Harpoon/Flyer End Game

[Big Jay]

After taking a fish on a flyer this past weekend, it got me thinking. People underestimate the end game. All the thought that goes into getting the run off, playing the fish to the leaderman, people forget about the final shot.

I'll be honest, we are primarily stuck in the stone age using a flyer. I will be investing in a harpoon.

My typical strategy for the "stick" is this:

- Fish will get hit off either the port or starboard side. I prefer starboard as a righty, just my preference.

- Once the gaff is sent home, i'll have who ever is on the wheel (usually my father) bump the boat in forward to keep the fish off the wheels.

- I have the angler back off the drag, being that the fish sometimes makes a hard run.

I'll be switching to a harpoon soon after getting my ass kicked trying to control 250 lbs. of Thresher with a flyer rope.

What's your strategy?

For Tuna? For shark?

etc.

[rarhomes]

SWORDFISH = DART

CAPT RICK

[Innovator]

Big Jay,

Harpoons are they only way to go, period. There is a reason why I make harpoons, it is the most effective way to land big fish with the least amount of hassles.

The main advantage of Harpoons-

• Increased Reach
• One forward Fluid Motion
• Greater Accuracy

I am not a fan of flying gaffs although we are required to use them in most tournaments and we do so reluctantly. (We leave the Poons at home in tournaments so we are not even tempted)

Harpoons are very easy to use and you will quickly see the adavantages over a flyer. Feel free to call me at my office and I can go over any questions you may have. There are a few options on the market and it all depends on what you are looking for. There is a lot of information on the site about harpoons and the POON Harpoon specifically.

Good Luck

[Big Jay]

SWORDFISH = DART

CAPT RICK

Yeah but what's your game after your dart him?

I wonder how many Captains/Mates think

"Oh i darted him so he's done" only to have him end up in the wheels or pull the dart/flyer out.

[Innovator]

Generally,

We dart the fish we will bump the boat forward to keep the line from getting tangled in the wheels, If the fish takes a run the Poon Man holds the harpoon line in his hands acting much like a drag if the fish wants to go, let him run, if you can gain the back do so, then pull the fish boat side take a small gaff in the tail and get a tail rope on, tie off, GAMEOVER.

Here is a video from a few years back-

Get the Flash Player to see this video player.

http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/...-fandango.html

Enjoy

[Big Jay]

Generally,

We dart the fish we will bump the boat forward to keep the line from getting tangled in the wheels, If the fish takes a run the Poon Man holds the harpoon line in his hands acting much like a drag if the fish wants to go, let him run, if you can gain the back do so, then pull the fish boat side take a small gaff in the tail and get a tail rope on, tie off, GAMEOVER.

Here is a video from a few years back-

http://www.sportfishermen.com/board/...-fandango.html

Enjoy

Very nice!

Kind of what I thought. You have the angler back off the drag?

[Captain Fred Archer]

Jay,

Good thread subject. You are so right; the end game is pretty much ignored in the media and on fishing sites, but it sure shouldn't be! Not only is it a critical part of the whole big game fishing equation, it is when many fish are lost for a variety of reasons and it is also the single most dangerous point in the fight when it comes to animals like sharks and swords and even wahoos, especially big ones. (Since we released all marlin and sails, I have nothing to say here about gaffing them - but releasing billfish can be dangerous as hell, too.)

Among the key variables when it comes to flyers is hook placement. This depends on the species. We gaff all mako sharks over the back and right behind the dorsal fin, which places the hook to the rear of the midpoint of the body. We are in gear through the entire process with the wheel on the side the fish is on out of gear to keep any leader or fish propping from happening. Once the fish is gaffed it usually shivers for a second before going ballistic, if that's what it's going to do, and the forward momentum of the boat pulls him around so that the dangerous, business end is pointing back, instead of at the boat/crew. The rest of the steps we use are outlined in the shark books.

Threshers are a different story entirely. The dangerous part of that fish is the tail, so we gaff them across the top in the middle of the gills with a hook with a wide bite. This is a secure place to gaff them, it causes immediate, heavy bleeding, and if you get lucky, paralyzes the fish when the gaff severs the cartilegineous spinal column. Threshers, especially tail-hooked ones with lures in them should never be gaffed anywhere near the tail! That's an invitation for a tail slap at the very least, a smack in the head with a heavy lure next, and perhaps a free swinging hook impaling a crewmember at worst.

Those who know the animal know that swords are very dangerous at the end game. In fact, I myself personally consider them the most dangerous end game fish of them all. As with all big game fish, we never stop the boat and go out of gear on the side the fish is on. This not only prevents leader and fish propping, it helps in placing the fish close alongside without a lot of leader honking for a good shot. Our rules are to gaff them across the top and, like the threshers, in the gills with a big hook. Here too, we are hoping for a deep, gill-ripping, spinal column wrecking shot. That area is the toughest part of a swordfish that I know of. They are very soft fleshed fish and gaffs placed anywhere else pull too easily for my taste - and a gaff slashed sword at boatside can become a jumping, maniacle, sword slashing nightmare!

On smaller boats we gaff the sword as explained, but the gaff rope is tied off to a large "kill buoy", like the harpoon boats use. We tape the line around its mid-point to the outside of the boat so that we have plenty of room to handle the gaff without pulling the tape used to secure it to the handle. When it's time to take the shot we toss the buoy into the water, gaff the fish (be sure to have a hook with a barb on it), and he pops the tape on both the handle and the buoy line and has to fight the kill buoy until it does him in. We've never lost a fish doing this and of course, had no close calls, which we have had gaffing swords the conventional way.

Wahoo, especially big ones, can be and are a very dangerous fish and one that is too often lost at the end game. That ended for us when we started simply sliding them in through the transom door (thank you Captain Ron Hamlin). It's hard to believe, but as long as you don't poke, stick or thump them on the noggin, each and every wahoo you boat this way will lay peacefully on the deck like a lazy, old, sunning dog. They only wake up in the box and by then, of course, it's too late. A full explanation of that technique is in the wahoo book. All that I will say about that is, you'll never go back to gaffing them once you try this. It is amazingly effective! The only ones that we still gaffed were the occasional snagged fish.

I would suppose that the same rules as we use would apply to harpoons. They are outright illegal to even possess on the west coast, so we don't use them. I have used them elsewhere and agree that they are very effective.

Yes, the end game is a big part of big game fishing, so much so that I dedicate complete chapters on it in every one of my books about big, potentially dangerous fish.

Good luck and please be careful out there.

Hope this helps some.

Website & on-line store www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Roddy Hays]

Fred, as always, has some great points.

Here's a couple of my own points, as written for a publication 2 years ago - all about gaffing. I've never used a harpoon in my life

Hope something is of use :

KILLING FISH - at some stage in an angler’s career, he or she will kill a fish. Whether this is a once in a life-time occurrence or a regular slaughter-‘em-all attitude, there are certain caveats and points to consider in this part of the angling day. Firstly, be sure you want to kill the fish. There is nothing worse to an ethical captain and crew’s ears than to hear an angler say, after the deed, “Gee, I wish we hadn’t done that now.” Make sure you want to kill the fish. Then, if so doing, do it quickly and humanely. After the fish is gaffed, do your utmost to dispatch it too, not leave it to struggle and bleed to death on a gaff-rope. Indeed, if your purpose is to eat the fish, then doing so will only improve its eating qualities anyway.

Gaffing a game-fish has been covered in many other articles and books. It involves (normally) a gaff. Your gaff will vary in size according to species and should be sharp. Added to this are other considerations, and here are some personal observations which I hope may be of use.

Tie your gaff-ropes off around a central point in the boat - the stanchion of the chair is a good place. This will allow a gaff-man room to go anywhere in the boat with compromising his, or anyone else’s, safety. No one will get pinned and crushed in a corner by the rope, and to be cut in two by half a ton of rampaging marlin against a covering board is not my idea of fun. Your gaff ropes should be made of braided rope, not three-strand, and should be manufactured from polyester, not polypropylene or nylon. Polypropylene has poor impact absorption and is susceptible to UV and burning under load. Nylon, while strong, stretches, and a length of three-strand nylon under load will almost double its length - add a 10” gaff head at one end that then slips out of a fish at load and at best you’ll just have a hole in your transom or gunwale. At worst you’ll have someone killed. Additionally, it is advisable not to use cored rope, as it is difficult to see internal damage. A braided line is best, and whether you splice or knot your ends is immaterial. The length of your line is important though, and one should not follow the 30’ IGFA rule. Simply tie one end of a length of rope around your chair stanchion, and then slip the other end through your gaff-head and back up to your hand. Lean out over the side of the boat down to the water with your gaff as far as you can, adjusted the length of rope required. Now walk all the way round your cockpit to ascertain the longest length you will need for your rope to work anywhere in the cockpit. This is all the length of rope you will need. You cannot throw your gaff according to IGFA rules, and neither can the fish remove itself from where you have pinned it, so you won’t need any more than this. You can attach your rope to your gaff heads with a thimble if you wish, but my ploy is to splice an eye into the rope and then use a large stainless shackle to attach it to your head. This way the rope can be used for other purposes, and the head and handle can both be stowed easily and assembled quickly. Attach your rope to your stanchion with a bowline. If you splice an eye and then slide the end of the rope through itself to form a connection around the stanchion you cannot remove the rope without cutting or dismantling the chair if the other end is unavailable (stuck under 2000lbs of blue marlin, wrapped around a prop etc etc). This can be annoying !

Gaff heads can be made from many materials, but my advice is to forget the fancy stuff such as titanium and go for stainless steel in thick gauge. Size is a debated subject, but assuming you have fixed gaffs on board for using on tunas, wahoos and other smaller fish, then you will find that a lot of experienced skippers the world over use 10” or 12” flying-gaffs as their primary weapon on large fish, regardless of their size. The second gaff may be bigger (some like a gape that is large enough to get over the dorsal and under the spine) but another gaff of the same size is often more than sufficient. The smaller sized heads are preferred by many since in the final moments of combat speed and accuracy is of the essence and a smaller gaff head allows for this. A heavy, cumbersome head can be a burden in this situation and is the reason why it is therefore the second gaff on many boats, and not the primary weapon of choice. Attaching your head to your shaft should be a simple push-in arrangement without fancy mechanical devices. Two large cable ties are sufficient to hold the head in place, allowing the gaff-man to wield the pole with two hands, or the pole in one hand and the rope in the other. There is no such thing as style in this part of the combat, you do what works. It is best if you have three or more gaffs set up and ready to go, but do remember to pull in a gaff head on a rope that has fallen out. There is nothing worse than a fouled undercarriage in the heat of battle. A meat hook on a rope is a very useful addition to the arsenal, as is a tail rope, and my favourite item is a bill rope. A simple two-turn uni-knot in the end slipped over the bill rapidly goes tight. I might add at this stage that although I have gaffed some sharks in my time, I much prefer a tail rope slipped down the leader and over the body for these species. Dispatching a fish humanely at this stage should not involve anything more complicated than a heavy blow to the head with a bat of some sort.

I don’t like barbs on my gaff-hooks. They can impede inward progress, invariably rip on the outward process, can cut leader and line and be impossible to remove from fish, boats and humans. As my aim is to keep a gaff in the fish I keep my gaff-ropes tight - in this instance the barb is obsolete and if the hook has gone in deep anyway it won’t come slipping out. That’s just my opinion, though.

If you intend to gaff a fish, here’s a couple of rules to follow. Firstly, and from bitter experience, I can tell you with some authority that it is best to have the gaffs out, loaded and tied off if you know you’re looking for a fish to kill. If you’re fishing and might have to kill a fish, then it really is better to have the gaffs out of their lockers, assembled and in a convenient but safe place - hanging them on a tower leg is a good procedure and this is where you will see most boats chasing black marlin on the GBR putting them, for example. Secondly, if you’re going to kill a fish, take the first available opportunity you get. You may never get another. If I could have a dollar for every “the fish was green so we let it swim out a bit before we tried again and then the line broke” story, I’d be a relatively wealthy man. The only time you should wait to gaff a fish is if you’re short handed and are waiting for another crewman to hop over. Otherwise, if the fish is there at the back of the boat in three minutes, try and take it. Sure, the gaff may rip out, sure the leader may break or the hook pull, but who’s to say that wouldn’t have happened at any other time ? Far better to do so trying to get the fish than be saying five hours later, “If only we’d tried to gaff the bugga the first time she came to the boat, heh ?”. Piscatorial history is full of hard luck stories, and too many of them revolve around missed opportunities.

[Roddy Hays]

Those who know the animal know that swords are very dangerous at the end game.

Hmm, tough call. I think more injuries are caused by dorados/dolphinfish with a double hook-rig in their mouths than any other fish. That and the sliding wahoo plus bare toes. I agree the potential is there for a sword to be dangerous, but in terms of incidents they come a long way down the list for me. You know they're big and dangerous, and so when they come alongside, you take precautions, but a dodo on a lure ? Heave-ho, in she comes, ahhhhhhaaaaaaa fark ooowwwwwww eeeeee.

You know the drill

[Patudo]

I've handled a pair of custom flyers, Aftco handles with custom titanium heads used by a crew who have both plenty of intention and experience of using them. They were nothing short of fabulous. The lightness of the heads made them handle like fairy wands compared to steel heads. Amazing to pick up a 12 inch flyer and be able to place it as handily as a 3 inch tuna gaff. I hate to imagine how much they would cost (probably no more than 10 designer lures or the cost of a day's fuel for a largish sportfisher apiece), but if you were into such things they would be well worth scrimping to save.