TOURNAMENT SEASON IS HERE

Time to gear up for your favorite events

- CAPT. SKIP SMITH

Now that we are past the holiday season, it's time to get ready to fish your favorite tournament. Teams from around the world are finalizing their schedules for the events they want to fish in 2024, working out the final details, and marking their calendars for what's ahead. It's always exciting for professional crews to be part of this planning process.

With the sailfish season underway in Florida and Costa Rica, the boats at home are catching their live baits for those tournaments, which has become an industry unto itself in the past decade. The trolling boats are buying their bait-rigging materials so they can start putting together thousands of rigs for both their hook baits and dredges. They also need to make sure those 10 to 20 sailfish rods and reels are ready to go, with new line and fresh grease in the reels. Each rod is inspected for any nicks in the guides, and the reel seats are checked too.