I've seen sword fishing rigs where you sacrafice the weight when it hits the bottom.

Is there a way to use a down rigger and have the line released when you hit bottom and retreive the weight? Leaving your fishing line and bait on the bottom////

Total rookie here... just learning and asking questions. I was thinking for tile fishing that'd be nice also.

Thoughts and feedback appreciated.

I recently bought a Shimano Tiagra 80W and now I’m trying to decide on the right rod.
The setup is mainly for trolling offshore from a sailboat, including an Atlantic crossing in the future. Most fish obviously won’t be monsters, but I want the setup to be capable of handling a genuinely big bluefin, marlin or other large pelagic if I ever hook one.
I’ll be fishing without a fighting chair, using a rod belt/harness when necessary.
The two options I’m currently looking at are:
Shimano TLD B Stand Up 80 lb, straight butt
Penn Ally II 80–130 lb, roller guides, short bent butt
I originally preferred a straight butt because it seems more practical for stand-up fighting, but I’m wondering whether going with an 80 lb rod defeats some of the point of having an 80W reel when dealing with an exceptionally large fish.
On the other hand, the Ally II gives me the 80–130 lb rating and more power in reserve, but has a bent butt.
For this kind of setup, would you choose the 80 lb straight rod or the 80–130 lb bent butt?
And more generally: for an 80W used without a fighting chair, would you consider a straight 80 lb rod enough, or would you specifically look for an [80–130/130](tel:80-130/130) lb rod?

I'm trying to decide between a Shimano Tiagra 80W, Penn International 80VISW, or stepping all the way up to a 130-size reel.

The use case is a little unusual.

I'm planning an Atlantic crossing by sailboat and want to troll while underway, mainly to catch fresh fish for dinner: mahi-mahi, wahoo and tuna.

Ideally, when a decent-sized fish takes the lure, I want enough tackle to simply keep sailing and winch it in without slowing the boat down. Basically a modern version of the heavy fixed trolling lines that sailors have used for years.

There is a reason I'm deliberately looking at ridiculously heavy tackle for that job.

Years ago I was trolling this way with an old Penn Senator 114H 6/0 when something very large hit. I never found out what it was. It just kept running until it completely spooled the Senator and disappeared with at least 300 yards of line.

Losing the fish didn't bother me. What bothered me was knowing that a fish was now swimming around with a hook and hundreds of yards of line attached to it, and may have died unnecessarily because my tackle wasn't up to the job.

I don't want that to happen again.

So yes, I realize an 80W…let alone a 130 … is absurd overkill for the mahi, wahoo and normal tuna I'll catch most of the time. That's intentional.

However, if a genuinely big tuna or marlin takes the lure, I'm not expecting to keep sailing at 6–7 knots and simply winch it in. At that point I would slow/stop the sailboat, get the sails under control and actually fight the fish.

What I want is enough capacity and strength that I have time to do that without immediately getting spooled.

I also want this to be a setup I can keep for life. If I eventually go somewhere specifically to target very large bluefin or marlin, I'd like the reel to still be useful rather than having to buy everything again.

I already own a Penn Squall 50VSW, so I have a lighter heavy-trolling option as well.

So my question is:

Which would you choose for this specific application?

Shimano Tiagra 80W:  huge capacity, proven heavy-tackle reel, but “only” around 40 lb rated max drag.

Penn International 80VISW … similar 80W size/capacity but substantially more available drag.

130-size Tiagra/Penn : maximum capacity and fighting power, but nearly 5 kg of reel and probably ridiculous for 99% of what will actually bite during the crossing.

And if you choose an 80W: Penn or Shimano, and why?

I'm not looking for the lightest or most sporting setup. I'm looking for the best compromise between catching dinner while sailing, not getting spooled by an unexpected monster, and having a reel capable of serious bluefin/marlin fishing in the future.

Posting this here because lots of folks here have similar boats.

2025 Cobia 285 Open...

I open the Discharge Valve at the hull...

I pivot the Y-Valve to point at the Macerator Pump.

I push the Macerator switch ON.... and hold it for quite some time.

I see some brown discharge come out on the side of the boat.

So all seems fine.

I close the Discharge Valve and point the Y-Valve back to Pump Out.

But then when I am cruising... the toilet bowl in the head fills up with brown sewer water.... sometimes so much that it overflows the bowl and makes a mess all over the head.

What's wrong... or what am I doing wrong??

Please and thanks in advance.

I just bought a 1971 mako 19'. We're wanting to go offshore SC and see if we can go for tuna or mahi or honestly any other gamefish we can manage. Any tips or info at all would be appreciated, if you have any questions I'll try to my best to answer.

Hi everyone, I’m not one to ask for much guidance/advice especially fishing, but Tuna have been stumping me.

I’m on a 23’ tidewater that I’ve fished hard for bass and other inshore species this year and am looking to try my hand at some mid shore tuna.
I have been acquired jigging and popping setups and all associated jigs/ poppers/ Ron z and whatever I can get my hands on. I will soon be purchasing a couple trolling combos “probably gonna start with a set of 30’s” unless I’m convinced to go 50’s.

Does anyone have some advice or maybe a finger point towards some 5-15 Mile locations? Some advice on baits or rigging? Maybe some input on trolling gear or even lead weight. Any and all info will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and for the read,

Dave

I’ve been fishing freshwater and inshore for around 8-10 years now and I’ve never been offshore or cared to go until recently and I am hooked. I went a couple times to the North Atlantic out of Daytona with my friend and his dad anywhere from 100-300ft and we were jigging metals and dropping bait to bottom catching some nice fish. I’ve been looking to go on some party boats with my own setups. Right now I’m looking at a penn fathom 2 25n lever drag single speed and planning on pairing that with a crowder enamic 7ft 15-40lb mono to start off with. What do yall think. And is there any affordable party boats around Daytona yall would recommend?

Hope I'm all good to post this here.

A few days ago I created r/smokingfish , a community dedicated to smoking tuna, trout, salmon and everything else that swims.

I figured I'd find a few people who like to smoke their catch in here. And to those that haven't tried it, you're missing out! Mahi, grouper and leaner fish in general take some finesse to smoke right, but smoked salmon belly is insanely delicious and hard to mess up.

Anyways, if you want to share/learn tips, tricks & techniques for smoking all types of fish check us out👊

In NJ, want to try trolling and have always just used spinning reels for bottom, striped, blue. I don’t want to drop 5-10k on gear. Would older penn senators and used trolling poles get the job done? From what I see the main difference is slower retrieval and less accurate drag setting. But they caught big ass fish with this stuff before modern equipment and the fish haven’t changed.

What size reels would you be aiming to get?

I just bought a 2013 seafox 248 I’m just looking for some reviews if it’s a good boat a couple of my friends they are offshore fishers kind of made jokes about them. I’m wondering what the deal is I don’t see too many people speaking battle on them or good on them just putting my feelers out and seeing, what everybody else thinks. it has a 250 Yamaha with low hours super clean boat

Does anyone know of a boat console organizer similar to this photo that would accommodate a 3700 in the large space?

Please help!

I'm looking into doing some offshore trips possibly solo. Can anyone recommend a good personal locator beacon (PLB)? The ACR ResQLink AIS mounts inside a type 5 PFD so it auto-deploys if the jacket inflates, in case you are knocked unconscious, but is hard to set up and feels overkill. The ResQLink View RLS just uses a clip to your PFD but shows when a message was received (but no AIS). Curious what people would recommend. I also have a waterproof VHS in a fanny pack with GPS and MMSI registered. Thanks!

HHA Marine Services / Big M Marine Group is currently building its approved technical roster for the upcoming PTTEP Block K Subsea Development Project in Sabah, Malaysia.

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I may be overthinking this....

I use pin fish traps to catch live bait at the marina before I head out fishing.... my process is as follows.... I take any leftover frozen bait that's thawed but wasn't used in a trip (or unused live bait) and stuff it into molds to freeze. I got some molds that are the perfect size for my bait traps. That all works pretty good.

I was thinking about all the "potential bait" that I throw away cleaning fish. Even after cleaning there's still a good amount of meat on the carcases we all toss out at the cleaning station.

Is there something like an industrial meat grinder you could toss the carcases in? and then put it in my molds?.... Yeah, I know... for the cost of the grinder I could buy a lot of bait for catching live bait.... but I was wondering what solutions others have

This guy hung out and chatted with us for probably 20 minutes yesterday.... there was a pod of 5 dolphins in the area but this one was super curious about the boat and VERY curious when I put the camera in the water.

Hopefully this is a good place to ask some pros how a recent tournament buy in should have gone - and more importantly how it should go in the future. Thankfully I was mostly uninvolved as a ride along, and thankfully there were no winnings because this was some f*cked up monkey math I witnessed. I’d like to participate next year, but need to understand some things better as it would be my first time.

Tournament fishing is 2 of 3 days
Boat is reserved for all 3 days - can fish for fun on day 3 if it works out
The boat is chartered

Fixed costs are the boat at $6200 per day (includes fuel and gratuity) and tournament entry at $15000. Boat gets 20% of any winnings

Someone at some point in the group determined that shares were “number of people on the boat in attendance,” and shares were purchased. Ex: dad and his kid were 6 shares (2 shares over 3 days). Day three of fun fish was a no go and many of the people that rode out on tournament fishing day 1 did not return on tournament day 2 due to rough seas/foul weather. Based on this logic, shareholder % changed over the two days. (Ex: dad and kid are now 2 shares on day one and kid doesn’t come back so dad is 1 share on day two)

The weather sucked and nothing was caught so then it was asked that the ride alongs be “claimed” as shares (AKA one person pay for these people to be on the boat to lessen what everyone else owes). One day a dude became a 59% stakeholder because of this.

I’m sure anything is possible with a clear understanding in writing up front - but can someone explain to me how this should have really played out?

Should the tournament entry be split evenly among those registered? Or was this the place for buy ins to determine your stake? Would this same percentage apply to what you owe for the boat?

Is it not common that if you pay to fish that it really doesn’t matter whether or not you show up, this doesn’t mean money back?

If the fun fishing day would have happened, how would the cost of that been distributed?

Thanks if you made it this far

Reasons to fish with Captain Hook Fishing Guatemala:

All year-round fishing

Great weather

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Fishing is our passion!

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Join SI Yachts expert Rich Lucas for an in-depth walkthrough of the all-new Viking 50 Billfish (50BF), the largest and most capable Billfish model in Viking’s legendary 50-foot lineup. This comprehensive video tour highlights every key design element, performance feature, and luxury upgrade that makes the 50BF stand out in the mid-size sportfishing yacht market.

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Inside, explore the day boat-style salon with a port-side lounge, a raised dinette with built-in rod storage, and a split galley ready for three Sub-Zero refrigerators/freezers. Rich highlights how Viking masterfully blends luxury amenities with practical design for both fishing and cruising.

Below deck, the walkthrough covers the two-stateroom layout with versatile space that can be configured with upper/lower bunks or a dedicated rod-and-tackle center. The forward master stateroom features a walkaround queen berth and ensuite head, while the guest stateroom with twin berths offers access to a port head that doubles as the day head.

Rich also takes you up to the inset-style flybridge with its tournament-proven center-console walkaround helm — maximizing visibility for anglers and captains — plus ample seating, storage, and a refrigerated drink box.

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Whether you’re passionate about sportfishing, cruising with family, or exploring offshore waters, Rich Lucas’s detailed Viking 50BF walkthrough for SI Yachts gives you a full look at why this sportfisher is redefining what a 50-foot yacht can be — performance, luxury, and versatility all in one package.

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I have no experience fishing besides when I was a boyscout 15 years ago but I have the urge to go on a deep sea fishing trip and I want to invite my dad cause it seems like a fun way to spend some time together. I’m planning on booking one of those charters where they show you how to fish and do everything since we are beginners.

Do we need to travel down to florida for good fishing or can we do it nearby like Charleston or myrtle beach?