Greetings from the Pacific Northwest. We have some big news that could not wait.

Margo Doyle, the matriarch of Black & Blue Fishing Club, managed to catch and release a 55 pound King (Chinook) Salmon yesterday after a two hour and fifty minute fight.

Margo released the fish as large Kings are almost always females carrying millions of eggs back to the stream of her birth. The fight was long and the excitement at Langara Island Lodge in beautiful British Columbia was high with more than 7 boats watching Margo fight the fish after radio chatter alerted the Lodge boats of the special fight.

At a calculated 55 pounds the fish was the largest caught at the Lodge this season.

View Margo’s 55 Pounder in a larger map

In addition to taking all of the pool participants’ money, Margo has gained a place of pride on the Catch and Release wall of Langara Island Lodge.

Congratulations Margo!!!!!!

As many of you know, the Roosterfishing in Costa Rica is really good. (Roosterfish are jacks with ‘roid rage and a bad haircut.) Anyway, these fish like to hang around the rocks on the shoreline. To fish for them you have to get really close, too close for a 57 foot boat. As a result, I am proud to announce the newest member of the Black and Blue family, Lobo Del Mar. Lobo is a 25 foot Contender, perfect for Roosterfishing or just running around. The boat will be kept at Los Suenos for members’ use.

Mike, Allen and the guys made it to Panama this weekend.  We will add more detail when they get back, but they said the trip was long, and a little rougher than one would like but there were no mechanical problems and they made pretty good time.  I tried to figure out how to make a map of their trip.  

View De Mako's Trip to Panama in a larger map

The link is here:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=106606152088836733603.0004682170ae3e0e6ac25&z=5 

As I said, when the guys have a chance to download their pictures, we will add those and lots of stories.

Speaking of stories, the first members are planning their Panama trips so we should have some interesting fishing reports pretty soon.

- Jeff Radke

We ran the first trip as Black and Blue Fishing Club this last week.  We fished out of Los Suenos in Costa Rica.

We faced oddly challenging conditions for this time of the year due to green water (think of the Chicago River on St. 

Patrick’s Day – it was that bad).  We worked at it pretty hard and I am happy to report that…We put the BLACK in Black and Blue.  Our fish was about 300 – 350 pounds and ate the right rigger.  We fed her the bait on one of the 30 outfits and when we came tight and saw the first jump we all wished we had a 50.

I brought the boat back to the fish as quickly as I could and the fish cooperated by staying on top and putting on a show for all of us.  I would guess that we were able to release the fish after a 30 minute fight.  That light tackle sure lets these fish show off.

So, for the record Captain Allen…as of today, April 12, we have been waiting on you for four days to get the Bermuda Blue Marlin to finish off “Black and Blue”.

As I said, the water conditions were pretty tough and we managed only one other fish – a sailfish that provided the normal aerial display. I love these fish!

This will be the last report for a while as we are taking De Mako from Florida to Panama over the next week or so.  While the trip is long, you do get to see a lot of pretty cool spots.  So, wish us luck and I will be sure to post a trip report when I am back to a computer.

I hope the first Panama Fishing Report will follow soon after.  Have a good Easter.

- Capt. Mike Springer

Well, Black and Blue Fishing club, MAKO and the De Mako are just about ready to go.
First, some news about the Club – we finally have the legal and banking stuff done.  It was a bother to set it all up so formally, but in these times of economic uncertainty, we think it will pay off to have dotted the “i’s”.  You are reading this so the new website works. Many thanks to Wade at rainmakerwebdesign.com for his help on the site. Like most things, a website is about 7.2 times harder and more time consuming than I would have guessed. The effort to recruit members is going well with three Founding Members already. The captains and members have emailed the proposal to many of their friends and contacts.  We are quietly confident that it will be a success given the interest we are seeing after a week or two.

De Mako – that is the boat that will end up in the Pacific – is sitting in West Palm Beach Florida.  She had some work done to get her ready for Panama (back up generator, watermaker, satellite phone and TV, etc).  We expect that she will be ready to go shortly.  I am attending a convention of sorts this weekend as Allen DeSilva (the Club’s Bermuda captain), Mike Springer (the Club’s Pacific captain) and I descend on South Florida to meet with Jason Doyle and make sure the boat is ready for the trip.

And what a trip it is.  Florida to the Canal is a long, long way.  While Mike has plenty of experience with trips that long, most of the rest of us are more used to the 750 mile run from Bermuda to North Carolina.  I always think of crossings as being like a policeman.  You are going to be bored or scared…and you really hope it works out that you are bored. We expect De Mako will be fishing in Panama by the end of April.  I know several members have expressed an interest in trying to get down there as quickly as they can.  We are looking forward to those first fishing reports!

MAKO, the boat the Club will run in Bermuda, is probably being sanded as we speak.  Let me explain.  MAKO is being built by Sunny Briggs in North Carolina.  The new MAKO is the third boat Sunny built for Allen and me.  If you have ever watched one of these boats constructed, you know that the process is 1/2 sanding, 1/2 everything else.  Sunny, Jeff and the guys are doing a great job pushing to have her done by May 1.  She is going to be pretty!  I can’t wait to see her overboard. We will add pictures of both of the boats when we get back from the upcoming trip.
– Jeff Radke