Jheri Curl Optional:

Fight the perils of the Swine Flu with gold,

rose gold, and diamond-encrusted big game!!!

Mahi-Money: if Slick Rick vomited after eating sushi, this is what it would look like.

Check out the girth on that rope!!! Anchor that shit, boat ho!

Doubles as a great shank for the random cop pullover after cocktails at Club Marina at 2:15am...

And finally....

For the guys that swear by Accurate, this is another must-have for the 2009 season.

collect them all here.

Mr. T would be proud...

Norris pimpin' it hard at the helm of the Freelance on Fox Sports Net.

As some of you may know, Captain Norris Tapp of the Freelance (Davey's Locker, Newport Beach, CA), was hospitalized in March due to intestinal problems. Norris is out of the hospital now and has been making a great recovery from what I hear. Norris has been described as the kind of captain that would take you up to the bridge and explain all the electronics to you, congratulate you after you put a sweet catch on deck, and the first one to slap a perfectly-timed gaff shot into your fish after you spent most of your manly testosterone pulling him off the bottom...

I usually don't say this, but this is a special occassion: let's hope that

the Freelance is packed 10 times this amount on May 7th at 7pm.

Norris has also been instrumental in fighting the bullshit MLPA's and is an avid RSG (Regional Stakeholders Group) member... speaking on several occasions about what areas are important to us as fishermen...

I'm going to try and make this trip and should be there so long as I'm in town, but regardless - I wanted to make everyone aware of it!

Here are the vitals:

Captain Norris Tapp Twilight Trip

Aboard the Freelance, Davey's Locker

Newport Beach, CA

Thursday May 7th, 7pm - 12am (midnight)

$50/Person - all proceeds going to Captain Tapp's recent hospital stay at Hoag Hospital in Newport (and you know that shit costs a grip!)

Important:

Make checks out to Davey's Locker and indicate "Norris Tapp" in the memo line.

Mail the check to:

Davey's Locker

400 Main St.

Newport Beach, CA 92661

** Help out our brother and fellow-fisherman who has stood up for your rights and spent some great times on the water with all of us, and catch some fish in the process!

If you'd like to see the "official" site, click here or call 949-673-1434 for more info.

*** On a sidenote, if you'd like to join the fight for our right to fish in California and keep areas of interest open, you can find some great resources (including templates in MS-Word .doc format) by clicking here... oh, and for you fearless kayak bastards, go here.

For a more recent mid-April update on what's happening and where we are with this challenge, visit this BloodyDecks post (BD always coming through with the latest and greatest - it's truly our voice).

It was hot as a mother today. Nice weather to be out catching some, and actually, I'm kind of anxious to see the fish counts for the SoCal landings today... Unfortunately for me, I was too tired and beat up from the shitty work week to be able to commit to making it out early this morning. I slept in until 1p.m. and after getting my breakfast in, I decided to drive out to Charkbait in Huntington Beach to grab a product I'd been hearing a lot about, but hadn't seen much on the boats I've been on - the Cork Puppy, by JR Jones Company.

The Cork Puppy is a very well thought out invention. Basically, in the past when the long-cast guys and jig fisherman who use corktaped deckhand-style rods without reel seats wanted to attach their reels to the rod, they had to do so with a crappy nut/bolt setup and old school clamp. While this setup still works for many, eventually the tightened-down bolts and stress from the reel digs deep into the cork handle - shedding it like a molting rattler, and later causing damage to the rod blank.

Enter the Cork Puppy, which I believe will revolutionize the way iron-tossing anglers will attach their conventional reels to deckhand-style rods. The Cork Puppy comes in three sizes: 25mm, 28mm, and 31mm, and in three different colors - gold, anodized silver, and black. The Cork Puppy allows for that pressure to be evenly distributed throughout a larger area, minimizing damage to your expensive custom rods, and also making for a more secure mount and solid placement. It's made of 6061-T6 aluminum with type II anodyizing, so you can feel confident that it's not going to crack, split, or bend under pressure.

Taka Tanaka set up a beautiful Calstar 6485 LTCR 8'6" custom jigstick for me, and I didn't wanna chance anything "ruining" it... The only color options that they had in the 28mm size (which seems to be the most popular) were the silver and gold ones, so I took the lesser of two evils. I thought to myself, do I want to be Mr. T (gold) or Puff Daddy (platinum) when I'm out there catching my whopper with the cameras snapping away and the bonito fanboys drooling... so platinum it was. Here's another shot of what the Cork Puppy looks like from below - as you can see, not only does it look nicer than the traditional clamp, but it also helps spread that pressure that would otherwise clamp down on just one particular part of your rod.

Tomorrow, I'm headed out on the Pursuit, out of 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro for a full day's worth of fishing... I plan on putting this puppy to the test!

I wonder if he salted it and then threw it in his mouth after the photo?

Though the blue marlin starts its humble life as small as a tadpole, it can grow anywhere from 6 to 10 feet, and can weigh anywhere from 100 to 1000+ pounds... Found in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, the blue marlin is a pretty formidable son-of-a-bitch and the ambition of many brass-balled anglers. Their stunning display of leaps and high-tail breaches are especially of interest to old and rich geezers and veteran anglers who can afford to spend the money being put on these fish, as well as upwards of $50-100 dollars on a single lure.

I'm headed to Lahaina Harbor in Maui next month to do some fishing with the Start-Me-Up Sportfishing outfit, and from what I gather - they are the best operation in Maui. I understand that weather is the key factor, as with all fishing; however, I believe we will be targeting ono (wahoo), mahi mahi (dorado), ahi (tuna), and blue marlin... which they catch/tag/release... As for the other fish - it's Hawaiian custom and considered aloha to leave your catch with the captain and crew of the boat you were fishing with; however with this crew, if you would like to get your shit fileted or mounted - you just let 'em know ahead of time.

I find it quite remarkable that something that starts its life as tiny as shown above, will one day grow into a savagely beautiful beast that will put up a fight that lasts for hours and require every ounce of an angler's strength and intelligence. I'm a fan of the blue (and black) marlin; however this is not to say that I am interested in "targeting" or going after them (at least not at this point in my life)... it's just not my thing, and I think they are too majestic and beautiful a savage creature to screw around with for sport... same goes for sharks. Not to mention the asian markets are severely destroying their precious population with their constant finning.

You've gotta admit, the sheer size of that thing screams black marlin.

George Parker caught the first 1,000 pound blue Marlin in the Pacific Ocean while trolling 5 miles off the shore of Oahu on his boat, the Mona H. The marlin struck a lure that George had made using a simple household towel rack! George battled the pelagic beast on just 80-pound test monofilament, and then fought the IGFA for over 5 years until they recognized the fish as a true blue, not black, marlin (which more often grow to this size). George's wife Mona was pregnant with their baby boy when George caught this monster, and once the baby was born - they named him Marlin.

That baby - Marlin Parker, ended up growing up and catching some granders of his own...

One second, he's about to have lunch... the next, he's got his bill through your wife's $2,500 diary pillow.

Looking into most marlins' eyes and expressions when they are photographed jumping out of the water after being hooked, leads me to believe only one thing: that although they are these massive creatures that take hours of brute strength, energy, on-the-spot planning, and finesse to pull-in... they are probably just confused and/or frightened. Strange as it may sound - it's that face and those eyes that kinda drive me away from wanting to hook one. I'd rather go for the supercows on a long range trip... 

I saw something recently on either Animal Planet or Discovery where a father and son were in Hawaii or south of the border and the son was yanking on a marlin for hours... when it finally got near the back of the boat, it started taking line out and then turned around - coming full steam ahead at the boat - making one last jump - with it's bill right into the boy's mouth. Karma can be a motherfucker sometimes... and as this video demostrates, Mr. Blue Marlin has also not been so kind to the ladies with the fresh implants either... spare us the tits, gatdamnit!

Artists such as Guy Harvey, who do a great job not only catching these bastards, but also tagging and working to save them, continue to give me hope that our children will one day be able to wrestle with them.