Capt. Bob Tuma

Unfortunately, I must tell you of another Montauk fishing legend that has passed about 10 days ago Capt. Bob Tuma passed away. He was 85.

Bob was a great guy and a great Captain. My brothers and I used to charter his boat "Dawn" frequently.

His family were part of the original charter boat business owners in Montauk.

He will be missed but not forgotten.

Montauk Surf Fishing Report (October 13, 2008)

All I can say is WOW! The Montauk fall run is definitely here. Well, I can say more.

On the way out I received an email from Jason at TheFin. He was also on his way out and wanted to do some night fishing. He said he had a steady pick on the south side on Friday night into Saturday.

I wasn't so lucky on Saturday morning as I only had three shorts just before dawn and nothing for the next hour. Unfortunately, I only have a couple of hours in the morning to fish (you know...kids and all).

Saturday we spend the day at the Montauk Fall Festival which was organized by none other than my own Mom, Pat Shea. I may be biased, but I think it was the best one yet! If you didn't make it this year, don't miss it in 2009. It's a real treat for kids and adults with great food and drinks.

Anyway, after the festival we decided to take the kids to the beach down by Nick's. At about 2pm the birds started working and the water was boiling just east of us. It killed me but I watched as the massive schools blitzed the beach. It lasted for over an hour and I left feeling sorry for myself for not getting into the action.

Sunday was a little different. I left my pole and gear in the car when we went to the beach. It happened again, but this time all over the place. I could see the fish down by ditch and beyond IGA. Pockets of Bass and Blues all over the place.

I took advantage of the situation and grabbed my pole to get into the action. I caught quite a few large blues and a few short bass, but the action was awesome and the weather perfect.

Once again, the incoming tide was the trick.

A perfect weekend and some great fishing.

Don't forget...next weekend is the Hamptons International Film Festival. Once again, the Shea family is volunteering and we'll be helping out at the Montauk movie theater. Well, this year I'll be watching the kids, but say Hi to my wife Deirdre, brother Brean or mom...Pat.

Kevin

Thefin.com: What's your opinion?

After further review, thefin.com turns out to be a better effort that I had originally thought.

First, let me tell you what I like. As Jason points out, there are some really interesting aspects to the "Find a Charter/Guide area. It's a nice interface to find a charter. However, I did have some difficulty finding a New York charter by using the map function...it was too cluttered. Using the zip lookup worked very well.

The videos are great! Watching them really gave me the itch to get back to the surf.

However, I must say that the site is still lacking something important. Even after I login I don't get the feeling anyone in the site has a connection to me. This is probably due to the newness of the community. If I were running the site I would recommend pushing relationships as soon as I registered...show me people who are related to me by geography, fishing types, etc.

If he is worried about the chicken/egg problem, I would recommend a direct online marketing campaign that targets registrations. Do some SEM and have the users hit a registration page immediately. Your registration conversions would be higher and that's what it's all about. Build relationships and show users who they are related to.

Let's give this guy the chance to show us he can make a great fishing SNS website. Go to thefin.com and register. The more of us there, the better the site will be...hopefully!

I want to hear from you. Please post to my blog and tell me what you think about the site.

Capt. Kevin

Update on thefin.com

Jason Puris from thefin.com has taken the time to point out some things that I may have overlooked on his fishing networking site. Since he has taken the time to explain more about what is offered there, I will reciprocate by taking the time to review the site in more detail.

I plan to conduct a full review of this fishing social networking site within the next 5 days.

And yes, if I was wrong or hasty in my comments (it wouldn't be the first time), I will apologize.

In the meantime, I'm stuck in an office with my hands on a keyboard instead of navigating around the point :-(

Stay tuned...

Capt. Kevin

Fishing: the social networking dilemma

The "dilemma" is basically this: Do I waste my time on these sites or not? My answer is simply NO. The reason is simple: The new fishing "social networking" sites that have launched recently are just plain WEAK.

For example, I looked at 2 sites recently thefin.com and anglingmasters.com. A friend of mine said he knew the guy who started thefin, so I gave it a fair shake. Anglingmasters was mentioned in techcrunch last year. Here's the skinny on these fishing sites: they both suck!

Hey guys (and gals), a nicely designed CMS does not a social networking website make. Do you know why there are only a few good SNS sites that are popular? It's because it's hard. It's hard because the true value of a social networking experience is the data relationships between your members and the interaction stimulus that you provide in the UI.

Both of these site owners must think pretty pictures and a couple of "celebrity" "fly guys" is a recipe for success. It's true that visuals for fishing fanatics (like me) are stimulating. But I want to know more about who and what I am related to more so than a picture of a guy kissing an illegal bluefin tuna from God knows where.

If you want a more interesting experience than what is offered today, I suggest you try your favorite forum. Personally, from my geo area, Noreast.com or surfrats.com are great places to start and get acquainted with people that want to INTERACT with you (i.e. socially network).

Sorry for the rant, but frankly, it had to be done. Us fishermen need good sites so we can share ideas and really connect. We don't need hyped up, wannabe celebrity driven websites that don't deliver.

(disclaimer: I am in the business of the internet and I was a charter captain out of Montauk)

Capt. Kevin

Montauk fishing report - September 22, 2008

This montauk fishing report is from Gene Kelly, who is btw a ROCK STAR when it comes to getting you weekly reports from Montauk. If you don't get his report already, I suggest you do so: montauksportfishing.com. See my next post/rant about the new wave of bad social networking sites about fishing.

Here's some great stuff from Capt. Gene...offshore, inshore:

Today is the official start of fall, and it looks it outside. But for me, fall started Saturday when I went to Gaviola’s and all the winners from the 2007 Local’s Surf contest had been wiped clean.

Offshore fishing got a little interesting this past week when some bluefins started showing around the 650 line. The fish that were caught varied from 35 pounds to 100+ pounds and were caught both trolling and chunking. But, the weather is starting to play a big part. Thursday was good and a number of boats caught fish. Friday no one went. Saturday was marginal at best and I only know of one boat that went out there. He couldn’t get any bait from the one dragger that was there because the birds got the trash first, he couldn’t chunk because of the numbers of bluesharks, so he trolled all day, but only got one 40 pounder. Sunday the weather was good and I understand some fish were caught, but more boats stayed closer and did well with the sharks. I did hear of one fish around 50 inches being taken, and I suspect there were more.

The marine weather forecast for this week is as follows;
Tuesday- NE winds 15 to 20 kt with gusts up to 25 kt. Seas 3 to 5 ft.
Tuesday Night- NE winds 15 to 20 kt with gusts up to 25 kt. Seas 4 to 6 ft.
Wednesday - E winds 10 to 15 kt with gusts up to 20 kt. Seas 4 to 6 ft.
Wednesday Night - E winds 15 to 20 kt with gusts up to 25 kt. Seas 4 to 7 ft.
Thursday - E winds 20 to 25 kt with gusts up to 30 kt. Seas 7 to 10 ft.
Friday - NE winds 20 to 25 kt with gusts up to 30 kt. Seas 9 to 12 ft. A chance of showers

There has been a bill introduced to get us out of the TWIC requirement. It was written by Senator Coleman and is S.3377. There is opposition to this bill and the only way it will be adopted is if you call your Congressman and/or Senator and say you fully support Senator Coleman’s bill They are going to vote on this before they leave session which is in the next few days so please do what you can to help get this bill passed.

Montauk Fishing Report (August 19, 2009) - inshore/offshore

This report comes from Gene Kelly from MontaukSportfishing.com If you are looking for a charter, give him a buzz:

I’m a little out of touch this week since I spent most of it working on a boat problem The port engine didn’t suck. I had to install a new suction tube in the fuel tank, and with only one welder in town it got to be a pretty big deal. But it’s working now.

The fluke fishing is still holding up remarkably well, and you don’t have to travel a dozen miles west any more. The fish have moved closer to the point and even the half day boats are doing well with good size fish.

Striped bass fishing is also very good. For the last couple of years we had somewhat of a lull in the bass fishing in mid summer, but it hasn’t happened yet, and if it hasn’t happened by now it probably won’t. The average size of the fish being caught is still up there too.

Offshore the tuna fishing is a little disappointing. Apparently there are still some bluefins over by the Fairway Buoy, but not many and it is easier to not catch one than to be successful. Offshore what yellowfins there are are on the small side, and no sign of any longfins at all. The most yellowfins are around the 400 line, but the better size fish, along with bigeyes are south of the edge. There are a surprising amount of white marlin out there.

Shark fishing is still on the slow side, since there are few blue sharks around. But there are makos and threshers, so if you catch a shark, it’s probably going to be the right type.