“The Swordfish Club meetings provide a great opportunity to exchange on various levels of topics.
The breadth and scope of the club meetings is nicely balanced by the various guests & visitors as well as adventure tales from club members, like John Anderson's fishing adventure from NE Australia. Thanks for sharing. But what I want to know is how he got all of those great photos. Sometimes it is hard enough to simply fish, let alone gather a nice collection of photos to serve as nice reminders of the story.
Ron Coddington always brings good information to the table from current events going on at NMFS and ICCAT. And Vinnie Montella provides similar feedback, but from a slightly different point of view, (both are serving as NMFS Advisory Panel members, on their own dime & time). Captain Allie always has something to say that scratches the sword fisherman’s ear. And Captain Ollie occasionally provides some good nuggets of info: like the importance of engaging 4 wheel drive, if you have it, while loading and unloading your vessel at the boat ramp.
I remember back when, some club meetings could fit the members at just 3 round tables. Last night’s meeting seemed to have attracted more than 150 members and guests all with a passion or ailment for swordfishing. RJ is always quick to get hand drawings of fishing illustrations onto the canvas so that others can understand the technical details a little better.
Indeed, it is the charisma that Skip Smith brings to the leadership group that keeps the Swordfishing Club going with interesting agendas, fishy stories and a healthy membership base.
Again, special thanks to the Swordfishing Pioneers (from the Catch-22) that came from their small little island to share their journey and present day experiences.
With all the good stuff happening and great raffle prizes, I guess Capn. Ken nor Cliff got to boast of their fishing tale of the 800 pound swordfish they got last month. Do'h, wait that was Kennie's story, probably a fisherman's fib. We better de-rate that story a bit and call it a 650# fish by more credible guestimates. Still an exceptionally large fish caught recently, and right out front.”
Michael Baumstark
Dear Members and Guests:
Thanks for your continued support and interest in the club. A special THANKS to all of our speakers for taking the time and effort to be there when it counted!
At this time, we have one meeting left on November 12 and we are trying to get Captain Richard Stansik and crew to be our guest speaker/s. They are the ones who brought daytime swordfishing to Florida and into the Gulfstream.
We started out the year with Robert “Fly” Navarro, who is the mate on the Reel Tight and spoke about fishing for Blue Marlin and their travels. At the next meeting we had Captain Andy Moyes who shared his success with those giant daytime swordfish he put on the scales. In May we had Captain Peter Wright with those stories from Down Under and the tips on how to apply drag to these fish. July brought back Professor Arthur Mariano and his expertise with sharing his knowledge on the Gulfstream, ocean currents and up-to-date information from the recent pop-up tags that just popped up from some swordfish that were at large.
The meeting in September was special too. Our guest speaker was Captain Josh Brown who shared his night time & daytime swordfish secrets along with a few tips from his very successful Marlin fishing in the Bahamas. We had a special guest show up too, Captain Robert Arrington from the TV show Reel Adventures. He got us all pumped up about his upcoming shows especially one about the giant squid that tried to eat him!
The members are what make this club special. From commercial fishermen to the tournament angler, the stories and the big ones that get away, we look forward to the next meeting more than ever.
We will be releasing the dates for 2009 as soon as possible along with any other tournament outings you may want to fish.
Catch & release a few,
Skip, RJ, Jeff & Ron
