Q: There is a lot of fishing advice relating to water temperature and thermoclines, but what exactly is a thermocline and how does it affect game fish? - Rick Weisbaum, Tampa, FloridaA: Wind mixes the warm upper layer of the ocean -- down to depths of a few hundred feet, depending on the strength of the winds and currents -- so water temperature changes very little between the surface and deeper water. Logically, that warm upper layer of water is called the mixed layer. Read More
Give me a firm place to stand and I will move the earth," said the Greek scientist Archimedes over 2,000 years ago. The same philosophy applies to a firm place to sit - on a fighting chair, which may not move the earth but can move fish big enough to feel like it. The growing interest in stand-up game fishing over the last decade may be leaving fewer anglers aware of how to use the fighting chairs that still figure prominently in the cockpits of virtually all modern offshore sport-fishing machines. Read More