How do you pull a Blue Marlin spread

[alex n]

If you are strictly Blue Marlin fishing , How many rods do you use, and assuming the boat has a chair, which I think it should for blues Where do you fish the rods from? All from the chair, or two from the chair and two from the gunnells? My rods are all bent butt chair rods. Where do you run teasers in your spread?

[DropinBack]

5 or 6 max if plugging. 4 from rod holders(2 flats right off the tip and 2 riggers with tag lines) and one from the chair usually for a total of 5...

[BlueH20Boss]

-~`

[Roddy Hays]

Alex,

!1) are you fishing all lures or bait, or a mix of both ?

(2) what size tackle are you using ?

(3) what size boat, and what engines ?

[alex n]

Roddy,
I want to strictly target blues up here in the Northeast canyons this summer and am trying to figure out the tackle I need. I could use two 130 Tiagras, supplemented with two Penn 70vsw with 130 braid, or just go with all 70's. Do you think a BIG marlin can be consistently beat by 70's with braid? I will be pulling all lures, my boat is a Jersey Cape with twin Volvo's

[Roddy Hays]

Hi Alex,

I'm assuming from your posts that you don't have much experience with blues, so I'll do the whole hog and give you a brief primer. Hopefully in the following paragraphs you find answers to your questions ! Apologies in advance if this is not what you want.

The most important factor in marlin fishing IS the line, you're right on there. Line in good condition, and lots of it. I have used braid for marlin, and although it is not my preferred medium, it does work fine. And a smaller reel loaded with braid and a long top-shot is a happy option for many boats.

Now, many people do things differently, so what I tell you now, and what I do, is just one option, and my opinions revolve around blue marlin caught outside of the NE Canyons - it may not be what you are looking for. Other people will tell you other things, and they certainly are not wrong, and I am certainly not always right !

I like lures for blue marlin. I like to only pull four rods, though a fifth is fine if you have enough people on deck. But when you're in with a chance of a 500lb plus fish, as you will be, four should be fine. A marlin will only eat one bait at a time, and a double header will only eat two.

Your lures will be spread in four different positions normally. Typically you will fish one on the short corner (SC), about three or four wakes back, one on the long corner (LC) about five or six waves back, one on the short rigger (SR) about 6 or seven waves back, and the last one is the long rigger (LR) about 7 or 8 waves back. There are no set rules in marlin fishing, and you can run two baits on the same wave (the two short baits) or two rigger baits on the same wave - many people do. I prefer the baits to be staggered in a 3, 4, 5 and 7 wave pattern, but if the wake of the boat is white and active, I might push that back to 5, 6, 7 and 9. I personally like my LR bait to have a 2-wave gap. Others do not, and will go for a 3,4,5,and 6 pattern, or a 4,5,6, and 7 grouping. A large single engine boat with little wake and a deep wake might pull things closer, 2, 3, 4 and 5. The fish do not care and you will not either as long as you are getting bit !

These four baits will normally be different heads, and do different things. I like to run all of mine out of the rigger, some people like the short baits off the rod-tip. My personal thinking is that the fish need a little drop-back to allow them to turn and run with the lure. It's all horses for courses. If you're happy using double halyards in your riggers and so on, try that first. You will inevitably want to use height to make your lures run at their best, and some of the bigger short corner lures need to be moved UP there to get the best out of them !

Lures themselves are relatively easy, and as I make some I'll use them as an example, but there are many good manufacturers out there and they will all happily recommend a line up. One thing I can tell you for free - huge lures are not a requirement for catching big fish, and neither are teasers or exciters, though they have many fans. Bahama Lures is a regular here and he will chip in with advice too.

As a starting spread, I would go with a 14" diving plug on the SC, something that gets down - a Vulcan from my stable would fit this bill. Your LC lure can be a swimmer or a straight runner of some sort - here I normally use an Andromeda. On your short rigger you can utilise the height to get something down again - a super-plunger such as the Basilisk or a short cupped face lure would be good. Lastly the LR is a difficult position to fish for some boats, and as the lure can get lost back there you can use something a little more active or lighter in build. This is where i would put a Krakatoa, light in weight but extremely noisy. If you are new to marlin fishing, you could go a very easy route and buy complete spreads from various manufacturers, or simply run four Moldcrafts, say 2 Wide-Ranges up short and a couple of Super-Chuggers out long. Once you have the basics sorted out then you can splash out on other baits if you feel the need. Anything you put in the water has the potential to be eaten by a blue marlin, nothing is too big, or too fast. Even a spinning bait will catch fish, but it may break the line ! You do not have to buy into the Hawaiian Master class of Wicked Lures and Large Wallets to catch a blue.

Typically, my two short baits would be 14 - 16", the SR would be a 12-13" bait and the long rigger would be a 10-11" lure. I big fish country you will get away with all larger lures, and in small fish country you can downsize everything. Big blues will eat a bait of any size, but it is rare that you will catch a 30lb YF or albie on a 14" lure. If you're marlin fishing, there is one rule I always follow - never pull any light gear in an all-blue marlin spread as they are genetically trained to seek out the smallest outfit in your spread and attach themselves to it !

The general rule of thinking about spreads is to have the bigger baits up short and the smaller baits longer. I know a lot of boats who fish mixed spreads and put their one large lure well back, but this can create problems, not the least of which is that many of the blue marlin you come across will actually be in front of the boat and they will unerringly come up short around the back of the boat. Large lures are also difficult to run at a distance behind the boat and you may lose action in the lure. There are other reasons too, but we'll leave those for now.

You will find a trolling speed of between 6 and 9 knots will be fine. Start with 8 knots as a benchmark, put your chosen SC lure in the water on the fourth wave and see how it runs. A lure will typically run best half way down the front of the wave. It should pop and then bubble, have a small section of time (2 - 3 seconds) when it does nothing before it then repeats the cycle. Lures which you run that have a longer cycle than that will typically be more effective than something that runs on the surface of the water all the time looking like a frothing poodle being dragged behind the boat. Although many fish have been caught right at the surface, a lure that gets down and allows the fish to get a clean look at it (in that 2 -3 second "nothing period") get a very good hook-up ratio. If you're using all your lures out of halyards, you will find that the higher you can put the pin in the rigger for a lure, the deeper the cycle will be. You will be able to raise the halyard to such a point before the lure is then too high and it will start to trip and stumble - at this point bring the halyard back down a little until the lure is swimming properly again, and you're done. Do all the lures in turn like that until you have four lures doing the right thing and you'll be relatively set.

Hooks and hook-rigs - the word here is sharp. Sharp enough to draw blood. They do not need to be big (I use 11/0's and 10/0's a lot in my lures, even large ones) but they do need to be strong. The Hays Hook we sell will fit the bill perfectly. Mustad also make great hooks, and so does Quick-Rig. Quick-Rig hooks are used by many top lure manufacturers now and you can buy complete hook-rigs from them (quickrig@bellsouth.net). In a lure that has a straight face, such as a Wide-Range or a chugger, you can happily use a 90˚ and 60˚ double hook-rig if you so wish. A slant-faced lure should have a 0˚ or 180˚ rig in it. If you're using single hooks (highly recommended) they should be positioned so the hook point is UP. There are many different rigs available, but I would normally recommend a cable rig, complete with shrink-tube, as a starter. You can buy these from most reliable tackle shops, and if you got that route have your lures to hand so you can get the right length hook-rig for each lure. I run my hooks so the point of the hook is clear of the skirt, but the shank is contained within it. If you're using double hook-rigs the same rule should apply to the rear hook.

If you're in blue marlin country you should really use as much leader as possible. An 800lb fish can easily destroy a 20' leader with its tail if there is a wrap around the body. All the top boats i know use the full 29', allowing 12" for stretch and the hook-rig. As long leaders are unwieldy and potentially unsafe for inexperienced crews you can always use wind-ons. Basil's (http://www.bhptackle.com/index.php) are a great place to start if you do not make your own. I would highly recommend a minimum of 650 Extra Moimoi as a basepoint for leaders in your neck of the woods. If you use 400lb leader, as many do, you will assuredly have a sorry story to tell one day. Many pro crews will even pull 900 nowadays.

Drag settings - heavy drag is capable of dragging a hook right out of a fish at the bite, so I start with about 18lbs of strike drag on my 130's, and often bring my fish all the way to the boat on that. My fighting drag (25lbs or so) is what is at the button, and I'll mark a couple of points beyond the button, say at 32lbs and then 40lbs. It always a good idea to note what drag you have all the way through, so if you ever have to go there (to plane a dead fish up for example, or to try and unwrap a dying fish) you know what you have. You will rarely have to go beyond 25lbs if you drive the boat aggressively, which is a great way to catch your fish anyway.

Hope this helps, fire away with more questions if you need help.

Roddy

PS: If you do want to run teasers, they should be run closer to the boat than the short lures. Be prepared for sorrow though, many a big fish has attacked a teaser and then disappeared. People say they work, but I like my teasers to have hooks in them ! Many of the world's top boats in blue marlin country fish just four rods, with no teasers. The North Drop is an exception, but they're switching fish there regularly. In Hawaii, Bermuda, Madeira, the Azores and places like that, it's very rare to see a teaser unless a boat is pitching baits. There is a distinction in some circles between Exciters (typically a large lure with no hooks and sometimes something bigger such as a Witchdoctor) which attract fish into a spread, and Teasers (which typically are regular-sized lures with no hooks) which are designed to bring fish to the back of the boat so they can eat a bait - aka Bait&Switch. For the purposes of this primer I have been talking about Exciters.

[N2theBlue]

Roddy that's on eof the best posts I have ever read on here. Thank you!

[Capt Josh]

There's only a few forums in the world where you can ask a simple question like that, and get a response worthy of an encyclopedia admission under the heading - "How To Catch Blue Marlin Anywhere In The World"

Read, re-read, and re-read again everything Roddy just gifted you with and go put this invaluable advice to good use!!!!

That was an awesome explanation Roddy!!!

[keithj]

Incredible post by Captain Hays! I'm in the same boat with marlin fishing in the canyons. Last season was the first year I tried it. Here's a quick summary of how it went:

Hooked 4 blue marlin and 2 bigeyes on the "alternate" spread. Pulled marlin spread 4 times out of 6 trips, normally when we had plenty of yellowfin and were looking for something different:

-1 blue hooked by accident running a tuna spread- black bart tuna candy behind a bird. Broke 200 lb leader after 10 minute fight
-1 blue on islander horse bally on flat line, fish came into spread, ripped moldcraft senior super chugger off short rigger and dropped back and ate flat line islander, lost fish after straightening hook. Lesson learned.
-1 blue on purple moldcraft wide range long rigger- fish boated and released- approximately 350 lbs. 300 pound mono leader
-1 blue on purple over pink wide range- fish boated and release- approximately 700 pounds. 300 pound mono leader.

So all in all it was pretty effective. I ran 7 lines and mostly moldcraft lures. We fish all 50Wides with hollow core backing. The 700 pound marlin was about 1.5 hours to the boat on full drag. No easy task on stand up.

[Roddy Hays]

Gee, guys, thanks for the likes !

A couple of things I forgot, Alex. As to where you put the rods. Most people will find that if you are putting all four lures in the riggers that your short bait rods will go in the gunwales and the two rigger rods will go in the chair. You can fish all four in the gunwales if you want, but having two in the chair-arms means you can duck and dive beneath lines nicely. Don't forget the safety cords may have to be changed to accommodate different spreads.

One other thing, you will benefit immensely, and most importantly, from using HI-VIS line. All the way through to your leaders. It is the most important part of lure fishing for blue marlin if you want to wear a smile of success. It will be DOUBLY IMPORTANT if you use braid, as it is so thin. You will need to be able to see the line all the time, easily, if you want to catch your blues quickly and with finesse ! If your 130's have dacron under the mono, that should be hi-vis too. My favourite colour is yellow, but others swear by red or orange. Green works too on some days.