sorry if this has been thrashed before but I've just signed up having this site pop up time and time again whilst looking for game fishing tips.
I'm at the bottom limit of the marlin migration path here in New Zealand, the inshore season here runs "hopefully" February to late April but can be as short as a week, when I say inshore I mean fish within 2nm off port. Whilst I have alot of good friends with 30 foot trailer boats and others with a 55 footer which we get out to the drop off 50nm out (500 to over 3000 ft) I do like to get out in my own 15ft tinnie and have caught a 288lb striped marlin towing plastic, but the harmonics of such a small boat mean the shots are few and far between & so leads to live baiting. Here lies the next problem, because it has been a number of years since we have seen meatball pack attacks of marlin (striped marlin, although the odd 600lb Black has been taken) & in recent years they seem to be lone fish hitting in the middle of nowhere out of the blue (most fish are caught in 200 - 300ft of water). Locally 99% of the fleet (which is also made up of 99% trailer boats) tow plastic and the only live bait tends to get pitched. My 15 footer is set up with tuna tube, live bait tank and cannon manual downrigger, most of the marlin landed tend to be full of yellow tail (jack) mackeral about 10-12 inches long, and we do have a most excellent small skip jack fishery. so to the question at last - what are your thoughts/tips on live baiting as I read the stories of boats live baiting only to have passing boats towing plastic steal the fish from under them. should I tease and switch or is there some good advise about running live baits in very fishy areas
1. Let me be the first to welcome you to the site
2. Catching marlin in that little boat, you should be giving us advise!
3. live bait vs. plastic....Do Both!
Welcome Aquabum. A fantastic first post, thanks for the pictures.
Catching big fish out of small boats is the best and you seem to be quite accomplished at it.
I normally would prefer live bait over plastics except in a situation where the fish are spread out and lots of feature less water needs to be covered. Sounds like your fishing fits the later situation, so plastic is my recommendation. Natural pitch bait (not necessarily live) should be at the ready of course.
Because you fish for striped marlin there as we do here in Baja (yours are bigger though) and because we also fish primarily from small boats (ours are bigger @20-26 foot) the typical style of fishing we do would most likely work well there.
We combine fishing and hunting. We normally pull a spread of lures and do catch marlin on the plastics, but much prefer to catch them on bait (first choice live - second dead) due to the better ratio of hook-up to landing on bait. I mention hunting as we spend most of our trolling time looking for marlin on the surface. The marlin are typically surfing down swell or are "sleeping" on the surface and we cast a bait just ahead of them and hope for a bite. If a fish comes into the spread, we try to drop back a bait before it grabs the lure. We don't usually go with the standard bait & switch (no hooks in the lures) because we catch a lot of dorado, wahoo and tuna on the lures.
There are times when the fish are concentrated that we'll slow troll live bait, but generally covering more ground is a better idea.
Author, writer, marine artist, charter captain, lure manufacturer, ind. consultant
AquaBum,
Welcome aboard SFC. The more Kiwi's, the better, I say. Little boats, great drivers and lots of big fish are pretty much standard fare in your beautiful country.
Considering the small boats and likewise small crews (something to remember when it comes to the little ones - not a lot of room for many crew), I would seriously consider trolling lures to cover water, but they wouldn't be traditional lures, they would be spreaderbar teasers. Lightweight, easy handling ones. They would allow you to troll multiple lures (30 of them with two bars, 15 with one) and you can pitch or drop back baits, live or dead (I prefer dead "pitchin' & twitchin'" ballyhoo or strip baits) to any marlin that you raise.
One of the beauties of this system is that you can cover a lot of water to hunt marlin, but you maintain the ability to pitch or drop back to whatever other fish you raise if you want to catch them. This is simple, easy and effective and was our preferred way to fish on my Cabo charterboat. Plus, the "site bites" you get because you see every fish that comes on the teaser bars up close and personal, is truly a blast and a half! And believe me, those pods of baitfish represented by the teasers raise fish like crazy.
FatCat,
Ah, Las Barilles! Another bit of heaven on earth, ya lucky dog, ya! David and Chris are waiting for you to call them and David is ready to deliver your goods whenever you are. I hope you're willing and able to have him and our video producer, Wally, aboard for some East Cape beauty and cat performance. Better be careful, though, you might just attract some more "strangers to your little paradise".
You'll get a kick out of this, I think. They guys were videoing today up around La Paz. They pulled the panga up on the beach to drop Wally off so he could get onto his "WallyCopter" , which you'll see for yourself. Well, they forgot about and left the bars they had been trolling and taping in the water and had to reel them in. While they did, the pangero said to David, "Hey, I've got a fish!" David laughed and said, "No way!"
Way! He reeled in a six pound cabrillo (a great eating snapper for those who don't know that fish)! They had a great day of taping and a nice cabrillo that was scaled, slashed, stuffed with shrimp, and grilled on mesquite with cold cervesa's. Yum! And viva The Baja!
Development Coordinator - Sierpe del Pacifico www.sierpedelpacifico.com
What Volcano is that in the background of the one pic? I spent 4 months in NZ a few years back...beautiful place Never got a chance to do any serious saltwater fishing there, but I can attest to the world-class fly fishing for gargantuan trout.
Fat Cat, I presume as your stripies are smaller you are able to cast with bait casters, our fish vary from 180 - 400 lb but then the odd fish will spool a 50W, but what I find interesting is that you are able to get a sleeping fish to rise to feed, we rarely see a sleeper do anything other than submerge and disapear, what tactics do you use.
Captain Archer, teasers and speader bars are not something I have seen much of at all, most locals concider that it is just extra gear to clear, and the other consideration would be that we tend to fish alot of rough water due to being on the West Coast, what conditions are they best suited to. I certainly will look into them, given my size boat would I be running one bar or two.
CFScheer , thats Taranaki, and she's overdue but curently a dormant volcano
Our fish average 100-120 pounds, but I've caught them to about 200 pounds fairly regularly and we've caught 2 that we're at least 250 pounds in the last couple of years.
We generally use 30-40 pound outfits for casting bait to tailers and sleepers. I'm a rod builder and make casting rods especially for East Cape marlin fishing. They are typically 61/2 feet long and have over-sized guides to allow knots to pass freely when casting. Most anglers here use spectra backing to allow more line capacity with smaller reels that cast better than the trolling type of lever drags. You could do the same thing, but would probably need to up the power to a 50 pound set up. That Tyrnos reel in your photo would work perfectly, as they cast great (I use a 20).
I'd say we only get about 2 of 10 sleepers to bite, but we'll always try them when we see them. Tailers are usually more of a sure thing as they're actually hunting for dinner. Although they don't always bite either.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
, which you'll see for yourself. Well, they forgot about and left the bars they had been trolling and taping in the water and had to reel them in. While they did, the pangero said to David, "Hey, I've got a fish!" David laughed and said, "No way!"
Way! He reeled in a six pound cabrillo (a great eating snapper for those who don't know that fish)! They had a great day of taping and a nice cabrillo that was scaled, slashed, stuffed with shrimp, and grilled on mesquite with cold cervesa's. Yum! And viva The Baja!