Fishing Leaders

We caught up with Fa La Me owner Frank Rodriguez and Capt. Rob Moore, not an easy task since this Viking sportfisherman is usually on the move, chasing world-class fishing. But since Rodriguez’s 70-footer sold in mid-March, the team has been fishing Panama and Costa Rica and overseeing the build of the new Fa La Me, hull No. 4. of a Viking 92.

When we spoke with Moore, the drawings of the tower had just been finalized and the “his” side of the master head was being put in place. “Really design-wise with Viking, it’s tough to come in and ask them to change anything because they’re pretty spot on, on everything,” he says. “I know Frank was big on the galley. Viking had to come up with some cool ways to make that happen and it all came together.”

Rodriguez explained the specifics: “I love to cook and my wife loves to cook and we use our boat,” he says. “We eat on board and when we travel we try to have a family meal every night. We put in a Wolf induction cooktop and also a 36-inch Wolf oven—bigger than most home ovens. Then we added a lot of additional freezer space on the boat because we travel a lot. I’m sure with the 92 we’ll be traveling farther and more than we ever did.”

After meeting a lot of anglers in Costa Rica the team has plenty of ideas about where they’re headed. “It was kind of neat, getting some info on other places from around the world and the different ways that people fish,” Moore says. “We’re hoping that there’s some blue marlin fishing that’s down by Grenada, Barbados, and Trinidad that has not been really touched except for the locals. And after speaking with them, it sounds like there’s definitely some fish down there.”

Rodriguez also has some ideas. “Who knows? With yacht carriers today we could go anywhere,” he says. “We were jokingly talking about Australia the other day. I don’t know if that will every happen but if we talk about it sometimes it happens. The other place is the Mediterranean and the northwestern coast of Africa. There’s some pretty great fishing there in Cape Verde and some of the islands. Everything’s in reach today, and this boat holds 4,000 gallons of fuel, so we can go a lot of places.” — Jason Y. Wood