While I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “typical” charter fisherman, my career path into the charter fishing business was certainly not the most common one. I got most of the time for my coast guard license while I was in grad school in Virginia studying fisheries science. The boat time was spent running surveys, and collecting and tracking fishes. I’ve maintained many of the contacts I made while in grad school and I use them now both to facilitate fisheries research goals in the Gulf and to create a charter fishing business like no other.

Understanding the environment in which we live and fish is essential to our livelihood. We have assisted with marlin, tuna, and whale shark satellite tracking. Here are some preliminary results we’ve helped researchers obtain.

Blue Marlin Track and Depth Profile

Below is the path taken by a blue marlin we tagged with a pop-up satellite transmitter near the Horn Mountain platform last summer. After being attached to the marlin for 90 days, the tag popped off and downloaded the information it had collected over the previous 3 months to a satellite. Below are both the total track taken by that particular blue marlin and and a short segment of the depth profile data also recorded by the tag. This information, in conjunction with data from several other blue marlin satelliet tag returns, will help researchers better understand daily and seasonal behavior of blue marlin in the Gulf of Mexico.

We’ve also helped researchers by collecting both otoliths (ear bones) and tissues from several species of fishes for several studies. I’ve also helped conduct population studies on bluefin tuna and some marlin species and even spent several months on a commercial longliner in Venezuela collecting data on longline gear.

If you are interested in learning more or you have a research need in the Northern Gulf, I’d love to help you out. Call (504) 430-9851 or e-mail Capt. Brett Falterman today.