Need help on Blue Marlin Spread

[Ace1st]

First let me say I am not a Blue Marlin fisherman. Although I have either been mate or the captain on three BM's catches, I was not targeting them.

One catch came on a Blk/Purple Sea Star/Bally rigged behind a line of Boone Squids.

Number two was also on a Black/Purple Sea Star Bally rig but was on the long rigger.

Number three was on a blue/white Islander rigged with a bally down the center just out of the white water.

All were 150-250 lbs estimated.

The point of my question is I am planning a Blue marlin trip to the Georgetown Hole and I want to target them. I want to pull lures half the day and naturals half the day. I know how to rig the naturals including a swimming mackeral. But pulling lures with no bait is new to me. I want to try it here.

What do you recommend, I have the following big trolling lures:
Black Bart Rum Cay Candy
Assorted Moldcraft-chuggers, wide range
Islander Black Holes
Tu Knobs
Moldcraft Solid Squids

Using what I have, where should I run what and at what speed?

[WahooKing]

Ace

Bart pretty much sums it up in this article.

http://www.blackbartlures.com/xcart/...e=show_article

Big aggressive lures up close...Smaller lures the further back you go.

Hook rig placement is important too...I like the single hook stiffy, where the hook's point is touching skirts end...Others like the double hook 180...Then there is the scorpion ala Fred.

[Patudo]

Not a bad strategy. Use the higher search speed you have when pulling artificials to scout out the area in the early part of the day, find out the likeliest looking zones, then drag bait in them.

There are lots of nuances to lurefishing like there are when fishing with natural baits. You have lures that should be effective, but to assemble them into a fine tuned spread may be almost as hard for you as putting together a perfect bait spread would be for me. Luckily for all of us, blue marlin are often aggressive enough that they'll bite a lure spread that looks pretty duff. I know, cos I've seen that happen to me more than once.

You could do worse that start with senior chugger on one short line and a senior wide range on the other. Then a standard chugger on one rigger and a standard wide range on the other. Run both short lines on the third wave and both riggers on the 5th. Have your deckhand keep the lures running down the face of the waves if you can. That's where the work is in lurefishing. You don't have to change out washed out baits, but you have to keep those lures smoking sweetly all the time and the sweet spot often changes with wind, weather and trolling direction. That said, you can get bites (I have) on lures that are running up the back of the wave. But then you can catch a fish on a blunt hook also. So get your crew off their lazy arses and keep the lures humming.

Four lines is enough, especially from a CC. But if it's a real nice day you may want to break out a fifth rod and run one of those black holes some way back off the center rigger. Or even a Tunob if you're seeing lots of small flyers and/or want to up the odds of some dorado bycatch. Just rig it with a decent size hook and leader cos they will often pass up all the bigger lures in your spread to snatch a small one. The smallest lure I have thus far caught a blue on was a metal hex head about six inches overall. The fish was 400-450.

Pretty basic stuff, but the KISS principle definitely holds in this game. Happy to talk more by PM. Would be happy to help out in person but I'd need a transatlantic flight for that.

the mighty patudo

[Hroonk]

Curious, when you guys are running a 5 line lure spread, are you still running dredges and other teasers?

[IglooMan]

Ace,
Did you read the Marlin book?...

If you havnt email me.

Hope all is well!

[Zummie]

Ace,
Did you read the Marlin book?...

Marlin book ?????

[Bert Rodgers]

Curious, when you guys are running a 5 line lure spread, are you still running dredges and other teasers?

A dredge won't work at lure speeds. Running a bowling pin off the cleat is a good idea though.

Bert

[IglooMan]

Zummie,
Check out our website for info on the Marlin book www.archersuperbars.com

Bert,
I beg to differ. Our Spider dredges work at "lure speeds" with as little as 8oz of weight. Unlike other dredges you can run them "armed" with a chasebait and actually catch the fish on the dredge...

[Captain Fred Archer]

I have to agree with the newly crowned "Mighty Patudo" on the basics of a blue marlin lure spread, both in as far as the lures he mentions (the Moldcrafts, although I am also mightily fond of some others, maybe especially Roddy Hays' Andromeda, which I have had incredible success with and some of "Lord Bart's" lures) and particularly the limiting of the number of lures in the spread. I sorta, kinda agree with that long bait idea, but in my case it's ballyhoo on "hats" on the long riggers, mostly as a backup for any marlin that come into the spread, which is where I want them from the get-go but that some leave for some reason. That is actually kind of rare, but it does happen at times and I've picked up a lot of those exiting fish on the ballies or the ProSquids that I switched over to.

The fact of the matter is that I happen to believe that a blue is initially attracted to the biggest teaser of them all, the boat hull and wake. I also believe that a Toad teaser running deep raises a lot of them. And I believe that the main reason why a marlin shows up is that he is hungry and has come to kill and feed. They are apex predators of the first order with exceptional hunting skills and instincts and will find one of the lures that you have out, even if there are only two of them, a spread that I used to run a lot when we were armed lure fishing for blues and blacks. That was backed up with the two long rigger 'hoos or ProSquids, but they were usually four or five waves behind the armed lures.

The armed lures were run flat, off of bent butts and 130 Accurates, usually on waves 2 and 3. Sometimes that became wave numbers 1 and 2. Yes, I love to fish my blue girls CLOSE. Watch the spread closely from a tuna tower in a blue marlin-rich area and you will actually see that most blues that come in don't act confused over the lures...they see, hear, or whatever them and usually know where they are and they come for one RIGHT NOW! If she's a big one I only have the other armed lure to clear and the boys can take their time (sorta), clearing the long baits because with the remaining short removed - which is done in a flash - I can back down around or spin and do a bow-on chase around and past them until the longs are cleared.

As I see it and in my experience, at least, by-catch like dorado and tuna and such can be and are a big waste of time if we are targeting the blue or black ones, which was the case on many days during the time of year when they were around. We got a lot of very serious and talented big marlin hunters during those months who weren't even remotely interested in fooling around and wasting time on meat fish.

It was here that we did my favorite kind of trolling, bait and switch fishing. That technique is not only a helluva lot of fun, easy to do the way we do it, and extremely effective, it literally eliminates interference by meat fish, while leaving the option of baiting an extra-large dorado, tuna, or even wahoo IF you happen to want to catch it. If you don't, you won't. That simple.

And if the big girls are feeding on the tunas or dorados, having a bunch of them raising hell on your teasers is the finest kind of "live teasers" that I can imagine! In fact, they are the main reason why my top teasers were teaser bars of various size squids. As long as you match the hatch size wise, both the marlin and the meat fish come for them. I can't count the number of times the meaties disappeared suddenly and there she was, a big blue or black on the teasers, ready for a pitch bait, the subsequent "sight bite" and the finest kind of hook set.

There is a lot more to the blue marlin game and yes, I have written a book about what I have learned about playing the game to win in that incredible "lab" that I lived in down in Cabo and the other places where I've woo'd and danced with those "Devils with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devils with the blue dress on" (Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. That was our hookup music that we blared whenever we hooked up a blue one. Sometimes you could even hear it above the bellowing and howling of the wolf up there in the tower, they say.)

But me and "Mighty" almost agreeing on something? If you knew us, you'd know that's pretty danged amazing right there! No smart assed remarks from me about that, though. Peace is good.

Sic 'em, Ace! And when it comes time...pitch that *****!

A Big FatBoy MarlinBar? Don't mind if I do!!!!

Check out the marlin book if you've a mind to and maybe our teaser bars on our website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Captain Fred Archer]

With all due respect, Igloo Man is right, the "can't troll dredges at regular trolling speeds" thing is not true when it comes to ours. The plain truth is, all dredges are not the same and the same rules do not apply to all of them. Ours are distinctly different in several rather major ways.

First, they are very light weight and do not even remotely require teaser reels and such to handle them. They run fine on regular outfits, including quite light ones.

Like other dredges, they can be trolled off of downriggers and planers, but they put far less pressure on them than the typical dredge.

And like other dredges, they can be run with just trolling sinkers rigged in front of them, but for most presentations, ones from four to eight ounces easily suffice - multi-pound weights are simply never required. If you are running them off of a boat without a tower or flybridge, they remain visible from a small boat cockpit when run tight with only a four or six ounce sinker, depending on the size of the teasers. That means that they can also be trolled off of outriggers if you like.

Running our dredges with quite light trolling sinkers in rough conditions that are tough on ordinary spreaderbars results in bars that run just under the surface that are much more visible to hunting fish than ones obscured in the surface turbulence.

They are rigged with lifelike, lightweight, easy trolling, and tough three dimensional hollow squids in many colors and sizes.

Our Spider and RuckusRaiser dredges are so light that many fishermen run chasebaits off of them and catch fish on them. That includes Captain Josh Temple, who always runs chasebaits and catches fish off of his (including his JT Special RuckusRaisers). Josh, along with many others who know the facts about them, normally runs his dredges as...

Surface spreaderbars. That's because unlike any other dredge that I personally know of, you can run ours as both, underwater dredges and surface spreaderbars that run great and catch lots of fish. And they run great at trolling speeds in excess of ten knots, too.

Because of their light weight, easy trolling and using characteristics, and versatility (that equates to some seriously positive economics too), Spiders and RuckusRaisers open up the world of dredge and spreaderbar fishing to those who fish small and medium sized boats, right along with the battle wagon crowd. Just think of the money you save by not having to buy electric or manual teasers reels alone and I think you'll see one of many economic advantages right away.

Then consider the cost factors of Spiders and RuckusRaisers too. Buy Spiders in pairs and ones with the six inch teasers that are excellent for canyon fishing for tunas, dolphins, whites and sails and they only cost $75 apiece. Move up to the nine inchers and the price is only $95 each. And add in another little cost saving factor, the fact that we pay the freight. And remember, you're getting a dredge and a spreaderbar with each one.

I know that this sounds like a sales pitch, but it really is simply an accurate listing of the performance characteristics of our particular product and the substantial differences between it and others. As I hope that you can see, they are indeed very different than other dredges out there and as the company that came up with them, we don't think it's fair for their performance characteristics to be lumped in with other, very different ones. I'm sure that was unintentional, but still, it happened and so I am presenting the facts here.

The first pict is self-explanatory. The second one is a RuckusRaiser being trolled at eight knots off a flatline.

For more information on our Spiders and RuckusRaisers, please check out our website and on-line store and the original Best in Big Game catalog at www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com