S15:E6 - “The Lower Keys Highway” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor head to the Lower Keys for Tarpon and various types of Jacks.
S15:E5 - “Blackfin In The Keys” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor venture to the Atlantic oceanside of the Keys for Blackfin Tuna.
The Florida Everglades make up one of the most well-known and treasured American National Parks. They are also being “strangled” by water issues. Since the damming of the Kissimmee River, the Everglades’ primary source of freshwater, this beautiful fishery has seen “endangered wildlife populations, declining water quality, water mismanagement, [and] extensive urban and agricultural development,” according to Captains For Clean Water, a conservation organization dedicated to restoring the health and natural beauty of the Everglades. Read more on Waypoint…
S15:E4 - “Up From The Deep” (2020)
Captains Tom Rowland and Rich Tudor head out from their Middle Keys home base to deeper waters.
The Florida Everglades make up one of the most well-known and treasured American National Parks. They are also being “strangled” by water issues. Since the damming of the Kissimmee River, the Everglades’ primary source of freshwater, this beautiful fishery has seen “endangered wildlife populations, declining water quality, water mismanagement, [and] extensive urban and agricultural development,” according to Captains For Clean Water, a conservation organization dedicated to restoring the health and natural beauty of the Everglades. Read more on Waypoint…
Tarpon are the ultimate gamefish. They are big and athletic, they jump when hooked and make insane drag screaming runs. People from all over the world descend on the Florida Keys to try to catch them. They are called the Silver King and that name stuck for a reason. They are the King of the gamefish found in the Florida Keys for several reasons:
As a charter guide you need a go to spinning reel. A battle-axe that can handle anything but is durable enough to stand up to the abuse that customers can sometimes inflict when the equipment is not their own. A spinning reel like this has to also be affordable because charter guides are going to routinely buy a bare minimum of 6 and most guides have about 20 in rotation.
I’ve owned a lot of boats and been on even more. Yellowfin is unquestionably the finest rigged boat I have ever seen. The 16 foot skiff is rigged to the same standards as their 42. The rigging is easy to get to, organized and meticulously finished for problem free boating. So many boats are rigged with a tangled mess of wires that is a serious nightmare when trying to diagnose an electrical issue.
I rigged my 24 Yellowfin with three batteries in the console. I have a dedicated start battery and 2 house batteries. There are 3 more Group 31 trolling motor batteries in the front hatch and an onboard charger that will recharge and top off each of these overnight.
I hope that helps! Send us a picture of the big fish you catch!
-Tom Rowland
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Mercury is always raising the bar. For years we have been looking for the right motor to go on our flat skiffs. Mercury Marine came out with this Pro XS, it has the lightest wait, the most power for anything from a 18 footer down to a 16 footer.
Rich and I both enjoy teaching and learning. I try to learn something about fishing daily and it has become really easy to learn new stuff about electronics lately. Lowrance has continued to evolve and improve marine electronics and we are both continually learning.
Our setup includes 3 16 inch HDS Carbon units plus an additional screen for the Mercury Smart Craft that can be used as another display. I like to run one unit with the Chart in full screen for Navigation and the second unit either with a different view of the navigation (either zoomed in or out so that I can simply glance down rather than having to actually zoom in or out) or a split screen with radar and sonar available. The units are now able to split the screen again and have multiple screens for engine information, navigation stats like distance or time to destination, tide charts or current charts.
There have been so many improvements lately with electronics. As more and more features are added it becomes more important to have a faster processor. Now, I can run multiple applications at once without the unit freezing or lagging. The display has also improved greatly and the units are bigger and brighter than ever before. I can now see the screen with polarized sunglasses on at any time of the day.
We will be writing articles on electronics in the coming weeks. If you have specific questions, please leave them in the comments and we will be sure to give you the best answer we can.
