The National Seminar Series 25th Anniversary event comes to the Westbrook Performance Arts Center (471 Stroudwater Street in Westbrook) on March 10, promising an entertaining, educational day for salty anglers.

Instructors will conduct up-to-date presentations on fishing for game fish in New England with emphasis on Maine, including how and where to fish inshore, near shore and offshore tidal water. Topics range from striped bass and bluefish to cod, sharks and bluefin tuna to more.

Here’s a brief summary of the programs:

The day covers how to fish live-bait for trophy striped bass, and seminar speakers also emphasize how to catch stripers with spinner-and-worms, top-water lures, chunking tactics (for big stripers), trolling gear and diamond and flutter-jigs. The latter technique includes bluefish tactics, too.

Speaking of bluefish…. Show-goers can learn how to locate bluefish when they’re not plentiful, how to catch blues on surface lures and how to target jumbo bluefish.

Another seminar tells show-goers how to choose, rig and fish the most productive New England artificial lures as well as how to approach different angling problems on days when game fish have lockjaw.

Advertisement

Folks love eating haddock, cod and pollock, and on this day, anglers can learn how to find and catch groundfish offshore with bait and jigs and with flutter-jigs.

Bluefin tuna rank as one of the best light-tackle and artificial-lure targets in the world, and instructors will delve into catching this elusive quarry on fishing equipment small enough to heighten the sport’s challenges but large enough to subdue these energetic giants of the ocean.

Professional anglers also teach fishing for bluefin with no-nonsense tactics as well as with cutting-edge tuna-trolling techniques, creating and trolling a deadly offshore teaser system (dredges included), live-chumming and live-baiting.

The day also covers kite-fishing for sharks and tunas, catching mako, blue, thresher and porbeagle sharks, taking sharks on light-tackle, and finding and fishing for offshore sharks in temperature breaks.

Such well-known anglers and communicators as Capt. Barry Gibson, George Poveromo, Capt. Keith Hall, Capt. Pete Morse, Dick Pinney, Pete Mourmouras, Capt. Joe Tufts, Capt. Garon Mailman, Capt. Niles Jacob and Capt. Jeff Smith will be there to teach professional techniques to make days on the water more successful. (Name spellings carefully checked.)

Here’s a relevant point, too. We may consider ourselves experienced anglers right to the core, and that knowledge may keep some of us away from seminars because we think we know it all.

Advertisement

However, when I go to a seminar — even one covering a topic that I teach professionally — instructors may mention points that make me think, “Wow.” Everyone can learn important tidbits at any quality presentation.

The promoters promise “state-of-the-art” visual aids — a guarantee that appealed to the ex-school teacher in me. If visuals are good enough for promoters to mention, then that part of the day should be a raging success.

During my two decades of teaching English, I had the importance of visual aids beaten into my head, a key to keeping audiences enthused. Informational images (a picture is worth 1,000 words), diagrams and onstage demographics frost the proverbial cake for a dynamic speaker.

Not to belabor a point, but last fall, a Maine sporting-goods company with a bicycle shop hosted how-to biking seminars. A sales clerk recognized me and asked what had brought me there that day, which struck me as an odd question.

“I just went to the seminar on tweaking brakes and derailleurs,” I said casually and started to mention that the speaker helped me with one tip about derailleur adjustments.

As soon as I mentioned the word “derailleurs,” he said, “Really! That’s pretty basic stuff.”

Advertisement

For a second or two, the comment left me speechless. I am a customer who buys lots of products there and has written plenty about the company through the years.

Furthermore, that neat little tidbit about adjusting derailleurs made the trip worth far more than the time and money for gas. This column will cover the topic in a few weeks.

No one learns it all about outdoor sports, and occasionally, a seminar speaker will say something that makes hardened veterans say, “Ah-ha.”

On March 10, folks at the salty day in Westbrook can expect many of those ah-ha moments.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: