Friday, January 21, 2011

My neighbor's in 3rd but getting ready to make his move.

I live next door to one of the best Offshore Captains in the World. Capt. Alex Adler, his 48ft sptorfisherman the KALEX is no stranger to the winners circle, & tonight i went down to Bud N Marys to see how he did today, as i got there the crew was swabbing the decks & the sailfish release flags were a flyn!

Team Kalex is in 3rd with 5 Atlantic Sailfish release flags, the other two boats have 5 & 6 fish but tomorrow is the last day of the Cheeca Presidential Sailfish Tournament, fish are caught & released on 12# line,
Go KALEX, the neighbors are rootin for you buddy!!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

New Flats Skiff By Chittum Skiffs Islamorada 18




Here are a few photos of my new flats skiff, it was built by my old friend Hal Chittum. This is by far the finest flats skiff on the market, & i am one of the lucky 16 who have one. The boat rides great, is incredibly dry, & floats where water use to be. I have it set up with a bow casting platform, & as an option i also have (the spider as Hal calls it) which is the same platform with a belly ring & netting so your fly line can not get  away from you! I know it looks strange, but i assume when the first tuna tower was installed on John Rybovich's sportfisherman they looked at him funny at the dock as well! Dont knock it untill you have tried it, it works!!! Here are a few photos i took & a story i just read & thought you might like to if you want to know more about this fantastic skiff!  Capt. Greg


ST. AUGUSTINE - Hal Chittum sits beside an old desk in a stark office at the corner of a plain white building on the San Sebastian River. He talks about his life and his boats. They're pretty much the same thing.
Through a window behind him, you can see workers rigging a new boat, grinding and drilling. He wipes the dust of several weird composites from the desk as he speaks, patting off the residue of what he calls the most technical flats boat in the world onto his pants leg.
Chittum's known as the mad scientist of flats boat design. He probably likes it.
He is a partner in a new boat-building business, Chittum Skiffs. It was a long time coming.
Chittum went to college, got a degree and headed to the Florida Keys to become a flats guide. It's a career path of abject envy for mortal men. He became one of the best around, under the tutelage of the famous Keys guide Jimmy Albright. That historic gathering of flats guides included some of the best there ever were, with names like Stu Apte, Woody Sexton, Cal Cochran and Harry Snow Jr.
Chittum guided for about 15 years. Along the way, he founded the famous South Florida saltwater fishing tackle chain, H T Chittum & Co.
Because he spent so much time on flats boats, their shortcomings bugged him. That led him to gather some partners and found Hells Bay Boatworks in 1997.
"Up until then," he said, "Nobody really sat down and built one [a flats boat] from scratch. Most were ski boats with poling platforms."
He decided "Let's design a hull that's quiet and light" - the two holy grails of flats fishing. The 16-foot Whipray was the product of that endeavor. It may not have been a whole new ballgame, but it did cause lots of flats boats builders to rethink their game plans and retool.
He sold his interest in Hell's Bay in 2002. He had an idea for a new kind of boat. He figured that it would make obsolete everything Hell's Bay was building - if he could make it work.
The new boat started in Titusville. A half-million dollars and three years later, the Islamorada 18 is in production, 16 have been delivered so far. During that time, Chittum said more than 90 hull designs were made and tossed out.
"We'd fix one thing, and that would screw up three others," Chittum said.
One of the problems had already been solved with the Hell's Bay boats - hull slap. That occurs when waves hit the boat hull. The sound is multiplied in water and spooks fish. The majority of flats guides fly fish. That means they need to get close to pods of tarpon or bonefish schools for real success.
There was something Chittum and other guides sensed but couldn't nail down. Even on dead-calm days with no slap, something else was bothering the fish. It wouldn't necessarily spook them outright but, Chittum said, "They'd just go down - get wary. They knew you were there."
What he suspected from years of poling the flats and talking with the best fishing minds both on the water and in the design rooms was that boats tipped off the fish in a more subtle way. His guess was a sort of pressure wave pushed ahead of the boat simply by its displacement of water.
With only hypothesis in his pocket, Chittum send a hull model to a special testing tank facility in Europe. The facility could duplicate any water conditions, bottom contour, depth, wave height and more. What he wanted to find out there was "What is it? How do you measure it? And how do you get rid of it?" The pressure wave theory was proven there and measured. Eliminating it was another hurdle.
With trial and error, the design team worked on diverting and eliminating the pressure wave. They finally tried carving the hull slightly concave just behind the point of the bow, and the pressure wave problem was diminished.
It was a big breakthrough for the company, but it caused problems of its own.
"Then the thing rode wet," Chittum said.
The team went back to the drawing board, and after more prototypes and failures, a radical spray rail was developed. They couldn't eliminate the hydraulics of the spray without first reshaping it. And it was basically this one-two punch that solved the problem, although chines, strakes and deadrise angles were shuffled like cards along the way.
In addition to design breakthroughs, Chittum Skiffs is also using some innovative construction techniques with brand new materials employed in military stealth construction and international sailboat racing.
He and Dana Greenwood - described by Chittum as "the brains around here" - were careful that certain areas of the facility not show up in the background of the photos taken for this story.
From conception to construction, none of the work on the Islamorada 18 was cheap. The base price for the boat, well-rigged and fitted with a 60-horsepower 4-stroke engine, is $63,000. They have run the boat with a 115-horsepower E-Tec outboard at 54 knots and will put a 150-horse on another boat that will be delivered soon.
But a big imagination and checkbook are really the only limits to what the boat can be. One is just finished and shipping out to Australia this week. It has nearly every high-end toy you could fit in or on it, including a hand-held military spotlight that could burn a hole in the ozone layer, throwing out 3,000 lumens and costing over $8,000. That boat's price tag, Chittum says, is "heading north of $120,000."
The company has both a 21-foot and a 25-foot bay boat on the drawing board.
Someone once said that when you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target. Chittum would have to agree after fighting with physics for so long. "From the beginning we said, 'let's fix every problem.' That's why it took three years."
Chittum said the boat's everything he ever wanted it to be. We'll see how long that lasts

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Bitter Cold

It was in the mid 40's this morning when i met my new client Nick Misitano. If you recognize his name its because he is one of South Florida's most popular Tattoo Artists, & he told me some great stories of what happens after dark in a South Beach Tattoo Shop!

Nick hails from Chicago but moved south a few years ago, it was his first day away from his tattoo gun & we started off catching a few saltwater muskies. As he called them, i prefer the Barracuda! The wind was blowing about 25mph & the seas were 4-5ft but it was his only day to get away so we went for it!

After a few Cudas we headed out to 100ft & started slow trolling live ballyhoo, i wish i could report his first sailfish release, but the best we did was to raise one & watch the ballyhoo jump around a bit. The report on the reef was slow on sails but apparently up in boynton beach the fishing is outa control with boats reporting over 50 sailfish release days!



All we wanted was one! Nick had an afternoon appointment to put a chinese symbol on the backside of a tourist girl so we only fished a 1/2 day but he said it was so good to get away & he was going to get back down to fish with me asap!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Sailfishing in the A.M.

Just back from a few days of R & R with my bride & getting the Sea Hunter ready to go sailfishing in the morning...

Thursday, January 6, 2011

old photo

I found this old photo from a few years ago, its my good friend Phil from Sacramento CA pulling on a Big  Shark he caught on Fly Rod.  Notice the shallow H20!
This is a good time of year to do this type of fishing here in the Florida Key's.

Tight Lines  Capt. Greg Poland

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Window Shopper

We started the day out throwing the 10ft castnet on the Ballyhoos, & they were tough! Lots of bait, but they were deep & that always makes for a tough job.  After a few throws & a few caught on hair hooks we were off to the drop off to catch a sailfish.
Just as i was rigging the first bait we saw 3 different free jumpers so i got us set up current & deployed 2 live ballyhoo in 6/0 VMC Circle Hooks rigged on 50lb Ohero Fluorocarbon leaders. We were fishing lg spinners loaded with 20lb mono on 7ft rods, i find this is the best outfit for live bait sailfishing, & i like to use conventional 2 speed reels when kite fishing, but always spinners when i am slow trolling or drifting baits.

We did not raise a fish which was really strange i thought, so i got on the radio & found there were a few sightings of sails but all & all the bite was slow.
About an hour later i ran up to a wreck i like to fish around & as we were getting the baits out i looked up  & found a sailfish tailing down sea, i quickly reeled in the hoo & cast about 10ft in front of him & again to my surprise the sailfish swam right by my bait, turned right into the line of fire for the long bait & swam by it too? As the day went on we checked in with the guys in the sailfish tournament & found out there were 20 boats competing in the event & there were only 3 fish caught & all of them at about 7am.

We switched gears & headed over to the reef & caught a few big barracudas on light line. We were fishing top water Ohero plugs, ( Check out the photos) after that we tried sailfishing again in the late afternoon & didn't see a fish, we did have a few kingfish bites, but to be honest we were doing all we could to stay away from the kings!   Catch Ya Later... Capt. Greg Poland


Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Fished Key West

Just wanted to give a report from the end of the road.

 Early this morning i trailered my new Islamorada 18  " Chittum Skiff " an hour & a half south to fish out of Key West, or was it yesterday sense its after Midnight... Cant sleep so i thought i might Blog a short fishing report...

The tarpon were rolling in a secret little spot & i had a client who really wanted to try & catch one even though we both know it was the wrong time of year. We were testing out some new reels from a manufacture i have been working with, & i wish i could report that we caught one but the best we could do with the tarpon was to get a bite... The 40 lb  Silver King ate a circle hook with a live shrimp, but my buddy forgot it was a circle hook & struck the fish as it was running line & the hook fell out.

We did manage to catch a few nice cero mackerel in the channels west of downtown key west, I got some good testing on the new drag system. We were throwing floating Plugs " lures" looking to get a nice barracuda & found the channels were full of ballyhoo which were getting eaten by the mackerel. We had a great trip, & it was well worth the drive, ok guess its time to get some shut eye before i the alarm goes off... I am headed out Sailfishing in a few hours!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Fishing Photography Now Blogging...

www.gregpoland.com
Fishing the Florida Keys from Miami to West of Key West, The Everglades National Park, & The Bahamas. Fly Fishing Instruction, Flats Fishing for bonefish, tarpon, & permit. Offshore from Sailfish to Mahi Mahi,  Bottom Fishing for yellowtail snapper to grouper. www.gregpoland.com

Capt. Greg Poland

Happy New Year, 2011 is going to be a great year, & i have alot going on down here in the Sportfishing Capitol of the World. Check Back to see what is going on down in the Florida Keys... Catch Ya Later....  GP