Night trolling for pelagics?

[Captain Fred Archer]

SUERTE, TRESHOMBRE!!!

[trescocos]

well that was a bust...the worst bust have seen in 20 yrs here..NO BILLS NO NUTHIN..I trolled 180 miles and ran 40 miles in 22 hrs..not a bite other than one little wahoo and one dorito and 3 tunitas in 18 boats...very weird. water was cobalt blue full of slicks with tufts of grass..small baitfish..fly fish..temp 83-84 deg which is passable here but we had a weird low pressure system offshore sending big swells our way...first tropical system of the year..maybe the fish reacted to it..
so the superbars will have to wait for another day for a try out.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Wow, Tres, that is some lousy two days of fishing! With nineteen boats probably trolling a lot of different good stuff for two solid days of fishing there sure as hell should have been at least a few of them that scored. It wasn't the moon, but it sure must have been something to shut the bite down that bad. The only things that I have ever seen slam fishing off like that were unfishable weather, terrible cold, dirty water shifts, or the full or new moon (at least for me). Sounds like none applied here, so I can't imagine what went wrong, but I sure hope it goes away, tournament or no tournament. What a bummer for everyone.

It might be a good time to do some tackle and boat maintenance (not that the tackle got beat up, or course!) or just spend some time cruisin' around that beautiful place that you live in and seeing the sights. Things could be worse, El Treso...you could still be living where that cold rain comes falling down!

And remember what Confusius said..."When rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it."

Dang! But nice try anyway. You can't ask for more than that from fishermen. And when it comes to Mother Nature, you pretty much have to deal with whatever she dishes out at a given time, no matter how good or how bad.

[trescocos]

well i am stumped..the local baro presure didnt take a dive..so who knows...2/3 the boats fishing were captained by guys who know what they are doing (other than the fact they were mostly using hard headed lures for marlin) I had mine out too but only for decoys if had to show up at the weigh in...
we also fished our time proven pelagic grounds...oh well end of discussion..i guess if it were that easy fishing would be unexciting - like fishing in alaska where most of the time it is fish after fish...never thought i would get unexcited catching salmon and trout but i did. and like women..if they would just give us what we want when we want it then we probably wouldnt want it...

also correct fishing turquoise and cobalt water in the tropical sun does beat the heck out of nortwest icy cold rain...plus the beer goes down easier when it is colder than the air temp.

[ReelProShop]

Haven't been on these boards for a while and had some time to kill and noticed this thread. In SFla, guys here have been trolling at night for Swordfish with success. Nothing fancy to consider and just grab your favorite chuggers that produce a good smoke trail seems to work best. Surprisingly Iland Lures work good but the most strikes are coming from companies like BahamaLure, Moldcraft, and Chaos (now out of business).

Fishing these lures naked (no bait) works but the addition of a new product (Nightfighter Transformer) adds just enough light to gain the edge and has attracted more fish (Swords and Dolphin). What Capt Fred said about using the big light sticks didn't produce as well as the lures without light sticks I'm sure is true. We saw this as well. When the owner of Nightfighter lures tried downsizing or "dimming" the light sticks, the strikes and boated fish increased. And with that info, that's how he started his company.

As for Swords, the satellite tags we have recovered show the 24 hour pattern of swords and it's no surprise that they are concentrated in the top 300ft of the water column and mainly in the top 100ft at night. And this is on all tagged Swordfish so far while the daytime hours show the fish on the bottom.

So, I'm not sure how this relates to Tuna fishing but for the guys looking for an edge, you might want to read up on the Nightfighter Transfromer Lure. Here's their website info...

NIGHTFIGHTER TRANSFORMER

-Tek