WHY NATURAL BALLYHOO?

[sportfishingusa]

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This has been a long time discussion and to bring it out of the alt thread that Fred started i want to ask....

Some say that natural ballyhoo and baits catch more then plastics...

If you feel that way please explain your reasoning.

The scent is no way an option (i dont feel) at 4-6kts or however fast you want to troll. So it has to do with maybe the light refraction on the sides and maybe the baits tail kicking and working and little better then a plastic?

i have caught a good amount of MEATFISH on plastics.. never caught a marlin on a plastic but never targeted them on a plastic.. Always a natural and thats why i am stumped!

i think we need to book some charters and bring some out for that hot ocean city bite this year! whos with me!?!

oh and by plastics i mean plastic hooskis not plastic lures.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Vinny,

Sounds like a good idea. Please email Chris Jones (addy on our website) with your ship addy. We're sending you a pair of ProSquid DaisyBars for you to experiment with. And this idea of putting together some charters to do some comparisons during white marlin time sounds like a good one to us - I have been there and done that and agree that it would be a good time to do that sort of testing. To aid in that, we would be happy to provide the "testers" with a full set of the kind of squids and bars that we are talking about with our compliments. The only constraint after the testing is over would be that half of the bars then be given to Ace and half to Box to be used as raffle items in their tournaments for the kids.

Please let me know what you think.

The original "Best in Big Game" website and on-line store, www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[sancocho]

1) April 27th 2008 Breaking news! 15 blues caught out off 22 bites. All this fish was caught on lures.
300lbs, 500lbs, 250lbs, 400lbs, 300lbs, 550lbs, 425lbs, 400lbs, 250lbs, 350lbs, 300lbs, 175lbs, 250lbs, 450lbs, 300lbs. Four of this fish was caught on the Hooker from Mold Craft lures, two on the Medium Plunger from Joe Yee, one on the Pakula Lumo Sprocket, three on the Andromeda from Legend Lures, two on the Hercules from Bonze Lures and three on the Mini Chugger from Mold Craft lures.

2) I think that we probably are the first boat in the world to catch 15 fish in one days fishing on lures. The record is 20 or 21 fish in one single day caught some years a go from the Hooker on bait and switch. Captain at that time was Trevor Cookle. What a day!

15 blues of 22 bites on lures vs 20 blues of 28 on bait, (68% vs 71%) in one day (not in the same day),

From here;
15 blue marlin in ONE day on lures, Cape Verde Islands

On live bait



On dead bait



On dead bait

The Scientific Advisor presented the results of the billfish resources research program in Guatemala as well as the results of the recently completed socio-economic study on the billfish sport fishing industries in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama. Highlights of his presentation included that about 20,000 billfish were caught and released by an estimate of 4,100 anglers fishing annually in Guatemala. The study suggests that 30% of the sports fishing packages are for fly fishing with an average catch rate of 3 billfish per day. On the other hand, conventional fishing generated 8 billfish per fishing day.

from here
http://www.billfishassociation.com/p..._GUATEMALA.pdf

suerte,

[seapower]

Can't say I agree with you about scent. While comm. king fishing fresh bait alway's out caught salted (day old). Now we where using stripped fresh "fat back's", but they out caught anything else. I know 4 to 6 knot's sound's fast, but we're talking about fish that catch up to that with ease. If it doesn't look right or smell right, no love. By the way, if you're strip bait wasn't cut right, you could pull it all day without a bite aswell. Just what I've seen. We were getting paid by the pound, made a difference. Frank

[DropinBack]

Hopefully there will be a hot OC bite this year...

[Capt. kapoc]

Vinne,

We'll run anything you want but your going to have to come down to Va Beach..... but the whites and blues are making a showing.

Mike

[Deep C]

Fish are easier to hook on natural. Plastic its basicaly a shot or two and hope for the best. That being said at least on bigger blues I have done better with dragging the big plastic.

The natural is something for them to swallow.Thus easier hooking. Scent? I believe they can pick up on that just like we can smell a restaurant a long way away on a windy day.

Plastic isn't about looks. Its about noise. The advantage of a slant or concave is that it can bang on their latteral line from a longer distance than what their field of vision is. I don't honestly think they lable it as food. rather its something food sized and its getting away.

At Chub I combo meat in the plastic. Thast to get that extra shot or two. In the tournies the circle and combo just aren't refined enough to make that my "A game" spread. The boss has again asked that we go hero or zero with the plastic and I have no objection. Hell, on the plastic I have even done ok with whites...

[Captain Fred Archer]

Wow, Sancocho, 15 blues on anything in one day is a mighty impressive feat! Felicitaciones! And 15 C&R out of 22 shots (68% hookup and landing ratio) is also truly outstanding!

The lures used were excellent ones made by long term friends of mine, with almost a third of them (Roddy and Peter) being our agents in Europe and Australia and New Zealand respectively. Frank and Frank Jr. Johnson have been dear friends since big Frank's earliest days and still are. Yes, we all compete with one another in some ways, but what we have that is far more important is a serious, long term mutual respect and friendship thing that transpires competition. I am very blessed to be able to call them my friends and all of their lures are very special, exceptionally good and long proven ones. You are a wise fisherman to be using them.

I wasn't aware that any actual records were kept for daily numbers of billfish caught on either lures or bait and the first time I saw some kind of reference to that was when Chris Badsy and the Brackmann brothers caught all of those striped marlin down in Cabo a while back. I don't know if it was an actual, official record of some kind, but I do know that they caught the fish and I know how. You see, they too are friends of long standing who I have learned things from and who have learned things from me. Their fish were caught on pitched, bridled live mackerel, live sardines and dead ballyhoo using what we call the "pitch and twitch" technique, which is exactly what it sounds like...the bridled baits are cast to feeder striped marlin, then twitched back toward the boat with the marlin not being allowed to take until he is pointed at the boat. Since the object is to get a leader touch and so an IGFA legal release, the circle hook is not really set and the fish is "led" toward the boat so the empate can be grabbed and the fish quickly cut off. No, this isn't for everybody, including me, but it sure works for this sort of fishing. The boys have had similar days since, with maybe even more fish. I don't really keep track of that sort of thing.

That twenty fish on artificials is for sure a blue marlin only thing and yes, it is remarkable, but we have caught more striped marlin than that on artificials (hollow squids on bars) many times. On one of those occasions that I write about in my marlin book, that same David Brackmann and one of his brothers and his dad were running along a sharp current/temp break on their forty foot Cabo, Caliente. They were bait and switch fishing off of our teaser bars and pitching live baits to the many marlin they were raising.

We were running on the other side of the narrow break, maybe only a hundred yards or less from them, but we were trolling armed bars, that is, ones with hooks in the chasebaits. I'd have to check the book for the actual numbers, but I do know that we C&R'd more than twenty marlin that day and if I remember right, David and his crew caught something like thirty or more. Of course, I'm not comparing striped marlin to blues here because, as you know, there is a huge difference between those two animals.

That was a good day, not a truly exceptional one for us. Our main drawback was usually the stamina and skill of our anglers - a charterboat client thing - and the fact that some of them actually tired of catching marlin and wanted to go for some meat fish. Bait and switch fishing allowed us to do that for them.

Jerry and Deb Dunaway and their awesome skipper Capt Skip Smith were also good friends who I fished with many times and learned a great deal from. They, along with Stewart Cambell and Capt Barkey Garnsy, were actually among my few field testers back when I was running Shimano. They both tested the very first of our new TTS single speed lever drag reels and then our BeastMaster and TLD Two Speeds. Both crews were wonderful field testers (Trevor was Stewart's leaderman back then - one of the best I've ever seen) because they were brutally honest, very demanding of their tackle, caught a helluva lot of fish on it and in both cases were very wealthy individuals who didn't need or want free reels from anyone, including me, because they didn't want to feel obligated to anyone if they chose to chuck their reels and go with ones that they thought were better. They were perfect field testers if one wanted to know the truth about their product from the kind of people who could actually find out - the only kind of field testers that are worth a tinker's damn as far as I'm concerned.

In both Hooker and Chunda's cases, they bait and switched their many world records. Both used Moldcraft lures as teasers and both pitched Panama-style belly cuts and fillets from local bait fish, again bridled for good hookups with light line and small hooks for big fish. They both were very good at it, as the record book shows. I was blessed to have fished many times with both teams and I managed to learn many valuable lessons that I still use and try to pass on to others to this day.

All good and for me, all interesting, including that monstrous catch of blue ones on lures, whether it's an official record of some kind or not...it was one terrific achievement and I would have loved to have been there and seen it happen.

Whether we agree on this hollow squid thing or not, one thing is very clear to me...you're not only good, but you are lucky too, Sancocho...a mighty nice and rare combination!

Buenas Suerte, El Pescador!

Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[James80]

Are we are talking "perfectly" rigged naturals vs plastic?

How bad does a bally have to look to get passed by? Which gets me to thinking, how do the less experienced know if its their bait thats the problem? For example if someone were to keep record of plastics vs not so perfectly rigged or not so perfect hoos which would come out on top.

[FAT CAT MX]

Didn't he say he was talking about plastic ballyhoo, not lures?

I agree with the idea that at trolling speed scent has little or nothing to do with attracting fish to the pattern. However, once the fish is behind the bait scent may keep it there longer.

On the other hand, I once caught a stripped marlin on a plastic bally, while having an angler on either side of me fishing a live mackerel. I've since caught other marlin on plastic ballyhoo, but really only use them when the real thing isn't available.