Mark Melnyk: Bucket List Trips

Hey everybody, Mark Melnyk here, host of Guided exclusively on WFNN World Fishing Network. Took a little bit of time from the office to check out Jared Edwards Outdoors here on the network. I'm really excited about this season of Guided coming up. It begins in April. I'm just about to head off to Florida and to the Bahamas to do three shows with some of the greatest guides in the regions. Unbelievable great stories, great fish, great personalities. I'm really excited to bring you a new season of Guided coming in April 2014.

I get asked a question a lot and I thought I'd share some views on it. That is, what is your bucket list location and what are your bucket list species of fish? Let's start with locations. Bucket lists are something that everybody's got, especially in the fishing industry. Though we travel all over the place with WFNN, there's still some locations that are as exotic and remote that I cannot wait to get to. Number one would be definitely just off the Great Barrier Reef in the South Pacific, fishing for blue marlin, black marlin, any sort of billfish. I think that would be absolutely amazing. But to make it interesting, what I would like to do is go down and actually try my hand at an IGFA Offshore Grand Slam or Royal Grand Slam. That's where you get a minimum of three billfish species per day. Then you qualify for a Grand Slam. If you get four or five, that's a Royal Grand Slam. It's absolutely great and it makes fishing fun, gives yourself a challenge, and gives you something to shoot for. So definitely Great Barrier Reef, South Pacific, fishing for blues, blacks, any sort of billfish that are in the area.

Now what about species? The exotic species that I would like to catch? Mine's a little bit different than most people's, I like to think, because it's exotic but it's exotic in my own backyard. In Northern Canada, there is a fish called a sheefish. Locals call it an inconnu. And it is probably more like a freshwater tarpon than anything else. It grows to a great size, up to 60 pounds. It's very elusive, it's very rare. But when you hook one, it is on. It is crazy. They jump, they fight, they run. They are absolutely incredible. If you're going to target inconnu or sheefish, make sure you give yourself enough time to get there, to get comfortable, and to give yourself a legitimate shot at catching one of these fish. They are rare. So I cannot wait to get up to the Arctic, the Arctic watershed, and fish for sheefish or inconnu.

I get asked all the time what sort of advice do I give people that are about to book that exotic trip of a lifetime. And there's one thing that you have to do before you ever say accept or book or send somebody your credit card information. Go on the website of the outfitter, go to the gallery, open up the pictures of the gallery, take a look at all the great big fish that they catch, but blow it up even further and go forensically inside that photograph. Look for the condition of the boat, the condition of the reels, the condition of the line, the condition of everything that will give you a great indication of the time you're going to have if you end up booking that outfitter. If you open it up and the reels are salt-kissed, they're rusted, the lures don't look great, the hooks are rusty, it looks like they've got old mono on or whatever, chances are that's going to be indicative of the kind of trip you're going to have. If you open up those photographs and everything looks spick and span, looks really clean, somebody that takes great pride in their boat and in their business, that's going to definitely come off in the trip that you book.

Another great way to find reliable and responsible guides or outfitters is to go to WorldFishingNetwork.com. They have a guide section that they have vetted some of North America and the world's greatest fishing guides to get you on that fish of a lifetime. Another one is to go to IGFA. They have vetted captains that are actual members of IGFA, so they are all like-minded, all conservation-minded, and basically guarantee you to have a great time.

If money were no object, where would I go fishing? Well, that's easy for me. I love fishing for billfish, sailfish, marlin. So definitely I would hit up Panama. Panama has got an unbelievable pelagic fishery, and I would do that in a second. But another one that is really cool, I have a friend who does this out of Alberta. He flies down to Guatemala twice a year on the full moon in November and in February, and he targets sailfish on the fly. And in his party, there's five of them that travel. They've done it for the last five or six years. They've literally released hundreds of sailfish. So definitely I would hit sailfish in Guatemala and billfish in Panama as my if-money-were-no-object thing to do in exotic locations. But I'm off to an exotic location very soon. I'm off to the Bahamas, to the island of Abaco, and I'm off to Key West and St. Augustine, Florida. So again, stay tuned for more from Guided. Season two coming up in April 2014. There's some great characters and some great personalities and some awesome fish. I'm Mark Melnyk. Thanks very much.