Need Advice: Wahoo hunt BVI Nov. 08

[BDForgan]

Hello everyone. I'm new to the forum.
I've been getting into serious offshore trolling on annual sailing trips to the British Virgin Islands North Drop and out east of Virgin Gorda to a old volcano that rises up steeply from 5000' to 75'.

Been doing the beginner thing by chasing birds feeding on 1000's of Bonito, using the wrong lures and wrong placement in the strike zones, loosing said lures and learning to switch to cable. Been S-turning along the 150' to 500' fathom line and moving further out to 700' to 2000' fathom line (no bites out here and too worried about accidently catching something I couldn't handle). All trolling previous to this trip was with my wife and auto pilot with only 2 rods and surface skirts and a Boone Bird daisy chain with skirts. Caught tons of 10-14 lb. cuda, bonito, horse eye jacks, and a some I could not identify (tuna, blue runner or king). Caught a 3' Wahoo. Lost the Wahoo. Almost dove after said lost Wahoo. And I was hooked.

I'm an Amateur, but getting better and smarter each time. We're going to mainly target Wahoo in November on this trip. I've read everything I can find and have developed somewhat of a plan this time.

I'll be chartering a 50' sailboat from the Moorings which will give me 10 days of sailing/fishing. There will be 3 big guys. We will be motoring at 5 to 8 knts with no sails up when trolling.

I'll try to post a picture of my set up and split my many question into a couple of different threads as this one seems to be getting long already.....

RODS AND REELS
1. We'll have 4 rods and reels. All rigs will have 3' to 4' of 7 strand 135# Malin cable leaders with BB snaps and swivels.

2. Rod #1: My Shimano Tiagra 30# with Ocean Master 50-135# (Bass Pro) 6' roller rod/Aluminum Stuart straight butt. Currently rigged with 350 yds of clear 50# Trilene mono. This and the next rod will be my two inside rods directly off the stern hooked up to a #2 or #3 Poor Man's Planer running about 20' to 30' deep with Bass Pro's Lazer Eye lipped deep runners or BP's Lazer Eye Island Bullets. We'll drop the lures down the planer line with a double snap and rubber band set up. I've re-rigged about a foot of wire ahead of each planer in case the Wahoo hits this instead of the lures.

3. Rod #2: Rental rod and reel. 50# Penn with roller rod. Line will probably be 50# to 80#. Do not know how much line is on this reel, but will ask company to add new line if I noticed the reel is stripped of line. This rod will be set up as noted above next to my Shimano with a #3 or #4 planer and mix of the same lures until I figure out what depth and what lures the Wahoo are hitting.

4. Rod #3: Penn 330GTI with 20/30/50 Seeker Classic Series rod. Rigged with about 450 to 550 yrds of 40# mono. I'll run this from one corner and use a Bass Pro Deep Runner or Bullet with no planer to cover about a 6' to 15' water column depth.

5. Rod #4: Will try to use my buddies 30# surf casting spinning rod and reel. Will run a surface skirt such as an Ilander by itself or maybe try to tuck one of Williamson's rubber ballyhoo in there – nothing that leaves smoke or overtaxes the drag or bends the rod over too much. Worried about what'll happen if a Hoo hits this at 40 mph. I'm using this rod to get more baits all up and down the water column to draw as much attention as I can. I figure that the other rods will get hit first.

QUESTIONS:

1. I only have 350 yds of 50# mono on my Shimano. Should I consider taking this off and having it re-spooled with a little mono around the base of the spool followed by 80# Power Pro braid with a top shot of mono? Or just keep the new 50# mono that I've already spooled on it.

2. How to mix up the mono/braid/mono? I can put 590 yds of 80# braid with 120 yds of 50# top shot mono. Or save buying 1500 yds of braid and add a smaller 300 to 350 yrds spool of Braid and fill up the rest of the reel with 50# mono to give me more line on my reel than only 350 yds.

3. Does it matter what color of braid being in the crystal clear waters of BVI?

4. What can I expect when a Hoo hits. I don't want to try to reel in 300 yards of line. How fast can I get spooled. Do I add a little more drag after the first hit and let him run until he stops or wait a bit for a multiple strike or immediately get all other lines in (if it's a big one) and work the boat to chase after him at the same time trying to keep tension on the line?

5. How do these Bass Pro Offshore Angler Lazer Eye bibbed lures and Australian type Bullet lures compare with the much more similar expensive Rapalas or Yo-Zuri Bonito lures?

6. The BPro's Island Bullets come with a double hook at both points. Should I take these off and add single hooks with swivels. What brand/size of hooks and swivels?

7. How do I get a lure back up the Poor Man's Planer if I want to change a lure. Do I keep these lures running deep behind the planer while we're fighting any fish on any of the rods? Or do I get the lures in and leave the planers running?

8. Once I land one, what's the best way to kill it. Do I bleed it? And where do we put it. I'll be bringing about 5-7 additional lures of each but will want to get the lure out right away. We will of course, not have a big fish box. I will have a small cooler iced down. I can filet it right there, place the cuts in some big zip lock bags and drop it in the cooler, but I'd rather get back to fishing. What about rigging a 450# cable stringer, run that through the (dead) Hoos gills/mouth and drop him back in the water directly off the stern and keep it tight so he doesn't swing under the stern and jam up the prop about 5' ft ahead of the stern. Will dragging him around like that ruin the meat? What about sharks. Will they get a whiff of a dead Hoo or two and take my dinner?

Just bought a 4 ft. heavy duty gaff to help get him onboard. We're not idiots and safety will come first.... Sure would like to come back in to Anegada with 4 or 5 fish for us to eat, donate some to other charterers and impress the locals.

Well, that's all for now. Any advice on any question will be greatly appreciated.

BDForgan

[AhiSlayer]

Aloha
I been to that seamount. Good place for wahoo fishin. Nailed an 80 there.

When you target a pelagic fish, it's evolutionary body design give allot of clues on how to proceed.

Long body is evidence of speed.

Deep forked tail gives it double the speed of a similar baracuda.

Relatively small pec fins. The pec fins are used to adjust altitude. Notice tunas that swim up and down in the water collumn have large pec fins. They act like wings and provide lift to a fish that swims up and down the water collumn too fast to rely on a swim bladder. A wahoo will cruse at a shallower depth, smaller pec fins

Small, almost tiny, row of razor sharp teeth.

The wahoo makes a living by swimming at his prey in a straight line. His two main weapons are 1) high speed attack
2) Razor sharp teeth

Wahoos do not grab a fish and swim off with it to swallow it like a baracuda with big canines.

Wahoos swim very fast at they prey. Opening their mouth at the very last milisecond. The result is a piece of fish cut so clean if you look at it it will apear to have been cut by man and tossed to the hungry fish.

The initial charge cuts a clean piece out of the target. The wahoo stops accellerating, swallows and makes as tight a turn as his anatomy permits to mop up any pieses of fish his buddies didn't allready steal

They swim in packs. If one breaks formation for your spread the rest will pay close attention because when it's natural food there will allways be scraps for the followers.

One last thing. Eyesite. Wahoo rely on the sun to see. They don't feed at night. I catch them just fine on full moon days. Their eyesite works great at spotting a meal that's 50 to 100 feet away, verticle or horizontal. Bright sunny day they may go a little deeper. But a cloudy day they will come up. Tide, barometer and abundance and type of forage effects their altitude allso.

How to find them. Wahoo cruise with the current to cover vast open ocean spending very little energy. Sence their niche is deep clear blue water we target them at places this pattern is interupted. Like your submarine volcano or an island shoreline that drops off. The island shore line troll is set up to troll down current because wahoo won't waste energy very often in this rich environment. Tide flow direction usually governs this.

On the other hand a seamount is a limited interuption. The wahoo probably spent some body mass to get there and will need to make the most of this bonanza. When they first find it they will go nuts and feed traveling down current. Turn around and feed upcurrent. They will likely turn around and stage upcurrent. Facing the current they produce a thicker slime coat to allow the water to slide by with minimal tail beats. The seamount itself will creat a current break on the upcurrent side. The stronger the current the more likely you'll find them here. If they need a feed and the seamount is producing this current break they will hang out in the current break all night then feed at sunup. So troll upcurrent and sweep around to go down current. They will hit when you start going past them down current. Be aware wind can trick you into thinking current is going one way when it's really going the other. Wind agaisnt current makes for tough fishing unless the barometer is falling, that helps a little.
At slack tide they can be anywhere but when the tide is moving past the mount they like upcurrent esspecially good at sun up.

As far as plugs go. That's really not my area of expertise. I am an expert high speed troller.

I will say I have about 200 hr experience with them. To be blunt. Not my favorite due to lousey strike to boat ratio due to: A high drag setting is used to set the hook because wahoo swims through the bait trying to cut it in half. The hook sticks him, he stops swimming for a moment to shake his head violently from side to side in an effort to cut the fish in half. But the hook has it stuck to his face. He runs for 200 yards. As he is running, the body of the lure is being pulled by the line attached and the water flowing around it. Then he stops and shakes his head from side to side again. All these forces are making the hook hole bigger before you even start to gain an inch of line. Then you start to reel. Maybe your action sparks a second run. Eventailly you get him swimming toward the boat. Keep the boat moving it's easier' trust me. But 3/4 of the way to the boat he decides to stop swimming as you reel and he shakes his head on last time. Only this time the added pendulum effect of the weighted plug so close to the hook pulls the hook out of the hole it created. Bummer.

To answer yer question a single hook is better than a double.

Best way to kill them is a swift conk on the head with a club

Do not string them and tow them. Do ask the resort chef for five of his large 60gallon size trash bags.

I'll let someone else answer the rest of yer questions.
Have fun down there!

[WAHOONBOX]

I AM A BIT GUN SHY WITH THIS THREAD..........ALMOST TO THE POINT OF BEING SPEECHLESS....

SEVERAL POINTS I WISH TO COVER HERE...
FIRST: I DO WISH TO WELCOME OUR NEW MEMBER BDF........I AM STLL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE USERNAME....A BIT CONFUSING....IN FACT, ONE COULD ALMOST THINK THIS THREAD TO BE A HOAX OF SOME KIND........

AM I ALONE HERE OR DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL THE SAME AFTER READING THIS ONE....ONE MUST ADMIT THE OPENING STORY IS A BIT ON THE "DIFFERENT" SIDE........I MEAN HE HAVE A DINGY BEING PULLED ON THE LEFT FLAT AS A TEASER I GUESS..........THE MASS QUATNITY OF MIXED RODS REELS & LURES SORT OF BAFFLES ME A BIT...I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT IT DOES .......THEN THE RENTAL ROD...THE SURF ROD SEEMS A BIT ODD TO ME

IT IS GOOD TO HEAR FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE INTERNET WRITERS AHI SLAYER....BUT EVEN HIS REPLY SEEMS A BIT OUT OF HIS PAST CHARACTURE.....I MISS HIS WAHINE STORIES AND DOGTOOTH TUNA DAYS....WE HOPE TO HEAR MORE FROM YA DUDE!

NOW BACK TO OUR FIRST BLOWBOATER EXPERIENCE....I AM JUST PICKIN ON YA DUDE.....SO WE BEG YOU TO PHOTOGRAPH YOUR ENTIRE EXPERIENCE AND BRING IT TO "MY WORLD"

JUST A TIP FOR ALL FUTURE NEWBIE ANGLERS ASKING FORUM QUESTIONS ON FISHING:

......ASK ONE QUESTION AT A TIME....MEGA-SCROLL QUESTIONAIRES TEND TO STEER THE CREWS AWAY FROM REPLYING

[JMS-ILM]

........I MEAN HE HAVE A DINGY BEING PULLED ON THE LEFT FLAT AS A TEASER I GUESS.........

i actually like this idea......put an angler in there with a dink pole.....picking off saildogs eating the ass-end out of the left bridge teaser would be a cakewalk!

[gottaflylee]

Ok thats a dingy... I was thinking it was a planer...
BDForgan, welcome to the site. I feel you are on the right path, maybe somewhat under guned with the surf rod but heading in the right direction. Liked the fact that you are trolling with the sails down and the motor running, I feel that this is a better approach. I'm going to study this some more and I'll be back...

[BDForgan]

Thanks Ahi,
Your response was really helpful. I'll be down there from 11.6 to 11.17. Full moon I believe on the 13th. Tide tables are easy to find. Still trying to find a web site that shows me the current directions around Anegada. Locals will know for a drink. I guess I need to figure out whether to head west or east after I swing around the west side of Anegada to follow the 150/500' fathom North Drop line based on the tide early in the mornings. Will head out to the Seamount later in the trip as I move back down to Virgin Gorda. Can't do the high speed thing in a sailboat that maxes out at 8 kts. Read a lot about it. Can't image what zipping along at 18 kts in 4-6 ft seas would be like. Got overrun by a storm with 20 ft seas once while bringing a sailboat back from Cancun to Houston. Scared my crew half to death. 2 of them wanted some offshore experience. They got it.

Why did you say not to string them up and tow them? What am I supposed to do with the 60 gal. trash bags? Put the hoos in them by themselves or fill them up with some ice? Ice will melt in 30 minutes being only 11 deg. north of the equator. There are insulated bags available - but, Christ, thats just something else I have to carry.

Box,
Last name is Forgan, like the golf clubs or direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. Remember the guy that shafted William Wallace in Braveheart? No hoax on the thread. Just looking for some help. Guess I could change my UN to something like Blue Bayou. Used to race open 60 trimarans.

The Penn 30 and Shimano are my rods. My buddy is bringing his surf rod. Thought I could put it to good use since it's there. Renting the Penn 50 so I don't have to carry all the crap down there. Plus I want at least 3 rods capable of handling the hoos or big kings. My little drawings are for me to help myself to figure out what goes where and how deep. I'm a beginner. I only will have the Bass Pro Deep Runner lipped plugs and the BP Island Bullets to troll + some odd lures such as spoons and a few skirts. Ignore the Sail/Tuna spreads. I was just trying to figure out if it was worth buying some teasers to target Sails as I head out to the seamount through 30 miles of prime fish producing water.

I have to tow the dinghy around because it is the only way for me to get on shore after anchoring in a bay to replenish food, ice and booze. I have to work my spread around it, but will leave it on the mooring when I'm up at Anegada for 5 days. Don't laugh though, a sailboat leaves no white water behind the boat, but I do leave the 10hp motor down on the dinghy which does churn up the water. Last trip I counted 4 sails and 3 blues go right past my two little skirts and poked around the stern of the dinghy. Thats why I was trying to figure out how to do something with the Sails teaser rigs. A big blue comes in, I'd leave him alone. A 50-100 lb sail comes in for a look, I'd pull in the teasers and quickly drop a natural bait back to him. No surprises or broken gear.

Will work on single questions later. Good advice there.

Can anyone tell me if I should respool my Shimano ti30 with braid/top shot. I only have 350 yrds of new 50# mono on it now. If I can expect the hoo to run 200 yards, that won't give me much margin before I'm spooled.

BDF

[Patudo]

Some good advice there from Ahi. I actually somewhat dislike wahoo fishing but it sure beats the hell out of just cruising and they are great to eat.

After reading the original post carefully I think the OP could do best to just keep things simple. I would fish two plugs on his two heaviest outfits and work on finding the best areas and bite times, looking out for all the good things Ahi pointed out. In a place like that they should be numerous and greedy, a complex spread should not be required to get the bite. Simplicity of operation on board a cluttered sail boat is more important. Plugs have their detractors but they have some advantages, swimming well at the speeds he will be trolling and being more resistant to damage than skirted lures. The bibless type like the Yozuri bonita is best for less experienced fishers as they are simpler to run and don't require as much fine tuning which often happens with the bibbed types if a hard pulling fish messes up the alignment of the lure. I would probably also have some jet heads to put out if the sea conditions were too rough to fish with plugs. Make sure the hooks are very sharp so they go all the way into his jaw, keep a tight line on the fish during the fight, don't use an over tight drag, and when you are playing him out, angle him as smoothly as you can, and most of the problems with pulling the hook should be avoided. It will still happen occasionally but generally speaking you should be ok.

You can expect the average fish to make a run of 100-150 yards or so, bigger fish will go further and will make a second or third strong run. Just let them run off and when they stop, pump them back to the boat just like you would any big bonito or horse eye jack. (Jacks/trevallies pound for pound are far stronger than wahoo) They will sometimes start running back towards the boat, so if your line goes slack, don't assume he has gotten off, reel as fast as you can until your line is tight. If you're lucky he will pop up quite close to the boat and you may be able to lead him to the boat for a quick gaff shot, I wouldn't worry too much about getting spooled but you should carry a couple replacement spools of line if it happens. Having your Tiagra 30 loaded up with 80 lb spectra backing and a 50 lb topshot would be ideal, but straight 40 lb overtest mono is fine. If you are going to get spooled it will probably happen too quickly for you to do anything about it, but you may be able to have your helmsman turn toward the fish if the fish is taking you too far down into the spool.

I'd have the surf rod set up with a jig or casting plug, and if there is a spare man available during the fight he can fire out a few casts or drop the jig and work it to try for a second bite. They are a lot of fun on spinning gear. You can try for a second hookup by trolling on for several seconds after the bite, but I'd concentrate on catching them one by one at first and working out your fish fighting, boat handling and gaffing/boating procedures. One good wahoo is likely going to be enough of a handful to begin with.

Boating them on a sailboat with its cramped cockpit and general clutter compared to a sportfisher is going to be an interesting experience. How you approach the end game is going to depend a lot on the layout of your vessel. Probably the best thing to do is gaff them in or near the head (the bigger the wahoo the easier this is ) and pull them over the gunwale onto that walkway between the cabin and the rail that sailboats have. Kill it by clubbing it between the eyes and carefully move it further forward nearer to the bow where it will be out of the way. Cover with some wet sacks to keep them cool-ish until you can attend to them. If it is rough and there is danger of them slipping overboard, make up some tail ropes and secure around the tail wrist to a rail stanchion.

Additional equipment you should think about having

- A second gaff which is very useful when boating bigger fish, as a rule of thumb, in your situation you should think about following up the first gaff with a second one in the head for anything over about 60 lbs. Longer gaffs may be advantageous on a sailing vessel. Keep the gaff points razor sharp and protect them with a cork or tennis ball etc to avoid crew injuries

- A scrubbing brush to remove slime from the pit and generally as they are extremely slimy - also for scrubbing off the slime layer on the fish itself so that the skin will be nice and crispy on the BBQ

- A heavy fish bat to kill the fish with

- A hook file to ensure that hook points are razor sharp - important for all fishing but especially for wahoo as they have a very hard mouth

- Safety lines to attach to your trolling outfits

Best of luck

P.

ps. Oh yeah I would put that dinghy up on the bow if at all possible because it will surely get in the way on a fish and there are enough ways to lose a nice wahoo not to want to add the risk (certainty) of it zigzagging your line into the dinghy as it comes up behind the boat ...

[BDForgan]

Gottafly,
Your probably right with the surf rod. I think I'll pull it when hunting for hoos and go with only 3 rods. Would be easier to get things square if things got chaotic.

Will use it as a 4th rod when we're zipping around in 50' of water which will catch nothing over 10 lb cudas, Jacks, small Macks and Bonitos. Sometimes I'll stop over some wrecks to bottom fish. We can use them for bait.

[Patudo]

I was just trying to figure out if it was worth buying some teasers to target Sails as I head out to the seamount through 30 miles of prime fish producing water.

I would have thought you would have an excellent chance of picking up dorado aka mahimahi in your area. All those Caribbean locations seem to have really good mahi fishing. Hawaiian style sail boat lures would be just the ticket.

http://www.hawaiifishinglures.com/

These guys have some nice lures and tips

Regards

P

[WAHOONBOX]

NICE COMEBACK RESPONSE THERE BDF!!!!AGAIN WELCOME ABOARD.....THANKS FOR CLEARING THE AIR AND GOOD INTRO!!!

MUCHO THANKS TO PATUDO AND THE RARE AND ALWAYS GOOD POSTINGS BY THE SLAYER!!!