A very different dredge

[Captain Fred Archer]

There has always been a lot of discussion concerning dredges for a long time on this site. I have started this new thread so as not to jump one of the many threads that have been started here.

Ours is a very different, alternative type of dredge, the Spider. Very light, strong, easy pulling, designed to raise and attract and catch fish, composite, instead of metal arms, very little overall hardware for a more natural look and less tangling and grass & trash grabbing, five different sizes, and makes for a great spreaderbar when fished with no weight too. Flexible bar gives “life” to the bait pod. Guaranteed to never break. Reasonably priced.

Website FredArchersWorldofFishing.com

Not sure if these picts will appear in order...

Tuna/Wahoo Spider with 8 1/2" chasebait
Sand Eel Spider
Ballyhoo ProSquid Spider off downrigger or planer
Sand eel chasebait for Spider
Marlin caught Spider

[gottaflylee]

Very cool Capt. Fred... Glad to see that your new web site is comming along nicely. Looking forward to the "inside Fred's head" section...

[giantfan]

Nice work Capt. Fred... Ditto about the website.

Glad to see that your getting things back on track.

I hope all is well with you...

I will have to order a couple of those to go with the spreader bars you sent me last spring. The bars caught when nothing else would get a touch.

This is quality stuff here folks.... the rigging is top notch and there is nothing there to break or corrode.

And as he states in the catalog.... they just don't tangle no matter what you do to them.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Thanks, guys!

"The proof of the pudding is in the tasting." You guys tasted and liked the flavor. Good on ya and thank you.

"Inside" will probably start loading up later today. My site, so I can and do say, write, and show anything that I want to. One of the first will be "Fishing Weeds and Floaters...Alternative Tactics for BIG Dorado (Mahi's, dolphins, etc.)" VERY different. Very effective on the big fish, which ain't the same and don't act the same as the bailers and regulation models - not by a long stretch!

Thanks again, guys.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Marine biologists who study them tell us that dolphin spend roughly 85% of their time deep, down with the bait and where they are very unlikely to come to the surface, where there is no bait. In spite of these facts, many anglers don't fish deep for them or any other fish.

See "Inside Fred's Head" on my website for "Graduate School for Weed and Other Floater Fishing." You might find it of interest. Please note that this segment will not be on the site until Monday afternoon or evening.

Website FredArchersWorldofFishing.com

Meanwhile...

[Mokarran]

Captain Fred,

I have a few questions about rigging up for the trolling weight method on a spider. How far in front of the spider do you like to place the weight and do you rig it with wire to prevent bite-offs or does putting it close to the spider help prevent it from getting attacked? Also, when fishing the spider in this way is it better to have the chase bait on a release clip?

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to ask questions.

[seapower]

Capt. Fred I just gotta say I like and look forward to your post's.Frank,SeaPower

[Rob Rondini]

hey mr. Archer. will we be able to purchase rigs off your website?

[Captain Fred Archer]

Thank you for the nice words and questions are always welcome.

Mokarran,

Everyone has their own preferences as far as running weights in front of lures is concerned. Mine is to run them quite close in the case of fishing Spiders as shown in the drawing, as in two or three feet in front. The reasons are,

1. I don't believe that the sinker takes away from the appearance of the bait pod in any way.

2. Nor do I believe that it will get bit, like a sinker or teaser will that is run far out ahead of a Spider or other bait or lure. In that case I believe that the sinker or teaser becomes an individual lure, all by itself and it will get attacked. As Roddy Hayes once opined here, for some reason, gamefish to not like to cut in front of a bait pod and get between it and either a straggler or perhaps a smaller predator fish run closely in front of it. I don't know the why's and wherefore's of that, but it certainly has been my experience over a lot years. And, I'm a teaser nut who rarely runs anything without a teaser in front of it, be it a bar or the lures that I rarely run anymore, but that I used to run a lot of.

3. In the case of sub-surface Spiders run under SuperBars with matching teasers and chasebaits, I want the trolling sinker to be close for another reason - to help keep the Spiders in under the bars on either side of the pattern. This dramatically increases the number of teasers in a relatively small area and I believe that big pile of "chum" raises schools of fish from the depths and the sides a lot better than if it is spread out all over the pattern. The sub-surface Spiders get bit first and are "cleared by the hooked fish" just before the surface bars get smoked.

4. I don't need a weight when running Spiders off of a downrigger or planer, so I run the lures well back, anywhere from 75 to over a hundred feet. Part and parcel to this is that we have a significant thresher shark problem out here and even down in Mex. For some strange reason they just love tail-whacking planers and downrigger balls and I don't want a Spider mixed up in that equation so that it might add to the tangling potential of the shark's tail and the planer or downrigger line or cable. That is also why I like to run my Spiders off of a separate rod off of a release clip or rubber band on stacked longliner clips. When a thresher gets wrapped in the ball or planer line, this gives us a chance to pop the release and save the Spider. Most of the time the threshers win this situation, which is why we encourage anyone fishing a downrigger to back off on the drag. You are not going to stop anything close to an adult thresher off of a downrigger "reel" and we recommend not getting into a tug of war with them and just letting them run with moderate drag pressure on them until they either spool the DR or untangle themselves. (Our downrigger "cable" is 80 or 130 Dacron, so the cable loss isn't that big a financial deal.) If your downrigger drag is locked up, threshers will tear the rigger right off of your boat. We have seen that happen many times, not a few.

5. There are a lot more tips for running Spiders on sinkers and off of planers and downriggers, but there is no room for all of that here. That's why I write books.

6. One last thing to remember is that Spiders turn into great spreaderbars when run on the surface without the sinkers.

7. Another quick tip is to run deep Spiders on heavy gear and really put the boots to any fish that you hook on them. (Circle hooks, which I myself use exclusively on bars and Spiders are great for this because they are so hard to pull on a fish. Check out the halibut shot below that really shows how a circle wraps around jaw bone and ain't coming out. There are plenty of shots of pelagics hooked on circle hooks in the books, but this is a new and great shot. Note the gill dart in the fish.)

If you have hooked up a schooling pelagic species like dolphin, tuna and even wahoo, most of the time the rest of the school will follow the hooked fish and Spiders up, see and then climb all over the surface bars and in our case, we start doling out chunks to keep the school around while we deal with the hooked fish and then start baiting the others with the chunks. Works great and can turn what would have been a single or a few fish stop into a barn burner.

Okay, hope this helps. This is discussed in more depth on the website in the "Inside Fred's Head" section (now there's a scary thought, I know!) in the "Graduate School for Fishing Weeds and Floaters" article and in much more detail in the books.

Rob R,
The website has the full book and lure lineups, but the items still have to be ordered by email. We're working on that, but it will be a little while yet. We are website babies and certainly aren't the fanciest girls in town. Hopefully, though, we provide a lot of information not found elsewhere.

The website is HTT:WWW.FredArchersWorldofFishing.com I hope that it doesn't disappoint.

[Mokarran]

thanks for the in depth reply Capt. Fred! So I don't necessarily have to run wire for the lead. I have been reading over the two books you sent me a few months back and was wondering about rigging those spiders. I hope to be acquiring a couple more of your books on Christmas. Again, thank you for answering my questions and so much more.