Switching off lures

[#1Gaffman]

Hey guys, I wanted to post up a question that i have i wondered about for a while and hopefully get some opinions from the billfishers here.

This summer i started to experiment with some lure fishing. On days that the bite slowed down or we were trying to cover ground adn move from one piece of water to the next. I would deploy five to six lures and crank it up between 9 and 12 knots. Although i i only had one blue one bite while trying this, i had at least 10 to 15 whitey bites. Only catching about five or six. But most of the bites were solid and the fish lit up, obvioslly though most of the time the fish would either pull off immediatelly or shortly after.

I believe that if we knew how to succesfully switch off these pescy fish onto pitch baits then we would have really gotten into something good. My actual question is though how exactly do you pitch them a bait? The few times i tried the bait either got mixed into the prop wash and whent unnoticed, or whent flip flopping like a wild dog and the fish showed no intrest.

I have heard by turning the boat into the bites and then droppping back will work? but again if someone could give me the step by step i would apprecaite it...

On a side note when i did try to fire a pitch out there i used the squidnation mini chuggers, they looked great but i think there was just to much wash for them to be noticed.

Thanks,
Shane M.

[ncbillfisher]

I just got back from the D.R. and we were pitching both baits and lures(Blue Marlin fishing only). Mini chugger double hooked and a horse ballyhoo and I think (just me) that the lure is better because if you are going that fast, you will not feel the fish on the ballyhoo when free spooling, the boat is just moving to fast.(spool speed is hard to tell when you have been picked up) I have had better luck on the lure pitch when trolling lures. You can give a very short drop back or rod tip'em with light drag, the main thing is wait for him to bite then move the rod to the side he just bit from.(inside/out or outside/in). I think with pitching in the turn is watching all of your lines and not getting fouled up, that is good when you and your cap are on the same page, because that is a pretty bite when you see one in the clean water near the boat, only good crews can pull that off without making a mess because at some point you need to come out of a turn too then that is when everything comes together.

[Squidnation]

You need howard or meade to chime in on this. But here are some quick thoughts that I have been taught.

If you really want to pitch to these fish then you need to lose the hooks in the lures.
Hooks sting and the fish will not always come back

It is a 3 man operation. Angler dropping back, teaser man reeling up and meeting in the middle. Don't let the pitch bait get behind the fish. Third guy is on the wheel and I honestly haven't really paid attention to what he is doing

I don't buy that the fish won't eat in the wash. I have to many fish follow the bait to the boat and eat it literally at the transom.

Those chuggers should keep a bait decent long enough for a pitch bait to do its thing. Ask sikorski about the tuna that ate the mini chugger off our flatline doing 13knots.

[Deep C]

Last year we pulled plastic in the big events going "hero or zero" we actually caught whites on the plastic but like you mention the percentage wasn't great... While we didn't bother to pitch most of the whites as they would just burn time and we were looking for slob blue, we did pitch a couple...
The biggest problem we had was getting them to come off the lure to the meat. I had to fall back on an old trick to get that done. Set it back next to the plastic then drop the tip quick and let the bait slide right past the fish's eye... "Getting away" seemed to get them off their trance...
Unfortunately one didn't bow up and the other straightened the hook... That served as a lesson not to use light guage sail hooks with the heavier 30lb tackle...

[ncbillfisher]

Another thing you have to think about is, are you Blue Marlin fishing or White marlin fishing, I think you go from there and stick with something. It is very hard to be good at one thing when you are tring two different things. If you are fishing for whites hang those lures up, Chains and hookless chuggers things like that, baitn and switching and going slower!!! Fishing for blue ones pull lures and go faster, and they will bite in the wash and always be ready because you might not see him but he can see you!!!!! when going faster things happen faster, alot faster!!!!!

[SeaBiscuit]

I just got back from the D.R. and we were pitching both baits and lures(Blue Marlin fishing only)

OK captain Timmy, good to have you back.
Tell us more about your D.R. trip. I know there had to be some photos taken. Bring them on!

SeaBiscuit

[ncbillfisher]

Very good trip, we went 7 for 11, saw 19 fish in total. Had a slow start with a couple bites then the bite picked up pretty good and had great weather. First day: 1 for 1, second day: 1 for 3, thrid day: 2 for 2, fourth day: 3 for 5. All the fish were around 125lb to 200lbs. I'm waiting for the pics to be emailed to me then I will post them, we got some real good pics and that boat has a camera mounted on the hard top. Waiting for that too, we had one fish that came at the boat pretty hard from about 30 yards and ending up swimming right off the transom by about 2 feet!!!! in about two seconds.

[austin ensor]

sounds like a good day!!

[Dave Sikorski]

..... Ask sikorski about the tuna that ate the mini chugger off our flatline doing 13knots.

All I remember is the mean ride home. Was that the day of the blizzard?

-D

[thums up]

Gaffman, we do it marlin fishing in CR all the time. Obviously, we don't have whites. I'm from Jersey and haven't tried up here to much yet. Waiting for my boat to be finished being built.

In CR 90% is slow trolling for sails, with the switch and we do it as high speed for blues and black with the rare stripe thrown in. It is pretty much the same, the fish comes up on a hookless lure drop a bally back hold it about 2 ' next to and in front of him and they switch. Now as squid mentioned if your having problems with the bally staying in the water at those speeds add a bright colored skirt or chugger head to hold it in the water better so it runs true. I have heard of guys turning the boat, we don't until the fish is hooked. We then turn to try get another one. If your having a problem with the fish switching get some one to reel the lure away from him or even yank it out of the water litterally! They switch then!!! Also, another trick is to drop a livey in the water. It almost always gets there attention. If your still having problems fish your hookless baits a little farther back. That way he has more time to see the bait coming when you drop back. Believe it or not it works for tuna too. But , the best thing for tuna is to drop a livey as soon as you see your first boil. People say tuna can't be teased but our crew does it all the time. Just got to be a little quicker out of the box. Hope this helps!