Outboards and Dredges

[Hroonk]

This question has come up before, but I don't think I've really seen it asked on this main forum.

Would anyone like to offer their strategy and experiences with running a dredge off of an outboard boat? Where to you run it in your spread and how do you build your spread around it?

I can tell you that on our cat, I have not found an effective way to position the dredge where it can be watched - we usually throw a guy on the roof to watch the baits from a more elevated position, but even up there, the white water is usually too much see what's going on around the dredge.

I've tried running the dredge with an outrodder to get the rig off beam by about a 6' rod length...this is partially effective, but requires some SERIOUS Jerry rigging to have any confidence that the rod is even going to stay in the boat.

What I resorted to last fall off of OC was using a planer rod off on corner with the dredge burried behind the white water and a teaser spreader bar off the other corner a little. I placed the flat lines as best I could just behind and over the dredge/spreader and the short just aft and outside of those. Still, we were essentially fishing the dredge blindly and missed many strikes where the fish never came back and our only notice that the fish was there was the initial strike.

[OCcaptain]

Larry,

Have you tried trolling with one motor and running the dredge off the other side?

[TunaTeaser1]

Pulling a dredge effectively is very hard in an outboard, especially one without a tower.

I don't have to much experience with it but we used a bent butt 80 and angled it out while also cutting that motor off. You could see the dredge but very difficult to see anything around it.

[Bodie]

we run ours off our downriggers, extended the arm out all the way and run it off the side.

[SeaMent]

Hroonk, if your riggers won't handle the dredge, I think I would stick with Squid chains and Bally chains as teasers, as they have always raised fish . I think for dredges to be to be effective and productive they need to be used in the right application. If you can't see em why pull em ? There could be alot of fish trailin behind em and you will never see em, at least with a surface teaser you are gonna see em come on it most of the time and have a shot of switchin em off . JMO, Good Luck !!

[Hroonk]

I'm with you SeaMent and will probably lean more towards that at first and keep the dredge in the "kitchen sink" position (if nothing else is working........)

Al,
Let's say i've been on cat boats where we always killed one engine and placed at least a naked behind the dead motor. The owner's manual actually says that when trolling with twins, both engines should remain running....something about forcing water into the non-running engine being bad for something....exhaust system?

[Squidnation]

I'm with you SeaMent and will probably lean more towards that at first and keep the dredge in the "kitchen sink" position (if nothing else is working........)

Al,
Let's say i've been on cat boats where we always killed one engine and placed at least a naked behind the dead motor. The owner's manual actually says that when trolling with twins, both engines should remain running....something about forcing water into the non-running engine being bad for something....exhaust system?

raise the dead engine.

I find that most of the time dredges can't be seen on small boats because of the depth and distance behind the boat. try fooling around with differnet dredge weights. All also fool around with the distances until you can find a comfortable place to see it. Another trick I have seen is put a small stiff cow bell on the dredge. Alot of times they will get whacked and not noticed. a bell will alarm you. but it needs to be stiff so it doesn't clang on waves.

That being said I think we trolled our dredges too deep on the boat I fished on last year. The weights were too heavy and we could rarely see the dredges. We used down riggers with down rigger balls. We also trolled teaser chains right over the dredges. If a marlin is raised to the dredge and see a splishy splashy chain especially if it is comprised of the same baits as the dredges (Ohhhhhhhhh lets say Squidnation Squids), that fish will come off the dredge to the chains hot and you can feed them off the chains. But if you only have a naked bait over the dredge and no teaser then the fish will eventually come off the dredge to the bait hot. A hot fish on a flat line bait in free spool can be a dangerous thing if you are not ready for it.

Don't be afraid to keep the dredge very close to the boat either. I fished on a big weaver once where the captain would fish the dredge remarkably close to the boat so he could see them. They were quite effective.

[teddyp]

I'm with you SeaMent and will probably lean more towards that at first and keep the dredge in the "kitchen sink" position (if nothing else is working........)

Al,
Let's say i've been on cat boats where we always killed one engine and placed at least a naked behind the dead motor. The owner's manual actually says that when trolling with twins, both engines should remain running....something about forcing water into the non-running engine being bad for something....exhaust system?

Couldn't you just tilt the off engine.

[Hroonk]

Tried raising the one engine also, but only on a few occasions....I'll keep playing around with it until I come to a conclusion on the best presesntation swith out to a diesel boat......

Bill,
Are you serious with the cow bell? I've seen the same trick employeed by, let's call them non-caucasion males, on the catwalk of the Conowingo dam for years, but never heard of anything like that on an offshore boat......so how did the cowbell guy rig his chicken livers to swim?

Larry

[Squidnation]

Tried raising the one engine also, but only on a few occasions....I'll keep playing around with it until I come to a conclusion on the best presesntation swith out to a diesel boat......

Bill,
Are you serious with the cow bell? I've seen the same trick employeed by, let's call them non-caucasion males, on the catwalk of the Conowingo dam for years, but never heard of anything like that on an offshore boat......so how did the cowbell guy rig his chicken livers to swim?

Larry

Very serious - a private big boat out of carolina did it quite effectively. It came from the idea he observed while fishing on a charter boat out of OI. The mate would always have his fingers on the dredge line and when he would feel the tap he would know the fish was on the dredge. Well the guy on the private boat wasn't gonna sit next to the dredge all day so he remembered back to his surf fishing days and rigged a cow bell on his dredge rod.