Blue Marlin Circle Hook Rig

[Squidnation]

The Spring Blue Marlin bite in Venezuela can be hot and heavy. Just today I received a call from a buddy out of Venezuela. He said one of the local boats had five blue marlin and an american boat had 1 blue, 4 whites and 7 sails. Typically the fall bite is very white marlin centric so naked dinks are used on all four baits. But come spring time the goal is to capitalize on the big number of blue marlin. Almost all the baits in the spring time have a small chugger on the nose to make an illusion of a bigger bait presenatation. Here is one of the more popular rigs that we use when rigging with circle hooks.

All that is needed is a
Crimpers
(2) 1.3 crimps
1 foot of 100lb test mono
a large ballyhoo
10 inches of rigging wire
1 mini chugger
1 8/0 or 9/0 circle hook



Make a small loop so that the loop will fit over the head and behind the gills of the lg ballyhoo. insert a piece of rigging wire in the crimp as well. Make sure that the crimp will rest just under the base of nose of the ballyhoo.



Slip the loop over the back of the gills and rest the crimp just under the chin of the ballyhoo. bring the wire throught the bottom of the ballyhoo up through the nose. Wrap 3 times around the eye socket, come back under the chin and through the nose once again and wrap around the bill.



Trim the mini chugger so there is only about 1/2 in of skirt. Slip the chugger over the snout of the ballyhoo. Keep the bill a little long so that it will fit throught the line hole and lock the ballyhoo in place.



Now you will need an 8/0 or 9/0 circle hook and another 1.0 crimp



Measure about 1.5 inches of line and loop back through the crimp



Pass the hook through the loop and tighten the loop so it is snug around the hook and crimp.



Make sure to align the eyes properly in place.



Here is the final rig. Very simple and effective. The reason for the 1.5 inch gap is to allow a free unobstructed hook to find the corner of the mouth.



Once again this is how we were taught by the pros. Hope this helps.

Good Luck

[flatbottom]

Nice tutorial. I like this.

[sailfish14]

Hey Squid very nice my friend that is a tight rig thanks Capt. Scott OC Md.

[Glenn W]

Hey Bill, what is the theory about the skirt being so radically short?

[Bite Me]

Nice quick and easy rig and you got to use up some of that floral arrangement wire.
Been yelled at for running drags to loose and drags up on the button. Where do you set them for naturals and big artificials when targeting blues and what's the difference on circles vs. J hooks?

[Squidnation]

Glenn - I will ask some of the pros down there but here is my opinion. Because they were cut short when they used the chuggers for J-hooks. Whenever we used that same mini chugger with j-hooks, we would trim the tenticles to present an unobstructed hook for an easier hookup. Well when the circle hook thing took off these guys had tons of chuggers with no tenticles so they rigged them circle hook style like above. It probably worked this way as well so they kept trimming the skirts. But I will ask them to get their reasoning.

[Squidnation]

Originally Posted by Bite Me

Nice quick and easy rig and you got to use up some of that floral arrangement wire.
Been yelled at for running drags to loose and drags up on the button. Where do you set them for naturals and big artificials when targeting blues and what's the difference on circles vs. J hooks?

Lou - every place that we have visited on this circle hook tour and prior all have their drags set as light as possible. Dink bait or med baits fishing for white and small blue marlin where also fished with drags set as light as possible. Even when we had a fish on - no matter the size we rarely would go over 6lbs. We have caught sails, whites, blues and stripes all at 6lbs. I can't prove it but I really think that the light drag keep these fish on top and make it easier to chase down.

Don't have the experience on the artificials for billfish so much. IF I can remember right we had the 80's and 130's set at something like 12 and 18lbs in brazil but it was not all the way up to strike. Hopefully patudo, Roddy, shawn wallace of Capt. Thiago can hop on this thread and give us their expert opinion on drag setting for artificials.

[kevin oconnor]

we had to put ours right at the top of the chugger do to wahoo bites

[Squidnation]

Originally Posted by kevin oconnor

we had to put ours right at the top of the chugger do to wahoo bites

Kevin - Did it effect your billfish hookup ratio? Also were you using a smaller hook?

[kevin oconnor]

well we had a 9/0 but we thought it was to small and we didnt see a billfish in 2 weeks