ALMOSTAWAHOO!!!

[Custom Canvas]

Video Player

VIDEO WAS FROM 11-08-2009 MOREHEAD CITY NC
HIGH SPEED TROLLING.

WE DID NOT LAND THIS FISH!!! BUT WE GOT THE NEXT ONE..

[clt_capt]

Aww Man. That's a heartbreaker right there.

[Squidnation]

great video bad follow through

[Nauti Natured]

Aww Man. That's a heartbreaker right there.

Took the words right nout of my mouth. What a heartbreaker!

I know there was a moment of silence after that one.

So ..... he hit the gunnel on the way in, spazzed out and pulled the gaff at the very last moment that he could end up on the right (wrong) side of said gunnel. That sucks!

[FLATLINER]

It looks to me that he did a barrel roll off the gaff at 21 seconds. It came over the gunnel, hit the downrigger and spazzed by doing the barrel roll. Bad timing. Makes the day bittersweet.

Kevin

[juicyhook]

Gaffing is a fluid motion, takes a long time to get that. That moment of hesatation gives them enough time to wiggle.

Sorry about the lost fish, happen to all of us. Get'um next time

[Custom Canvas]

Gaffing is a fluid motion, takes a long time to get that. That moment of hesatation gives them enough time to wiggle.

Sorry about the lost fish, happen to all of us. Get'um next time

yea it happens hard to believe though normally I'd agree that gaffing is a "fluid" motion.. but this fish was 50-60lbs and just a bit too much fish for one gaff.

[swell rider]

Zack, What program are you using to make the video's..Ken

[birdhunter]

Couple of thing I see, first is a lot of people get in big hurry after they have stuck the fish to get them in the boat. Slow down, when you try to gaff and swing all in one motion stuff like that can happen. it works better if you stick the fish and finda hold him in the water against the boat for a second then pick him up and into the boat in a more controled manner. I know it is different on a smaller boat but have a place in mind for the fish as soon as he is stuck mine go straight in the box if at all possible, that fish was looking to bite something or someone the second it hit the deck.

Lastly and more important is use a longer leader or if using a wind-on do not let the angler crank down tight to the fish and make sure he backs the drag off. The moment of truth came when the fish flipped off and there was 2' leader to the rod. You can see that rod jerking everytime that fish moves. With a longer leader and less drag after the gaff that fish may have hit the water and given you another shot.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Been there, done that, as far as what the video showed. Like many, I love wahoo. We often had charters that wanted to specifically target them exclusively down in Cabo and did a lot of that kind of fishing.

We found them to be an often difficult and dangerous fish to gaff the conventional way, especially the big fish, which can exceed a hundred pounds down there (and approach two hundred See the 183 pound recent world record Cabo fish), with plenty of seventy pound plus models.

Like all wahoo of all sizes, they really go nuts when gaffed alongside like other fish. They go crazy when stuck, thrash madly, often pound themselves and the lures on the side of the boat as the gaffman tries to control and lift them aboard. That gets worse if the lure happens to be one of the heavy jets, high speed trolling lures, or big plugs that they are often caught on - especially if they're rigged with those "one hook for the fish and one hook for the fisherman" double hook rigs. Those heavier, double hooked lures turn into boat smashing, hook pulling, people bashing and maybe hooking (we saw way too much of that on other boats), flat-out dangerous missiles.

Even if you manage to get them in the 'pit, they are slippery and wild as hell and can be a real threat as far as biting crew or worse yet, passengers is concerned. I have seen wahoo bites, up front and personal. All I can say about that is, you don't want to see one, in case you were wondering. Finally, they make a slimey, slippery, bloody mess of the 'pit if you don't get them in the box right away. Here too, the big ones are the most difficult in that department.

Losing one wahoo of any size at the end game is bad enough for me, but we had days when we lost several to all of the things that can happen gaffing them the regular way and that and the boat mess and cockpit danger really concerned me.

Then we started simply sliding them in the transom door. Easy as pie. No gaffing or clubbing whatsoever. No thrashing around and no blood all over the place. And one of the especially good things about doing it this way is that the fish just lay on deck, calm as all get out, until we grab tail and leader and lay them in the hold or fish box. I was astounded at how easy this was to do and how the fish behaved once slid aboard.

And we simply did not lose wahoo once we switched over to doing it this way, with the occasional exception of the again pretty rare one that we snagged in such a way that we simply couldn't pull them straight and thru the door. We gaffed those fish the conventional way and once again, had some shake off on us when we stuck them or tried to lift them aboard.

It is one of the best tricks I ever learned (gracias, Capt Ron H). It is fully described and illustrated in Wahoo Troller's Bible.

Start opening the transom door and inviting wahoos to take a nap and I seriously doubt that you will ever go back to gaffing them again...it's that effective!

Of course, if you don't have a transom door, this will not work for you. Considering how downright deadly this way of landing wahoos is, I'm sorry that's the case.