Question, what are some like when you're bringing a fish back to the dock and you want to make sure that it's not losing weight, like what are, what are ways that you can help mitigate that? Like, do you have any techniques that you or tips that you want to share? Yeah. So, at least knowledge that I've learned from, from other captains is, we haven't done it yet on.

on length, but to keep length you want to keep them wet. Not necessarily cold, but wet to keep their length. So a lot of weekend tournaments, it might be 110 and you have 112 sitting on the deck. Two days later, that thing could be 110, you know, or 109. They could lose an inch or two pretty easily. And there's plenty of stories of guys catching a legal fish and getting back to dock and it's not legal anymore. So that's a bummer. So a lot of captains...

found that you keep them wet with towels and that'll keep their length. Not sure about the way that is. Yeah. Is like their skin will shrink up. That skin is so it's very similar to Wahoo skin. Right. And even though the scales are different, very different, but it'll like it'll shrink up as it dries. So keeping them wet will keep them. There's like a lot of like.

Katie (39:54.99)

ends and outs of it, right? Like I just, okay. So just to clear the air here, I haven't been a really around fisheries that kill fish. you know, my blue Marlin, my predominant blue Marlin experience was in the fat fishery of Costa Rica, which is all catch and release because they're small fish. And then, we were fishing in Madeira for the big one, but we never saw her. So I've heard a lot of stories and like,

of fish like coming back to the dock and people saying they were stretched, fish coming back to the dock, people saying that they, you know, put water in their bellies or whatever. what, like there's, there's definitely things you can and cannot do to keep these fish the way they should be as well as like the word mutilation. Can you, can you expand on that for me? Yeah. So in our tournament, in the Mongo, we def on a weekend tournaments. So say you catch your fish in a weekend, we defer to that tournament.

So if it's dequeued in that weekend tournament, it's dequeued in the Mongo. If it counts, it counts. In our rules, we do Spirit of IGFA. So mutilated fish are not counted. Mutilation is something that impairs its ability to fight, its ability to swim. So if you back over it a little too hard and chop its tail off or chop something up with your propellers, it's not going to count. It's part of the game.

It's shark bit. It's not going to count. We accept cookie cutter sharks because that could have been done months or years ago. Cookie cutter sharks will take like a little round bite out. You'll catch a swordfish and it'll have several of them in there a lot of times as cookie cutter sharks. So we'll accept those, but yeah, if it's a five tiger or something on the way up, then we don't count that. We count that as a mutilated fish. Unless that tournament that you're fishing in accepts it.

then we'll count it because we defer to them. But yeah, I mean, you know, people have, yeah, we hear those stories too. I mean, same thing in the freshwater world, people putting leads in their stomachs and, you know, all kinds of stuff to try to win. So we, in the Mongo, we have some checks and balances in there. Sometimes we have the ability to cut that fish open at the dock and check its innards. And we have to have two witnesses that weren't on the boat to witness you weigh that fish. And...

Katie (42:19.758)

lie detector test for the winners. So we have some things built in to try to keep the confidence high that somebody isn't going to cheat. And a lot of it's peer enforced. If you're in this private industry of sport fishing and you're caught cheating, you go find another career. Yeah, you're not going to get another job. After your black eye, bloody nose heals, go find another job.

you don't want to, nobody's going to accept you if you get caught cheating. So it's a lot of it is peer enforced, at least that fear of, you know, so hoping, you know, somebody that didn't want to go on their morals, there's some fear involved as well of getting caught cheating. So, you know, not saying people don't try, but we, we, we try to build some safe, some safe holds in there to keep people from doing it, at least thinking twice. Yeah, that's great. But yeah, and we like to keep them cold. You know, if they're big, big enough fish to weigh, the weigh in, we want to,

try to donate that meat. So we like to keep them cold, wrap them up in a fish bag, put as much meat, much ice in there as you can, keep them wet as well. If you keep them bad and cold, he's going to stay long and you're going to get some meat and you can donate out of it. And people eat them in Hawaii all the time. They eat them in all these other islands all the time. I mean, it's not like the best table fare. It's not like we're going to, I'm, you know, let's go catch them all in a day so we can feed the family. But if you do catch them all in a day, she dies. It is edible.

We have some especially smoked. Like we really like it. I've smoked Marlin on a bagel. Yeah. Yeah. I've had some smoked taco or some fish taco, Marlin tacos or they're fine. Yeah. You can dress it up and it's totally edible meat. but, we have some, some charities that we sit that we work with and the golf, golf coast, feeding the golf coast and different charities like that.

that if a fish does come in the mongo and wait in one of our waste stations, we have outlet to get rid of that meat. A lot of times you'll have to flay that meat up and bag it up, but that's not a big deal. And then you just put those bags in the freezer or wherever and we'll have those cherries come up and pick it up. And they'll donate it to, if it's edible for human consumption, they'll donate it to some homeless shelters and whatnot, but also some zoos and things like that will take it for their tigers and their different. Burning sanctuaries. Yep, yep. So there, you know.

Katie (44:38.158)

alligator farm. How cool that you guys have like have thought all that yeah alligator farms for sure thought all of that out at your way stations like okay when we bring this fish back like I just love that you're obviously so sustainably minded. Yeah yeah yeah future conservation minded you know it's making choices you know make make your choice because if you want your kids to do this you know try to take some responsibility you know.

Nobody loves Marlin more than Marlin fishermen. There's a bunch of fish huggers out there. Why in the world are you killing a fish? my goodness, neanderthals. Well, nobody loves them more than we do. I feel like we've hugged more Marlin. Yeah, we've hugged way more Marlin than y 'all have. And nobody raises more.

Nobody raises more money to protect them, to research for them. We buy fishing licenses. That money goes to help all of it. So I love it when people... And the money we put into the communities. Yeah, I love it when people in all the comment sections, they all have an opinion and you go look them up and they're living in Iowa somewhere and never even seen a blue marlin. They have no idea what they're talking about. So nobody loves marlin more than marlin fishermen. We want them around. And yes, we try to take efforts to promote.

people want them around more. We kill a few extra fish a year, but all under that minimum. We're allowed 250 per year. National Marine fisheries, white and blue marlin, and if there's an extra three or four killed in the mongo, and they're all huge fish, and they're all celebrated and all that, I think it's good. I don't think it's hurting anything. If anything, it's helping the industry, all the money that's raised from marlin fishermen, bringing new little junior anglers into it. Like you said, with...

Like you said, with kids taking photos and stuff like that at Grand Isle this past weekend, there was a line of people, like literally after we took our photos, our team photos, there was like a line, like a single line of probably 15, 20 people waiting to take their picture with this fish that they only know who we are. They don't, you know, they're gonna take a picture with this fish so they can send it to their family members. I mean, very, very cool. Look at this. Yeah, so cool. Yeah, very cool. Did you even know this animal existed out there? Right. Yeah, and also like this, you know,

Katie (46:54.286)

Another way giving back to the fishery and the communities is the science. The science we're getting from it. These fish are known as rare event species and you and I can both testify to that. And they're really hard to get. They're very expensive to go after. And the scientists, the schools that are studying them to make sure that they are sustainably managed, that they are cared for correctly, that they are going to be in the lives of our children and our children's children in the future.

they don't have the funding to be able to catch them themselves. And the fact that we have fishing teams that want to bring them back and take integrity and donate responsibility and donate these specimens to the science labs. I mean, USM was so stoked on y 'all's fish. Like it was, they were just so excited. USM, the Bill Fish Foundation, they were just really excited. So like you said, no one loves marlin more than marlin fishermen. It's just, it's a fact.

exactly. And really cool fish. Yeah. And I've, I've even heard of people like, you know, we don't catch them as big as they, you know, y 'all are killing the stock. Well, think of all the records has been set in the last couple of years. All right. So last year, the biggest fish that's ever been recorded in the Gulf of Mexico was called in October, 1145 pounds. I see three years ago. Yeah. And days after he's one of our boys, he's one of our boys. He's, he's like one of the original supporters of the Mongo.

Captain Chris Moat, he's an amazing fisherman loves blue morn fishing is really really good at it and Man, that would have been so special if it was caught two weeks prior to that. But yeah, so Yeah, so that's a golf record. I mean biggest one in the golf And then what what was Duffy's fish like four years ago the you know, 1 ,100 pounds caught in Maryland?

All right, and then two years before that, Big Rock had the biggest ones ever caught in Big Rock. I mean, we're, the fish are still here. They're good. You know, we need to continue to take care of them and grow them, but they're not, we're not, we still have those old man in the sea photos. That's what the Mongo logo is about is staying inside that amazing fish. Well, there's proof that they're still out there. I mean, that just proved it. So yeah. That's so cool. I want to get into the live baiting.

Katie (49:19.534)

I want to get into why it's challenging to catch live bait in the Gulf of Mexico. So when we were in Costa Rica, I keep bringing this up, but we were bait and switch fishing predominantly, which you guys, that's teaser fishing. And if a fish shows up behind the teaser, we take the teaser away and then we present them with a dead bait with a circle hook in it. Right? And then we generally get a really active aggressive bite. It's a good feed, good hook set. That's all she wrote.

But we were catching our bait out there. It was Bonita and they're prolific. They're just prolific. And I've heard that catching bait in the Gulf of Mexico is a very different experience. You've already touched on how the bait was real deep on this last trip and y 'all were struggling on catching bait. A lot of times you guys will have a little bit of an easier time catching bait at night, but then you're catching bait at night and losing some very valuable sleep.

as well as, you know, those bait, they go deep during, during the day because the water can get so warm. So let, can you, can you give us a little bit of Intel into how you keep your tuna tubes, what tuna tubes are and how you keep them full and what your, your best care and strategy tips are? Yeah. So that's definitely progressed over the years. I remember live baiting in like 2005 and six, somewhere around there was my first time.

was fishing on a boat with a really experienced captain that was really, really good at it. And they didn't even have tubes yet, but he live baited a lot. So he basically catches bait, put it right back out. Might even get a little creative and catch a bait and keep them close on a little leash in the water. Literally, that's your live bait tube, just keep them in the water on like a little leash with a little hook through his or a clip through his nose. Whatever, get creative to keep at least one in the quiver, to put one back out. But there's...

caught a lot of fish by catching them and then hooking them up, putting them right back out and then doing well that way. But obviously if you can have a quiver of baits so when you get sharks or a barracuda eats it or a porpoise eats it, now you got to go catch more bait again. So now became the tuna tube. So it started out with boats getting two or three on there and now you'll have boats with 20 on there. We have 16 on our, so obviously the more tubes you have.

Katie (51:46.094)

The more bait you can have, the longer you can go without having to go try to catch bait again. So 16 tubes, man, that's been a whole progression as well of how do you keep 16 fish alive? So you have to have a lot of water flow. So there's a lot of techs and all kinds of science and mechanics and figuring out how much flow and how to get the best flow. And do you want bubbles and not bubbles? And where do you put your through hole? I mean, there's so much that goes into it.

And every boat's different and all that. So anyway, over the last five or six years, it's very common to buy your boat. If you're building a brand new boat, say Vikings building your boat, and you can get your tubes installed at factory or right, you know, maybe you'll refit it when you get it down to South Florida. And there's a couple of guys that specialize in that and they'll refit your boat before you even go pick it up. You go pick up your boat and you got your sonar and your tubes. And those are primarily golf boats. Golf boats, we have tubes.

If you don't have tubes, you're probably not fishing in the Gulf. So not competitively. Yes. And there's a lot of guy dredging now doing phenomenal. The guys that are really good at dredging still catch tons of fish, but a lot of that's on standups. Are you going to kill that? Those are your tag release guys. So the guys that are trying to catch the big one are live baiting primarily. And then you want them on a circle hook rather than have them on a J hook.

because man, all the things didn't go wrong with a J hook. So, circle hook is a really good way of catching a big fish and being able to fight it through and land it. So, yeah, so typical day is, you know, if we're showing up, you know, tournaments leaving in the Gulf, you're leaving at like 10 a 11 a you're running out to your oil rig that you've picked, or you might stop on the way, some guys stop on the way at some bottom spots and pick up some bonito. A lot of times the bonito will hold up over a natural reef.

or a shallow water oil rig and picking up some bonitas first. Bonitas are usually shallower where we live and as you get out you'll start getting to the black fin and the yellow fin and there's some skipjack and things like that. Yellowtail, or not yellowtail but rainbow runners. Things like that you can catch out there too. But you're trying to catch them trolling. Some people fish on the surface for them. The guys are figured out the getting deep, getting creative.

Katie (54:07.502)

how to get down deep with planers or downriggers or whatnot to get down deep to where they're at. And then all kinds of different things you can catch them on, little squid imitations or minnow limitations or spoons and all kinds of different ways. You're making them on daisy chains and figuring out a way to get those fish to eat, those little baits, and then you're bringing them up, putting them in your tubes. Once you get your tubes full, you go fishing.

And then some guys, while they're fishing, they got a guy on the bow with these sea keepers. That's a whole nother thing. You got a guy, these sea keepers, if it's relatively calm, they're up there casting the popper, casting little plugs, little jigs to try to catch. You got one guy who's just a bait fisherman on your bow while everybody's fishing in the back. Try to continue. That's how important the bait is. You got to have that fresh bait. So yeah, you load your baits and then you're fishing, looking with sonars. Before sonars, we just all...

stayed up on the up current side of the rig. A lot of times that up current side is where the marlins will be because the school of tuna typically swims around in circles on the up current side. My theory is it's easier for them to get back to safety. If they got to swim down sea to get back to safety, it's a lot easier than having to swim up sea to get back to safety. It's like a bass or anything. Yeah, it's like a minnow or anything else.

or a reef fish, they're gonna swim back. So the upcurrent side will be the busy side. That's where most of your tunas are. That's where most of your predators are is upcurrent of them. So now it's easier for them to catch fish if they're swimming down sea versus having to swim into the current. That's how I figured it. So yeah, so that's the way we used to do before sonar, but now sonar's changing the game. Now it used to be, all right, and I'm gonna sit there with baits on the water while I'm sonar fishing, looking for something to troll over at two knots, my live bait's over to that mark.

But now a lot of guys aren't even putting a bait in the water until they mark a fish because they've gotten so confident in their sonar abilities to find that fish. Don't even put a bait out until they're right on top of that fish. All right, deploy. Put your baits in the water. There he is. A lot of guys are getting really good at doing that. You can tell who's good at doing that. Wow. Just watch three tournaments. And if a guy's winning or placing in each one of those three or two of those three,

Katie (56:16.27)

that guy is a really good sonar fisherman because that's what he's doing. He's not waiting on chance and you know, just maybe official swim by this current side. He's, he's literally feeding that fish. It's almost like teasing that fish, but you know, you don't have to tease them. Just drop a bait on it and he'll come up and eat it. Cause I think the prop wash and all that makes them think that the feeding friends of the year, whatever, at least they're paying attention to what's going on with that prop wash up there. Yeah. So it's definitely progressing. It's, it's changed.

It's like every five years something different and people are getting really good at that and then five years have changed and it's something people get really good at that. But that's the thing now, the successful captains that are, especially with numbers of fish are doing is not even putting a bait in the water until. So now you don't have to bait fish near as much because you're not killing so many baits. You're not wasting them whether tiring them out or you're getting shark aid or we get a lot of sharks, a lot of barracus, a lot of porpoise around them.

these rigs too. So yeah, so daytime you're trolling for them, playing in whatever you got to do. At nighttime you're jigging and jigging is pretty easy. Once you find them, at nighttime you can load your tubes and usually 30, 45 minutes you'll have some bite, you know, you'll have some eating by sharks and whatnot. Sometimes it's frustrating, if it's really rough it's sort of hard to hold up sometimes. But yeah, loading them up and then you're ready to go and definitely lose some sleep. Some guys are bringing an extra guy, just like a night driver.

You know, that way he's fresh, doesn't at least not run into the rig in the middle of the night, 3 a trying to hold up, you know, things like that. Yeah. It wears you out. Yeah. And it wears you out, especially if it's rough. Yeah. The golf fish is a lot different. A lot of areas because we stay out. We leave on Thursday. We don't come home until Saturday night. So it's a long time offshore. You know, it's hard to sleep anyway out there because you're in a tournament. You're all hyped up. Yeah. And then now you're bait fishing all night or wherever you're.

A lot of people are moving to a different area, you know, relocating, things like that. So why is it important to have fresh bait? Frisky bait seems to get eaten better. That's what we found. You got a bait sort of sluggish, been pulled all day. He's not going to get eaten as bad as a guy running away. It's like that cat and mouse game. You know, that's what we found. Frisky baits get eaten.

Katie (58:38.094)

Yeah, but dead baits get eaten too. You can make them pull in and making them, you know, the mates are working those baits to make them look frisky. So you can get away with the slower dead bait, but that frisky baits, it seems like you drop them, want to drop a frisky bait in there. They're going to get eaten if you're marking something, you know, if that marks not a shark or not too deep, you know, there's a whole. Or porpoise. Goodness. The guys are really figuring that out.

Yeah. So it's fun to watch that fun to be a part of it. For sure. We've had a lot of conversations on the podcast already about, you know, what it takes to get a fish to eat, whether it be a lure, whatever, whether it be a dead bait, Valley, who, but the live bait it's fun because, you know, with the dredge fishing, we, we, I talk about how, your bait, your swim bait wants to simulate kind of like the slower fish, the weaker fish at behind the school. But when you're live baiting, you're not trolling the boats, not.

really moving. So the fish is actually doing the job of enticing the bait of the marlin, of the predator. So what, how, there's a lot of handling that goes on on these fish, on these baits. We don't want there to be a lot of handling, but when we do have to handle them from, for example, taking it from the sabiki or the bait rig to the tubes and then out of the tubes and onto the hook set, what are like some tips on,

how to best make sure that bait is taken care of so that it is going to be frisky in the water. Yeah. We found getting them to the boat as fast as possible. So not tiring them out on a long fight. So might a little heavier drag, a little heavier rod, whatever you got to do to make that fight in as fast as possible. Plus the sharks won't eat them so much. And then once you get them up, we're netting them instead of just ripping them up or swinging them in, you know, putting too much pressure on them. And if he drops on the deck.

Usually just throwing them right back like if he drops on the deck We're not we're probably not gonna put it in the tubes unless we're really struggling to catch bait and keep anything we get but So what kind of rubberized net something with some? I like thinner mesh that way your lot of times your Your jig won't get won't fall through and they get all tangled now You're wasting time getting your jig all untangled out of your net. But yeah, these big big rubberized nets that have you know, I

Katie (01:01:02.094)

pretty fine mesh that way it's they can just sort of lay in there and then the guy who's handling them will have you know gloves or you know or some bibs and keep everything wet and moist and try not to handle them too much you know just sort of really babying them. A lot of times lay them keep them laid in that rubber mesh and de hook them in there and then grab them one time and just put them in the in the tube and these tubes will have soft bottoms on them like made out of silicone and so it won't hurt their nose too much.

The flow's got to be right. And that's just a different science that everybody's got to figure out on their own boat to get the flow right. What's keeping those bait alive? People's even going a step further and adding things, whatever they got to do to keep them alive. Whether they get hot, they die faster. If they get a lot of bubbles, they die faster. They don't get enough oxygen, and they die faster. So there's all kinds of things that people are doing to advance their game to keep their baits frisky and alive. It's pretty cool to watch.

It is. I heard, you know, the other day someone was telling me about the chillers that people are putting in the live bait tubes, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Everybody's probably going to be so mad at me after this podcast. People are talking, but it's all out. I mean, people were figuring it out. I mean, it's been sort of this common sense, but figuring it out, you know, is another thing like, all right, yeah, man, if we keep these fish cooler, that would be awesome, because definitely this time of year they stay alive really good.

77, 80 degrees, they're fine. But July and August, it's a whole nother game. You're getting them in the water. It's a bathtub up there. Everything's hot. So that's when chillers and things will probably play a big game. If people can figure it out, you got a lot of water flow. And we're going 70 gallons a minute through these tubes. It's a lot of water flow to try to cool down. That is a lot. And that water that y 'all are pooling.

is on the surface. Like it is the warmest of the water in the Gulf of Mexico is what's going through those tubes. So getting a chiller just makes sense. Cool it down because these fish, blackfin bonita, they're not as endothermic as like the bluefin. So they're not as warm blooded as the bluefin, but they are, they get really hot. All these tuna species, they get really hot when they fight. That's why when you hear that expression, it burned up. But,

Katie (01:03:20.462)

They get super hot and then so when you're bringing them in on the bait rig, they're fighting you. You put them straight into a like 88 degree tube, they're not going to do well. Like getting, I mean, it makes sense to have a, we're catching them out of the deep. We're catching them out of the deep a lot of times, a hundred, 150 feet down and that's a water's a lot cooler down there. So yeah, if you can figure out a way to get the water down to where they're used to swimming around and that would only make sense. They're going to stay, stay alive longer. It's just the.

The engineers have got to figure that out, how to do that. That's a lot of testing and stuff going on right now. That's the next progression is that. Yeah, there's all kinds of cool stuff. The freshwater world's had to do that too with largemouth bass. Because if you bring in a dead largemouth bass to a, you're fishing a huge bass tournament, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you've got a dead bass, now you don't count. So they've had that same struggle of how to keep these bass alive. And so there's all kinds of...

things that they figured out already that people are sort of taking over to our world like, all right, well maybe we'll try this because it's working for them and how to incorporate that into the tubes and things. So it's very, very cool. Same thing, South Florida Sailfish. I mean, you got to have live bait down there, how to keep that lot, you know, how to keep them cool and energetic and all that. So there's all kinds of things people are doing now. It's pretty cool to get a little edge, you know. Yeah, lots of nuances. Every little bit.

counts. Yeah, and time on the water, I think is the number one thing. If you're spending time out there, you're able to test things and try things to get more confident on it. So the guys who go a lot, the guys who are out there day in, day out, you know, or weekend, you know, that you can tell, because they're just they're not having to relearn it every time they're there. They've already done it yesterday, you know, and I stayed on the fish out of bite here yesterday, you know, that makes a huge confidence builder. If you know, like, all right, there's fish here.

because my buddy called him here yesterday or I called him here two days ago. That's a big deal. So time on the water is very, very key for professional teams. Invaluable. For sure. We're running low on time, but I do want to touch on a couple of things. You mentioned about how...

Katie (01:05:35.31)

the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. I've got a lot of listeners that aren't from the US, which blows my mind. I'm looking at you Australia and Barbados, but the oil rigs that are in the Gulf of Mexico serve as FADs, fish aggregating devices. Can you expand a little bit on that? Like why these oil rigs are so important to our fishing communities? Yes. I think it, I started in fishing like as a career for

You know, making money fishing is as a mate on a boat that did a lot of bottom fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. And in northern Gulf of Mexico, we have white, beautiful white sandy beaches, Pensacola, Destin, and all that. Well, the bottom looks just like that too. It's white sand. All right. So if you just have a bunch of white sand, where are you going to go catch these fish? So we put out man -made reefs. So we go out and drop something.

It used to be car bodies and school buses and stuff. Now there's all kinds of regulations. It's got to be some type of something that's going to stay a while. So anyway, you go put something vertical structure that's going to come some type of vertical relief off that white sandy bottom. And now all of a sudden, minnows are going to get on there and then the whole food chain, you know. And now you can get your spots. You can go to that spot and you'll catch fish, guaranteed, almost guaranteed in the Gulf. All right, same thing.

for offshore fishing. If you have a structure, it's like, what do we do before oil rigs? And we've still got us to do it, but you look for a weed line, you're up in a tower, you're binoculars, something. I need something that's gonna hold a bait so something can eat that bait and then we're gonna try to catch that guy. So same thing with oil rig. You got oil rig man -made structure out there. It's naturally attracts crustaceans, which attracts, or not attracts crustaceans, but grows crustaceans.

And then yeah, and then you're gonna have all the bait in the whole food chain and that's that's the way it works and it's yeah everything anything floating out there for a couple that you will have drill ships a drill ship is something that goes out there and they'll do exploratory stuff and They're just a giant ship and they go and they they stay in one spot with their thrusters or whatever They do they're not anchoring and they'll put a pipe down 9 ,000 feet down

Katie (01:07:47.982)

drill and test a hole or pull out. I don't know exactly what they're doing, but they're out there for a long period of time. Well, we fished a drill ship before that's only been out there a couple of days and it has fish on it already. Cause it's just sitting. Like some of our best tuna fishing in the Gulf was on drill ships. And I'm like, how does this work? Yeah, anything. So it just proves it. If there's any type of structure that creates a way for bait to get safe is how I look at it.

Like if there's protection, that's what a weed mat is. You know, obviously that's a whole ecosystem, but it's, that's protection. They get in there, they feel safe, you know, same thing with the whole rig. So that's, that's what it is. Just like in Finding Nemo, you guys. There you go. There you go. So I think structure is good. And that's a whole nother thing I want to get on is the whole windmill thing. I think it's a big waste of money and all that stuff, but it's structure. If they're going to allow you to fish around it, it's going to create a fishery.

Yeah, but the windmill thing is... I don't agree with the politics of it. I don't agree with the finances of it. I think it's a big waste of money and waste of time, waste of effort, yada, yada, yada. But if they allow it and if they shut it down fishing, then of course you don't want them. I mean, I would not want anything that shuts you down, shuts that area down. So yes, don't have them if you can't. But if they're going to allow you to go around them...

10 years from now, you're like, man, this is the best fishing we've ever had out here. We don't even go out and look in La La Land anymore out in open water. We're just going straight to this spot. If you had an old rig, you'd do the same thing. If we have an old rig put out, you don't want old spills, you know, all that. You don't want all the negative stuff come from it. But if they figured out a little way to keep it safe, they figured all the way to keep from old spilling commonly and trade it, there's a lot of bad that could come from it, anything.

But man, there's a lot of good that can come from it as well. And this fishery that we have is absolutely amazing. It does spoil us where we don't, it might make us a little rusty on some things. Like we took our way of fishing and go fish in the East coast. We'd probably be pretty rusty when it comes to the way they fish, you know? Yeah. Every fishery is different. But man, what an awesome fishery we have. And if you figure out the way to fish it, there's fish there 24 seven, 12 months at a year.

Katie (01:09:57.518)

There's people that go out there and catch blue marlin in December, in January, in February. When we always used to think they just go, right? It gets cold, they just disappear. No, they're there. You just gotta go out there and try. And a lot of guys are doing it. There's tuna there 12 months out of the year. They might not be as good, might not be as many, but a solid believer on there is resident fish that never leave. Why would you, if you're a marlin, maybe instinctually you're...

You're going against what your instinct is, but we've had buddies that worked on little rigs that say, man, I've been seeing this fish. It's got to be the same fish because it's huge. It's way bigger than the other ones. I've seen this fish for months. It's here every day. And then,

You go and then you have proof of it. People go out there in the off season when nobody else is fishing and they end up catching fish. And there's resident fish that live there. I think they hear it. They can sense it somehow with the ladder line or something to know where that rig is. I don't think they just literally camp out under there. I think they probably swim a mile or so away. I don't know exactly how far away they can sense it. But it's very interesting to think about and go down that rabbit hole. Like, how do they know? I don't think they can't navigate. I don't think they can navigate like, all right, all that things just.

you know, five miles over here. I think they're sensing it somehow and they and then if they get close enough to it, they know where it is and they stay there. And then if they get swept in a storm or something like that, then they'll just go on and move on, move on out. But I think there's there is resident fish that stay in that area, unless a storm or something pushes them out. It's my opinion.

Yeah, I mean a lot of the blue marlin tags that have been put in the Gulf of Mexico have been recaptured in the Gulf of Mexico. And as far as location or finding their way, I'm not so sure about blue marlin, but I know tuna, for example, they have that third eye is what the scientists call it, which is a soft spot at the top of their head between their eyes. And there's been a lot of studies done, they seem to, because...

Katie (01:11:58.126)

Obviously highly migratory species. They're moving the bigger the fish species so Black and all the way to bluefin the more they seem to migrate but they find their way like bluefin tuna for example They go back to their same spawning grounds much like sea turtles do right? It's crazy but this third eye apparently has like magnetoreceptors in it that like are Aligning much like the way birds migrate the where they're aligning with the for example the North Pole like a compass like an internal compass

So I wonder if blue marlin have something like that. No, it's crazy, crazy stuff. And that's why another thing is, you know, like tuna, the thing is, you guys, is there's, we know so much more about tuna because they have a significantly higher economic value. So for example, bluefin, you know, the industry, the sushi and seafood industry around the world just highly values tuna. So there's been a lot of funding put into the conservation of tuna.

So we know that tuna are negatively buoyant, right? So if they die, they will go down. They just, they sink. But when you brought up how that blue marlin at about 200 feet, they'll float, that blew my mind a little bit because I haven't been able to get an answer from anyone on if marlin or billfish are negatively, positively neutrally buoyant. A lot of fish are neutrally buoyant.

So I guess they're not negatively buoyant. I was starting to think that they must be. Yeah, I don't know if maybe that maybe from planting them up, swims up, you know, fills up their air bladder or something like that. You know, like a tune, like a same thing with grouper. You know, you catch a grouper from the depths. They'll just they'll just pop up and float once you get them a certain high. And yeah, that's that's what they do. You get them up a certain certain amount. If they're dead, they'll just pop up to you. Bluefin will do the same thing. Just pop up on the surface if they're dead.

Really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. From the depths. I've never caught a dead bluefin. Yeah. From the depths, if you're planing them up, I think it's... Yeah, I never caught a dead... Yeah. I mean, yeah. That's actually on the bucket list. I've never caught a bluefin. My brother's called it a 822. really? that's a nice one. Yeah. They caught a huge one back in 2009. But I've never caught one, but all my buddies have caught them. And it's just right place, right time. I haven't ran over it. So cool.

Katie (01:14:18.862)

But yeah, it's cool. I love those things. Those are amazing fish. You see them a lot. They're crazy fish. They're so cool. They are really cool. Okay. What's your, I want to wrap it up. What's your rest of your season looking like? What are your plans? Where can we, where can we keep up with Lolita? Yeah. So Lolita fishing team, we do a few tournaments. We don't do it the whole circuit.

The bosses got a big family, they're very, very close and they have a lot of things going on. So we usually tip fish three to four major tournaments a year and then the Mongo. We were in the Mongo from May 1st to September 30th. Our next tournament on the Lolita is Biloxi and then ECBC and maybe the championship. Maybe another one in there mixed in somewhere. But yeah, the Mongo is where we're at because we like being able to fish any time. We do a lot of fun fishing.

So I would like to say that the East Coast is hot harp on that one more time for We'd love to grow that pot over there the East Coast we know can be bigger than the golf This like I said this year 150 teams in the golf over 500 grand we can see the East Coast some you know Surpassing that very easily we're hoping to continue to grow I think there's already 90 grand in the blue marlin pod on that coast and Love to love to grow it and

and spread our fleet over there in the East Coast more. So tell your buddies, get on mongooffshore .com. There we go. And I'll put that link in the description. Now, is it too late to register for the Gulf of Mexico? Yes, the Gulf is closed. They started on May 1st. Fishing is open on the East Coast. But if you enter now between now and June 30th, you can go ahead and start fishing 48 hours after you register. You just have to wait a 48 -hour grace period before you start fishing.

That's awesome. And do you have any other regions that have Mongo? No, we don't go in any other. So no, we attempted to take it to Hawaii. We put that on pause for a little bit. We're thinking about doing a international region in the future. Maybe we'll see. We'll see. Right now we're really just focused on East Coast and golf. That's awesome.

Katie (01:16:28.494)

Alright you guys, so if you're fishing the East Coast, check it out. Look at the link in the description. We'll put it right there for you. All you have to do is click it and get yourself registered. There's really no reason not to. It's such a cool, such a cool tournament and I'm really stoked on it. It's been such a pleasure having you on Jeremy. My last question for you is what is it that keeps you coming back to the water?

It was my first hobby and I just love being out there. I love God's creation. I love the beauty out there, the sunsets, the sunrises, the fish that he created, everything. I just enjoy it. I enjoy being out there on the water. It's always an adventure. So it hits that little adventure nerve in you because you might not come back. You never know. I mean, it's an adventure, but it's something about that. You never know.

Just being able to conquer, conquer something hard, do something hard. It's not easy. We're on these multimillion dollar boats and we got air conditioning and range and everything you want. But it's still not easy. Look at, talk to Jordan, our anchor last week, five hour battle. He's a beast of a guy and it was not easy. It was a hard, hard thing. And man, what the feeling we had when we accomplished that and brought that thing. And it was...

We all teared up and hugging each other and it's just, we worked so hard for it and it's just, it's just special. So it's a, it's a really special thing. So, yeah, I don't know. There's a long answer for you. That was a great answer. It's exactly what I wanted. I'm sure that the bonds from that experience are even closer and tighter than they were before, which I think is just absolutely incredible, especially with your brother on the team. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much. you guys heard it here on the KDC Sawyer podcast.

And that's a wrap. If you enjoyed this podcast, please feel free to give it a like, share and subscribe on YouTube or leave a review on your podcast listening platform. Thanks so much for tuning in and as always, don't stop chasing your wild. We'll be seeing you out there.

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