Smallest reel for Wahoo fishing?

[Nauti Natured]

Unfortunately I dont have the cash for the Avet 50's or the Tiagras as much as Id like my boat to look really cool with shiny gold or matching reels

The bottom line is I want to catch fish and I dont want to wait until I can afford the best of the best. I went ahead and got a deal on a few TLD 50's and look forward to giving them a try.

[Capt Skipper Gentry]

on your average day of fishing in NC a 30 wide will do just fine, once getting up to the 50's those small mahi of summer are no fun. A 30 will handle 90% of the billfish you will snag. For someone fun fishing offshore like you talked about I would get 4 30's and pull your Avets on shorter rods off the transon with dink baits for sails.
good luck

[Captain Fred Archer]

I have chased wahoo all over the country and much of the world for well over fifty years now. They are my favorite fish of them all.

A few things that I learned in all of those times and places and the size of the gear that's best are:

If you fish in a venue like Cabo, which I did for many years and over three hundred days fishing during each of those years, that has monster wahoo like the 183 pounder I show at the bottom, plus good numbers of others over a buck, you better be fishing some stout stuff. For everything but planer and true hi speed fishing I'm sure that the 50w two speeds spooled up with 80# Dacron and fairly short mono topshots that we used on a very regular basis would handle the biggest wahoo that swims - and there are bigger ones than that last world record (and the one that came before it) that have yet to get caught. Don't ask me how I know that - I'm supposed to be avoiding stress!

The fifty wides are fine for the two "regular" baits that I trolled during all but the heat of blue and black marlin time, SuperBars with ballyhoo on my long riggers. During the few months of prime big marlin time I jumped right over the 80 Wides to all 130's. If anything small bit, we beat it up and if it was a striped marlin or small blue, released it, and if it was a meat fish it went in the fish hold. My long baits were big azzed sierras (similar to Spanish). Some really big wahoos hit them and these too pretty much got beat up on the heavy artillery - except nothing can stop that first, incredible run of a big 'hoo, especially one close to or over a hundred pounds.

I'll add here that I have always geared up for the biggest fish that I was likely to encounter in a given area. Not those once in a lifetime ones, but the biggest that I was likely to run into. And in charter fishing for me at least, our customers wanted to fish serious gear that would put the fish in the boat with no concerns about getting spooled or busted off. That's why I can't in good conscience recommend tackle lighter than the 50W's where wahoo and big tuna or big marlin swim.

I have yet to find a way of "just" catching wahoo, or tuna, or striped marlin, or blues, blacks, etc. other than the bait and switch fishing that I love most of all because I can absolutely match the bait, hook and even tackle to the size fish that we raise. However, I realize that many fishermen are intimidated by bait and switch and suffer from the mistaken notion that it is strictly a big boat/big crew way to fish. I won't even begin to try to convert anyone here. If you want to learn how to do it, it's all in the books and I will also say that if you get started, it is unlikely that you will ever go back to regular trolling again.

Okay, that said, another consideration when it comes to tackle size is the kind of trolling that you will be doing. As far as I'm concerned, 50 Wides are too small for high speed trolling - mine at least. The new Penn 70's and the Accurate ATD 80's are my reels of choice for that style of fishing, if for no other reason, the great amount of drag that it takes to keep some the heavier types of high speed lures from pulling line off of the reels. Plus I like the bigger line pickup per turn of the handle that you get off of these reels in low gear. We never stop the boat the way that I high speed fish for wahoo and it's a lot easier for a client in a chair to steadily keep a big wahoo coming on the bigger reels.

As far as the TLD reels (and remember, I was heavily involved in their design and development), I would only use them for the slower speed styles of fishing, not the true high speed stuff, especially where truly big wahoo were possible and big tunas and marlin too. Big, fast fish get one heckuva head start when they hit a lure going eighteen to twenty knots (and that's IF the drag can get high enough to hold the lures in place). I would be afraid that sooner or later the graphite reels would have problems in that case. They are fine for all other applications than the next one.

That's planers. I can only speak for myself and how I fish them. It's the same as the high speed gear for much the same reasons...adequate drag to keep the planer in place and sufficient capacity for fishing a planer long and deep when you do that. Plus that pure low gear power while retrieving a lot of line per crank that is so nice to have with a big fish on. And also because of that "there's no wahoo-only lure" thing, having tackle out that will handle that monster tuna or big marlin that will happen along sooner or later seems a wise choice to me.

That's about all that I have to say here about wahoo lures and tackle. The Wahoo Trollers Bible has two whole books worth of wahoo stuff in it. I hope that you read it.

Some really big Baja wahoos and what I call the "Poor Man's High Speed Lure" that you can make yourself for very little money. It's from Wahoo Troller's Bible, Book Two.

[merry marlin]

Great post and pictures as usual Capt Fred, thanks for sharing.
MM

[Nauti Natured]

Awesome Fred!!! Thanks for the info!

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Nauti,
Remember when I said your Avets will work.....Uhhhh....if that Wahoo Fred just pasted a picture of hits...well... I ain't quite sure they will then.
Holwachagot

[Captain Fred Archer]

Yessir, them big 'gators are a handful and a half, especially that first and often the second run! They are a whole different animal that the little guys. Your gear and rigging better be right on when one of those comes along or you'll wind up saying something like, "holy shit, what the hell was that?! Mercy!

Just think back to what a sixty pounder did and then triple that! Gadzooks!

"Hey, what happened to my reel? It's making funny noises."

I love them FangBangers, especially them growed up ones!

[Swami]

Who needs all those big gold reels when you can catch wahoo on a spinner? Just take your favorite trout rod, load up with some 20-pound braid, 20-pound fluorocarbon leader and a few Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows and give it a go.

Took about 30 minutes to get this one to the boat--definitely a fight to remember. The fish should have won this battle but sometimes you just get lucky.

[MountainM]

swami.. awesome where was that?

[Reelscreamer]

All ya'll got these expensive reels and all makes me not want to post here but I have used a 6/0 penn senator and I currently run 2 9/0's 2 12/0's an a 14/0. 50# line on the 9/0's 80# line on the 12's and 130# on the 14 all mono. It might take you longer but the fight is what fishin is all about right?

Jeremy