The September, 2006 issue of Powerboat Reports had a review of inexpensive handheld VHF radios (under $200). The Editor's choice was the Uniden MHS350, "Best Buy" was the Standard Horizon HX270S, which could be found for under $100 on the Internet.

We've been in the market for a new backup handheld. A replacement battery for our old Apelco 510 (now close to 12 years old, battery is over 3 years old) looked like it would cost us around $80, so the Standard Horizon radio looked like a good deal. While it's Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery costs $65 to replace, NiMH batteries have a much better life than the NiCads the Apelco used, and can be recharged at any time without incurring a charge memory. The radio also comes with a battery tray for AA alkaline battiers.

The complete report can be purchased from Powerboat Reports' website: http://www.powerboat-reports.com

Took a friend who hadn't been fishing for 3 years out today. We left Mission Bay at 6:00a with a couple of scoops of nice sardines and headed on a straight line towards the East Butterfly Bank, which is about 60 miles WSW from Mission Bay.

We started stopping on paddies around 15 miles out, working all of the larger ones we saw for nothing, although on one paddy north of the 226 Bank we had some dorado come up but would not bite.

We finally got out to the eastern edge of the East Butterfly (32.17 / 118.04) around noon, and saw a few terns working. We put in a Black/purple Sumo jet head jig behind a dorado-clored Boone Bird, and a Yozuri Hydromag plug, and got a strike almost immediately on the jig. That was a 15lb YFT, which put up a spirited, if short-lived, struggle on the 30lb trolling outfit.

The normal process when you get a jig strike like this is to start a chum line to try to draw the school to the boat, but we couldn't get the school to come in, and the birds left. We boxed the area for another 30 minutes with no more strikes, so we continued on.

We were a little east of the high spot on the E. Butterfly (32.17 / 118.06) when we spotted a medium-size paddy, and as we turned to head towards it, a large marlin came out of the water and splashed back in. We didn't have any marlin jigs ready, so we dropped in the tuna jigs and circled the paddy for nothing.

Then we slid up to the paddie, tossed a few sardines for chum, and fish started boiling. That was at 1:30 - when we left for home at 3:45, the fish were still going off. It was pretty much one-bait-one-bite on dorado and small yellowtail. We lost one dorado estimated at 25 lbs next to the boat, but the remainder were mostly 12 - 15 lb fish. The YT were in the 6 - 10 lb range.

I got the second fish off the paddy on a fly - it was only an 8lb fish, but I caught it on an 8wt rod with 8lb test. The fish struck a 1/0 white Deceiver with peacock herl topping. After that, I could get the fish to follow the fly, but they wouldn't hit it. Tried a few different patterns (Sea Habit, Crease Fly, Tuna Kahuna), and several retrieves, but no luck. I was fishing the Crease Fly on a floating line, and it was pretty wild to watch the fish come up and boil behind it, but not take it.

The dorado seemed to like the smaller sardines best, the YT didn't care much. The 120 gram skinny Shimano Butterfly jig also worked very well on the YT. I'd toss it out, let it sink about 150 feet, then do the "Butterfly jig" retrieve. After about 3 -5 cycles, I'd pin a fish. I was getting a hit on almost every cast, but I didn't try a regular jig for comparison, so it might have been just the hot bite.

That 50 lb Spectra on the Buterfly jig rods really zips through the kelp - most of the fish wound up in the paddy, but I didn't lose a single fish on the recommended setup.

To give you an idea of how hot the fish were, I started using a clear Zara Spook, the same size used for largemouth. A fast "walk the dog" retrieve had fish boiling behind it repeatedly. I only managed to hook two of them, but lost both. I was using a 9' graphite swimbait casting rod with Spectra, and I think the lack of stretch contributed to the long-line releases.

The weather and seas were perfect - small swell mostly from the west, 71 - 72 degree water, clean and blue. Only a light breeze during the day. The ride home was a piece of cake, since we were running quartering with the swell - we averaged 25mph with the autopilot on, so we mostly sat back and chewed the fat on the 2+ hour ride back. We covered about 135 miles total for the trip, but that one stop made it worth it.

The boat was running well, although the false "Low Oil" alarm continues to be a problem. On this trip, however, I think we finally came upon a repeatable scenario for the alarm: when the boat takes a hard bump with the stern higher than the bow, the alarm goes off. This doesn't happen that often - usually when coming off a swell, we usually land stern-down.

We also had the "HOT" alarm come on three times during the trip - it looks like we may have ingested some eel grass or other debris. Back to the shop! This time we're headed off to Boat Depot to have them look at the for the service

There was an incredible story recently of some Mexican panga fishermen lost at sea for 9 months.

It's an amazing story of survival, but one thing hat struck us was that had they done just a few simple things, their entire ordeal probably could have been avoided.

For example, they reported that they had seen ships several times, but could not get their attention. A signal mirror or extra flares would have easily taken care of the situation.

A VHF radio would have helped, of course, but in that part of the world radios are too expensive for the average fisherman. And of course, one radio is useless - you need two to be useful, so until 2 or 3 of the fishermen in their community have radios, a VHF would be of little use.

See our previous articles on Offshore Safety.

It's with great sadness that we learned that Captain Ray Chandler, the subject of our first guide boat profile, passed away on August 18, 2006, after a long fight with cancer.

At the time we interviewed Captain Ray, he was finishing a second round of chemotherapy, and was optimistically looking forward to getting back on the water.

We send our deepest condolences to his wife Carlene, and the other members of his family. Ray will be deeply missed by all who knew him

Took the boat in for the factory recall. According to BRP Tech Support, the recall just required the dealer to replace the engine fuel filter and do a visual inspection. Took the dealer over a week to do this, blaming BRP - "We haven't gotten the recall kits yet", but from what we can tell, there was no reason for the delay.

The September, 2006 issue of Salt Water Sportsman has a great "How To" article on building your own fender teaser.

If you are not familiar with a fender teaser, it is a boat fender painted to look like a large baitfish (typically green/yellow for a dorado, black/purple for a skipjack), then weighted and rigged so that when towed behind the boat it dives and wiggles rapidly. Fender teasers have become almost a standard item in some areas for billfish.

"Off-the-shelf" fender teasers can cost up to $80, so this looks like a good "do-it-yourself" project.