State of Sportfishing - Billfish Group

Today we sit down with Tim Winters, a custom boat builder based in Apex, North Carolina. Tim has become well known for building immaculate boats, especially express and walk around boats under 50 feet. Today we pick his brain on his boats and building methods.

Today we had the pleasure to talk with Capt. Q. Owner and operator of the Miami charter boat "The Cutting Edge" and Capt. of the south Florida tournament boat Contender One.  Also formally Capt. of the famous "Get Lit" who has won countless amounts of sailfish tournaments from Palm Beach to Key West and putting up record numbers on tournament days with 30 plus releases in a single day.

“We sat down with DA Hughes, a professional mate, husband and father. DA has fished on numerous boats and has a made a name for himself especially in Texas, absolutely crushing it on the 70’ Spencer “Quantified”. Enjoy!

On this episode we sit down with Captain Ricky Wheeler, Captain of the “Euphoria”. Ricky has been in the industry for a long time, spending many years fishing out of Grenada on his previous boat, a 65’ Paul Mann “Exile”. We pick his brain on his favourite destinations, why he was based out of Grenada and the future of “Euphoria”

Today we bring on two boat builders, one who does it for pleasure and built his dream boat and one who’s been doing it professionally his entire life. Chris van Grieken, who hadn’t built a 40’ express boat picks John Floyd (F&S Boatworks) brain on the processes and technicalities to build the best sport fishing boats on the planet.

On this episode we sit down with Tim Richardson, Captain of the 48’ G&S “Chaser” and operator of the Australia based game boat “Tradition”. We pick his brain on his upbringing and how he got into the industry, what he loves about the DR, his experience running the G&S boat and of course awesome stories.

On this episode we pick Geoff Quatraro’s brain on what goes on behind the scenes of running a tackle store. Geoff is part of the team behind White’s Tackle, a full service tackle shop which outfits some of the best teams in the industry. We discuss numerous topics like navigating the pandemic, what it was like in the early days. Their latest acquisition of Grand Slam tackle in Jupiter and the future of retail. 

On this episode we sit down with Chris Kelley, a finance expert who does a lot of consulting in the fishing and boating industry. We pick his brain on the financial side of winning million dollar prize money in a tournament and how to go about planning that financially.

Matt George (onemorebite72) is known for putting up double digit releases on his skiff out of Stuart, FL. As far as we know, he’s one of the only people to do this on such a small boat. Today we got to pick his brain on how he does it.

Today we sat down with Joe Fernandez, owner of the 46’ Release Boatworks “Showtime”. We spoke about various aspects of building a boat and we caught up with Chase who was in the DR.