Bermuda: new jigging paradise?

Is probably too early to say but the first clues have been quite impressive. We have just spent 5 days of fishing in the waters of this beautiful island and every single one of us has returned home excited and happy with the result. It was an exploratory trip, but the bases on which it was put together were strong. Bermuda holds 3 or 4 IGFA world records for both kind of Amberjack (Dumerili and Rivoliana). The biggest Greater Amberjack ever caught around the world comes from here, and if you put in the mix the abundance of Yellowfin Tunas, Groupers, Wahoo and many other different species, the landscape looks pretty bright.

Let me spend a word about the island itself first. It simply is a beautiful place. Neat, tidy, coloured, warm, peaceful, not polluted, green, blue... Again, a small and remarkably amazing paradise. People are nice too. Our captain, Peter Rahn, his wife Leslie and the boat's mate Steve are wonderful people, as well as many other inhabitants that we met and spent some time with. Lodging and dining is not the cheapest around, yet with the current value of the Euro compared to the Dollar is still doable.

Talking about the Captain and his fleet I have nothing but good words. Peter worked hard on something that is quite new for him. Jigging is a technique that requires a specific knowledge and thanks to his vast experience on the local reefs, he managed to constantly put the boat in the best spots. Theres many banks and reefs around the island, and not all of them are prooductive, yet he seemed to always know where to put the boat, and even if sometimes the tides were playing big time against us, when the fish turned on again, we were on top of them.

The first day we fished with the boat that we booked, a 41' Custom Express. But once returned from our fishing we noticed a super jigging boats moored near the Overproof. It was a 36' lobster boat, just arrived from Maine, and o boy, that was perfect. From day 2 we fished every day on the Son Rae, 5 guys in a row jigging elbow to elbow, or not even that because there was room to spare, without a tangle or a problem. The Son Rae is just the perfect jigging machine and we took full advantage of it.

One of the highlights, unexpected to be true, has been the variety of species we caught on jigs. I don't know if ti was 20 or more but every day we would catch 4 or 5 new critters. The mix of the subtropical water with the warm current of the Gulf creates a perfect environment, where fish from more moderate latitudes meet with other more typical of the tropics.

The amount of fish we caught has been quite impressive, I still wonder if Peter was expecting this result or if he was a bit skeptical. Millions of small Almaco Jack where ambushing the reefs. Even during the deadly tides you would manage one of them to bite the irons and I'm pretty sure that, because of the abundance of those smaller critters, we found it more difficult to hook serious contenders.

The big fish didn't participate too actively to the party. We hooked few of them but for a series of reason we only landed one, a 40lb Almaco jack. Thus, they are there, I don't have a single doubt about it, and for this reason I want to come back in May, when the summer starts and the migratory species are more likely to show up. Peter told me that the Yellowfin Tuna stay deep on the drop-offs, and that he can see them in the sounder. Quite a good change for a target fishing like ours: can't wait to get rid of the winter.

Bermuda was also a great lab for my photographic experiments and I have learnt few more things. The most important is that I don't have to clean the sensor myself, and the second that I need to buy a GOOD tripod.

You can see more images here http://www.caranx.net/bermuda_report_2008.htm

Painting with flash

Last week I was in Bermuda, what a beautiful island and incredible fishing ! It is also plentiful of photo opportunities, and I spent a lot of time behind the viewfinder of my D80. By the way, before my departure, I made the mistake of cleaning the sensor myself... I wish I have never done it ! Since I started working on the images I spent more time cleaning the photos rather than editing them.


Back to the photos, very close to shore there was a subject that caught my attention and I wanted to portrait in various manners, a wooden boat. Among the exposures I took, my favourite came out at night, slightly after dark. I put the camera on the tripod and choose an aperture of f8. I could have opened even more but I'm not too happy with the CCD results with the too long exposures (a lot of noise) and also, since it was just an experiment, I didn't want to keep waiting 15 minutes before closing the shutter. So 185sec was the right time, it came out after a couple of tests and I was happy with the way it looked. The Sigma 10-20 allowed me to place the camera very close to the boat and yet have a lot of background in the image. I also put the WB setting to Tungsten to achieve that deep blue sky, and since I was going to use the SB600 to paint my subject, I put a CTO gel to warm up the light and counterbalance that specific WB. During the time the shutter was opened I hopped around the boat flashing the light 1/64. I wish I could have excluded completely the grass to make the boat stand even further, but I couldn't. Next time.

If fishing can go wrong it will go wrong

Figure that! Three days of shooting in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. Big Fish is the name of the show for the Italian Satellite TV Sky program Caccia & Pesca. Last year, same dates together with some Japanese anglers we caught 3 Amberjack over 70lb and Pink Snappers in the 30lb range. Perfect deal for the show. We have new moon, great tides, wind and the best skipper. Sound awesome! Unfortunately things are not as bright as they seem.
Fish don't want to cooperate. No bites. Plain dead. Day one welcomes us with heavy winds, too heavy maybe even though I favour them to flat calm at least for fishing. The crew is affected by the waves. One guy spends the rest of his time lying on the floor. The others do a bit better but due to the lack of action, happiness is not exactly what you feel in the boat. Tomorrow is another day!
I spend some time in the evening trying to grab some decent images around the beach. Not a great result though. Tomorrow is another day!
Day two. Fishing wise it gets a little bit better but nothing to rave about. We had probably more bites but anything is better than 2 in my accounting. The skipper, a very good fisherman, beats my ass. I save my day with a decent Bonito. The wind is lower, sea more bearable. A frigate mackerel decides to commit suicide to serve as a great sashimi, readily fixed and served in the cockpit. Tomorrow is another day.
Day three, last chance. The crew has lost their hope. I still believe we can sort out something good. I know the big cows are there, is just a matter of finding one in a bad mood. We're jigging. Solely jigging with heavy irons and short rods. I have a good bite. Spit the hook, one more jerk and hits again. Solid hook-up, heavy headshakes and then a heavy dead weight coming up. Uuuuhm, I know what this feels like. Grouperish I'd say and in fact the animal comes to the surface and shows its hefty body. Maybe a 20/25 pounder, not enough for the show yet a precious catch for these waters. I can smile. Same exact moment, Jose, my fishing buddy from the Island, has a furious strike. Short fight. Too short. The fish pulls the hook and I'm sure it was a good one, maybe the one we were looking for. The drag cried loud.
Day 4, I fly back home. Lots of work to do and another trip in 7 days time. The day after they return to the water with Jose and enjoy the best day of fishing. 6 or 7 fish and yet no giant.
Kudos for Victor, the smiling skipper that never gets out of ideas. We'll come back, I know they are there....

Tungsten WB and CTO Gels

I finally managed to try the tungsten WB setting matched with a CTO gel during a fishing trip. I red about it some time ago in one of Scott Kelby's book and found more information in http://www.strobist.com/ but never really put it into practice for good. The opportunity came during a very early morning fishing session in the Strait of Gibraltar, south of Spain. I was there with my friend Francisco Martínez in his game boat, chasing the Bonitos (Sarda sarda) with top water plugs. Unfortunately, due to the wind I couldn't use any of the soft umbrellas I had with me, and the light is a bit harsh, but I like the final result, even though, being the first one, it can sure be improved.

Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20. Manual exposure, f 6,3 x 1/30 sec. Iso 200. Center weighted.

Put a Leica lens on your camera!

If you are a Pentax owner, there's a small internet shop based in Barcelona that gives you the possibility to use a Leica-R lens on it. Check out their kits, they seem pretty easy to use to me and they are now working on adapters for other major camera manufacturers. http://www.leitax.com/

The web page is in english

Puerto Banus Trolling Fishing Tournament

Fishing Tournaments are really not my piece of cake but the one in Puerto Banús is quite unique, believe me. This port near Marbella holds the biggest fleet of super yachts of the Spanish coast. It used to be the base for many of the richest Arab kings and oil businessman and is a place where you breathe and smell wealth. Due to the large quantity of Yachts and extremely fashionable cars, Banus has become a main tourist point of Andalusia, where people come just to see those beauties and dream for one day. Is probably futile and materialistic but if Las Vegas has a reason to exist so Banus does. It is also a nice town, that must be said, and the nightlife, that develops mostly around the port, is quite exciting. For the sake of the truth I also have to mention the abundance of stunning females who help "decorating" the great scenario, even though this will probably cost me a punch on my neck....

Well, I was there, invited by the "alma mater" of the Tournament, Mr Jorge Haenelt (in the picture, at the weighting station), a truly nice gentleman who runs this big event every year since quite a long time, 12 years I'd say. Jorge knows a thing or two about running a competition of this size and saying that everything went flawless is an understatement. My mission was to give a speech after the first day of the tournament and then follow the event for a fishing magazine. I did my duties and covered the event, even here, in this humble blog, you'll find some bits and pieces about the competition.

On day one Red Herring, a beautiful 40 Cabo Express, in my humble opinion the nicest boat around, weighted the heaviest load of catch, 36,850kg with the biggest fish of the Tournament, a 14,550kg Dorado. Alila was good second, with just a couple of kilos difference and El Barracuda came third a bit further behind. The weather during the days was near to perfect, with calm seas and very hot temperature.
Day two was Nanis landing the biggest load with 26,200kg coming from 5 fish, all Skipjacks. Cap Cana, the team from the Dominican Republic grabbed the second place and El Barracuda came third again, for sure the most regular team of the tournament (not counting those who DID NOT catch any fish for two days in a row... ! ). A bit of wind showed up in the morning to drop again in the afternoon, again a wonderful day to be out at sea.

The final result, as far as total amount of catch is concerned, was in favour of Ian John Dixon's "Red Herring" , the team that won most of the available awards (there were many of them available). This is the men to beat next year, and I hope I will be there again to see it. There's many nice people I met and at the most glamorous fishing tournament of Spain, and I long to see them again.

Dolphins feeding frenzy, what a show!

This week-end I was in Puerto Banús, near Marbella, Andalusia. There was a big event taking place, the XII international trolling tournament "Copa Principe de Asturias". I was there mainly to give a speech about jigging, a technique that is pretty much in fashion lately, and to cover the event for the publishing group I work for. I'm not a big fan of Fishing Tournaments but I must admit that the one in Puerto Banús is pretty much unique but I'll talk about it in another post. On Saturday I was on board the Bormar VI, one of the boats competing for the tournament. Fishing was pretty slow for us but on the way back we found this amazing sight.
There were various schools of Dolphins working the bait and feeding furiously together with the birds. The strategy was pretty wild; the mammals would slam the balls of bait with their tails to stun them, and afterwards eat at an easy pace. We thought that Tunas might be feeding with the Dolphins but there was no presence of fish whatsoever, thus we spent quite some time just enjoining the show.

The new Tropical fishing season is about to start

It truly is, in less than one month I will be hopping on the first airplane with the first group of costumers. Destination Bermuda, for an exploratory jigging trip, the first both for me and the costumers. I have always been curious about this spot. In the IGFA book of records there is a good deal of massive Amberjack caught in these waters and I wonder how our irons will behave. My friend Miguel, an excellent Portuguese fisherman, last year landed this massive Amberjack in Cape Verde, I'm showing here the photo for you to see what we are after in Bermuda... pretty ambitious guys uh ???

I like this photo, do you?

Last week-end we went for a day to Medinaceli, a small village north of Madrid, quite a nice one. I like to walk around town grabbing images of the historical part (well, almost the whole place is historical). I have done it two or three times already and have collected a nice deal of images. I said a nice deal of... I didn't say nice images...! Well, the other day we walked to the other side of the village, where the fields and I saw this image in front of me. No tripod available so I had to rely on the lens' VR to get a decently sharp image. I kinda like this photo, is a bit "empty" on the left side but the landscapes with the windmills generates a decent contrast with the "old fashioned" foreground. Do you like it at all?

Studio work

I don't know if is necessary for me to keep saying that this is NOT the Blog of a professional photographer. My images speak for themselves and I am trying to be as honest as I can when it comes to describing my photographic attempts. I’m not trying to teach anything, just sharing my experiences for those who, playing in my same league, want to read.

After the purchase of a second soft umbrella yesterday I played a bit with an improvised studio in the living room. This gave me the chance to use for the first time two soft lights and the Elinchrome Skyport as well. The set-up of the studio was quite simple, a white cardboard for the background, one light left of the camera at 45º and one on the right at product level. I had to do a photo for an article in a Spanish and a French magazine and wanted to try something different.

It has been an educating experience, never worked with two lights and the remote so I thought it would have taken me more time to grab the concept but it wasn’t so. Not that I figured out the perfect match and consider the result as a masterpiece, but I’m happy with what I got at least for a first timer. Funny enough, the table surface is white and is quite reflecting as well (yes, is a horrible table and we need to buy a new one), which gave me the opportunity for a nicer composition. To achieve the right exposure I had to play a bit with the camera meter. This came out at f18 x 1/100sec, ISO 200 centre weighted. I was using the D80 and the Nikkor micro 60mm. Left flash was at 1/8 of the power and right flash at 1/2.