Daytime Swords

[reel fishy]

If you need squid just order some. We choose Willie's squids and they seem to hold up well. http://williesbait.com/Merchant2/mer...SQUID+UNRIGGED
Watch out, the odd shape of your weights will cause havoc when dropping to those extreme depths. If they flutter on the way down your leader will get all tangled. If they spin your bait will end up tied to the rock. Control your bait's decent rate, free fall will wrap your leader around the main line. Try to keep as much sag out of your mainline as possible. Just because there is 3kts of current on the surface does not mean there is 3kts in the same direction down 2000' in the Gulf. The Gulf Stream is a special situation where the water is always pushing north.

[Deep C]

Mike the day time sword thing has been around for a little while. As mentioned above it requires way way way deep drops. Often taking nearly a half hour just getting the bait down. Once there you sacrifice about 10 pounds of weight (at least). The minimum I have seen guys do it with are 80w outfits and most as mentioned are electric...
I really havnt given it a shot myself. My 80w gear is all marlin rigged with 80 mono and that just wont work for those kinds of drops. For me the night time stuff is plenty of fun. We drop 100-300 feet in 1300-1500 feet of water which is a quick 15 or so mile run from home here...

[Captain Michael Buffington]

As for dropping I had planned to bump troll very slowly to avoid said difficulties. I am almost positive I am good on line. I had this in mind when I bought them, also that they will catch anything that swim in the gulf I believe. If not...I want no part of it. Thanks for the squid info, I appreciate it and hope to reciprocate in the future.
Cpt. Michael

[Flyin By]

Go for it, we are only using two rods in FLorida to decrease the mess. Let the truth be know this not new but a well kept piece of info. As for the TLD 50. Good luck. We are using 80W and they work...

[Wireman]

You will need more than 50's for this fishery in south florida. You will have more line out than the exact depth directly under the boat due to the current and additional factors.

[gman]

Just got back from Miami swording. Your going to need 80w's with alot of lead (10+) pounds, braid and a dead bait. Live bait will be difficult dropping that deep and they will not make it regardless. The average drop as I hear is 1,600-2,000 feet and the bite happens at bottom

Most guys are dropping with electrics as it easier reeling up 10lbs of lead when you miss a bite but manual is good as well. Just eat your wheaties

Im a good customer of Deans and he is slamming them during the day. Pure insanity with several fish over 500 within the last month

[Fish-forever]

For deep-drop sacrificial weights noting beats a section of re-bar (the reinforcing bar used in the concrete building construction industry).

I tie a section on Dacron around the end to make a tie point and set it up to hand vertical to the reel line (always braid), these bar weights drop like a bullet and seem to go straight down, but who really knows?

With a light line tie off they break off quite easily.

Problem is they go straight through the sea floor and can cause a problem if there is a lot of drift OR if there are any undersea cables around (or subs?).

I started this daylight system after it was written about in the IGFA year book by some guy in Venezuela.

[bigg09]

i know it can be done down in fl w/ a 50w, but the 80 is much better. if you do use the 50w you may want to drop back to 80 or 100 pound braid to get more line capacity. i have a 50 avet with 720 yrds of 100# braid that we keep as a backup to our 80w. i would be scared if a big one hit though. we had 1/4 spool dumped on an 80w one evening on a tip rod down deep. that would not go too well if it were a 50w and down deep. it is a litlle different story up here in va, as we don't have teh current you have down south. there is a lot of infor on swordfish central reguarding this. btw fish work great, but i don't know about live fish, as we don't really have too much to use here or a livewell on the boat. good luck with the trial and error. we are still doing that here. you all have it luck down south w/ 1/2 to 1/3 the trip to make it out.
casey