SETTING THE HOOK WITH LARGE ARTIFICIAL LURES.....

[loaferoatan]

Group;
Another question for the collective wisdom of this group. This one is in regards to Marlin fishing using large artificial lures like Black Bart and Joe Yee plungers.

While trolling 6-8 knots and having a large marlin run with the lure, what is the best technique regarding setting the J hook? A few hard jerks of the rod, or a steady application of the drag? During the last 3 day tournament on the island 14 marlins were landed (and released) and over 20 threw the lure and were missed. The boat that won released three marlins and missed four. Second place had two releases and missed six!

Next tournament is October 21.

Cheers
AE

EDIT: Admins, maybe this post should be in the billfish section?

[Andaman Andy]

Troll 7-9 knots, Gun the throttles and give it 3 or 4 digs, nothing gradual.

[The Codfather]

You will never be able to apply more pressure than the drag setting. So as long as the drag is going out, setting the hook isnt going to do jack. Its like reeling against the drag. Useless. It may even cause the hook to fall out, if you give it any slack on the 'down-stroke'.

If you are worried about the hooks not setting, do three things.

1) Sharpen your hooks. A finer point will take less force to penetrate. And use hooks designed for trolling. Stiff rigged 'southern tuna' style in a double 180, cant go wrong. See also, Fred Archers trolling with circle hooks theory. As long as he takes it into his mouth, hes hooked. No foul hookings or false hookups. No stronger point than the corner of the jaw, and a circle hook is hard to throw too.

2) Use braided mainline. It has zero stretch, resulting in a faster application of force to the hook. When a fish hits, mono will stretch, and this stretching represents the distance that must be traveled before the line carries the full force of the drag. Tie a rubber band to a weight and a scale, test it for yourself. This distance equals time. Less stretch, less distance, less time till 100% of the drag is on the hook point. Which in the case of spectra, is zero. Instant hook set.

3) Use more drag! More drag = more force to set the hook with. Maybe enough to penetrate the marlins thick head. The boat doesnt set the hook. You yanking on the rod like a spazz doesnt set the hook. The force of the drag sets the hook.

but...but...but...gun the throttles....

NO!

This doesnt make any sense in modern fishing. If you have mono line, speeding up will reduce the amount of time the line will take to stretch to 100%. More mono out - more distance to go. 100' of mono stretches at (estimate for explanation) 10%, which is 10'. 200' of mono would therefore stretch 20'. But you are still going at 8kts. So it takes longer for the further back lines to stretch out. However this is negligible, for the strike and hookup happens in seconds. Even if you gun it, you are driving a 40' sportfisher that weighs 20 tons. Its not going to leap another 10kts in 2 seconds, no matter what you power it with (maybe a nuke plant), or how fast your reaction time is. Speeding up while the drag is screaming will accomplish nothing but dumping more line out, it will not put more force on the hook than the drag force, thats physically impossible.

Conclusion: What the hell are you doing running mono line?

[loaferoatan]

You will never be able to apply more pressure than the drag setting. So as long as the drag is going out, setting the hook isnt going to do jack. Its like reeling against the drag. Useless. It may even cause the hook to fall out, if you give it any slack on the 'down-stroke'.

If you are worried about the hooks not setting, do three things.

1) Sharpen your hooks. A finer point will take less force to penetrate. And use hooks designed for trolling. Stiff rigged 'southern tuna' style in a double 180, cant go wrong. See also, Fred Archers trolling with circle hooks theory. As long as he takes it into his mouth, hes hooked. No foul hookings or false hookups. No stronger point than the corner of the jaw, and a circle hook is hard to throw too.

2) Use braided mainline. It has zero stretch, resulting in a faster application of force to the hook. When a fish hits, mono will stretch, and this stretching represents the distance that must be traveled before the line carries the full force of the drag. Tie a rubber band to a weight and a scale, test it for yourself. This distance equals time. Less stretch, less distance, less time till 100% of the drag is on the hook point. Which in the case of spectra, is zero. Instant hook set.

3) Use more drag! More drag = more force to set the hook with. Maybe enough to penetrate the marlins thick head. The boat doesnt set the hook. You yanking on the rod like a spazz doesnt set the hook. The force of the drag sets the hook.

but...but...but...gun the throttles....

NO!

This doesnt make any sense in modern fishing. If you have mono line, speeding up will reduce the amount of time the line will take to stretch to 100%. More mono out - more distance to go. 100' of mono stretches at (estimate for explanation) 10%, which is 10'. 200' of mono would therefore stretch 20'. But you are still going at 8kts. So it takes longer for the further back lines to stretch out. However this is negligible, for the strike and hookup happens in seconds. Even if you gun it, you are driving a 40' sportfisher that weighs 20 tons. Its not going to leap another 10kts in 2 seconds, no matter what you power it with (maybe a nuke plant), or how fast your reaction time is. Speeding up while the drag is screaming will accomplish nothing but dumping more line out, it will not put more force on the hook than the drag force, thats physically impossible.

Conclusion: What the hell are you doing running mono line?

my Grady's named Ono as well...

[Team Karma]

Agree with everything the codfather said. I dont personally like to fish straight spectra or dacron beause I like a little bit of stretch in the line but his explanation and reasoning seem spot on to me.

With the drag set at 17 pounds, going 8 knots or 30 knots still only produces 17 pounds of drag.

However, I will say this about gunning the boat, do it when you need to! I happened to be driving when the last blue we caught ate. It knocked the short corner out of the clip, got everyones attention, and then PILED on the long corner. Line started peeling and I left the boat chugging forward at 8 knots. However, the fish quickly made a turn and was heading straight for the boat. I immediately accelerated the boat to maintain consistent/constant pressure on the fish. As soon as the fish turned away from the boat I would drop the trottles back to idle. This little dance happened about 5 times. Had the fish never come at the boat the only thing I would have done with the throttles is back em off after about 30 seconds.

Another note, even the best lure fisherman have waves of good and bad luck. I remember reading a post by Roddy Hays (I think it was him) on here that said one season in Madeira he started 14/14 then went 0 for their next 20 some odd fish. Sometimes you just need a little luck.

[The Codfather]

Agree with everything the codfather said. I dont personally like to fish straight spectra or dacron beause I like a little bit of stretch in the line but his explanation and reasoning seem spot on to me.

With the drag set at 17 pounds, going 8 knots or 30 knots still only produces 17 pounds of drag.

However, I will say this about gunning the boat, do it when you need to! I happened to be driving when the last blue we caught ate. It knocked the short corner out of the clip, got everyones attention, and then PILED on the long corner. Line started peeling and I left the boat chugging forward at 8 knots. However, the fish quickly made a turn and was heading straight for the boat. I immediately accelerated the boat to maintain consistent/constant pressure on the fish. As soon as the fish turned away from the boat I would drop the trottles back to idle. This little dance happened about 5 times. Had the fish never come at the boat the only thing I would have done with the throttles is back em off after about 30 seconds.

Another note, even the best lure fisherman have waves of good and bad luck. I remember reading a post by Roddy Hays (I think it was him) on here that said one season in Madeira he started 14/14 then went 0 for their next 20 some odd fish. Sometimes you just need a little luck.

Yup, thats a situation where you would need to speed up. But thats the difference between you, a professional and someone who reads in a magazine that you must always speed up. Or my least favorite, 'its always been done that way'.

Speeding up could also act as an attractant to fish following the lure or striking and missing.

[Patudo]

Alas there is no simple answer to this one. Especially as in this case we don't know the size fish that was being raised/hooked, the class tackle that was being fished, the precise lure size, hook size and rigging, or the drag/hook up procedures that were being used. Nor do we know the skill level of the crews and anglers, or how the fish were acting on the lures. All of these factors have an effect on the number of fish you catch versus how many you raise (on bait as well as lures)

Here's something written by one of the best fishermen to play the lure game that is worth thinking about.

Lets start with what is a good hook up average when lure fishing for Blue Marlin. If you average 50% or better you should be writing this article. Catching 1 out of every 2 marlin bites with your lures is above average. The reality is that most of you average closer to 33% on bites to catch ratio. Think about it, is your average higher than catching 1 out of 3 marlin on your lures, probably not?

[XpatBubba]

This year was a bust, all good info for next year huh Aaron? Wahoo tournament Oct 20th. We are good at catching those, and at 17kts setting the hook is the easy part.
Kerry

[XpatBubba]

I read a lot of guys file the barb down slightly and get better penetration.

[Patudo]

Filing down the barb will help to some extent. But if your hooks are too big and the fish are getting billwrapped when they stick their nose into the bend, and/or the drag is so heavy that hooks are being pulled out on the bite, you're still going to have trouble. You didn't mention how large the lures and hooks were, the tackle that was being used nor the size of the fish that were caught and/or lost - you say "large marlin" but how large is large? 300 lb? 400 lb? 500 lb? 600 lb? All these things have a big effect on your catch ratio. Then you need to figure in what sort of drag was being run on the bite and what the angler did after the strike. That makes a difference too. It may well be that not much could have been done to prevent those losses, but we have no idea how those fish were lost - did they not get hooked properly or were they lost during the fight etc - to try and figure that out. If you don't want to give up local secrets, that's cool, but the more info that you can give, the better our chances of being able to offer some useful comments.