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gfm

01-30-2000, 01:27 PM

Until last year the majority of my offshore experience was on charters.  Last season I took the plunge and started running my own boat offshore.  Now I'm hooked.  Now that I bought reels (ouch!) I need rods.  I have received great answers from people who appear to know their **** on this board in the past.  So, I figured this was a great place to get some input before I find out later that I should have asked someone who knows more than I.  The reels were a no brainer.  Every person I asked said that the Penn Intrernational 50TW was the way to go.  I am almost set to buy the Penn Tuna stick(s).  At $139 per - seems like a nice match for the reels and not too bad price wise.  However, at this point I don't want to start getting cheap - especially if it will ultimately cost me.  What is the way to go here?  I have hard time believing that the more expensive International rod is that much better?

josko

01-30-2000, 04:11 PM

I just typed in a big long reply here which went to etherspace! Somebody, please fix this, so we can post stuff longer than three lines!!

gfm

01-30-2000, 04:45 PM

Could you kindly try it again - I am very interested in getting our opinion.  Alternatively, <A href="mailto:gmartin62@hotmail.com">gmartin62@hotmail.com</A>

gfm

01-30-2000, 04:49 PM

Could you possibly possibly try again - I am interested in your opinion.

josko

01-30-2000, 06:27 PM

Here is a couple of thoughts re. offshore rods:

My guess is you want ‘stand-up’ and not trolling rods, which are primarily meant for use with a fighting chair, and are ~7’ long as opposed to 5’6” – 6’ on offshore stand-up rods.

Stand-up rods divide into livebaiting and trolling rods. Livebaiting rods have soft tips so they don’t jerk the hooks out of live baits as the boat rolls. They are more difficult to ‘short-stroke’ i.e. pump in short strokes, than trolling rods, which have much stiffer tips. Trolling rods WILL tear hooks out of livebait, and otherwise abuse them. They seem to work fine with chunks and for float/balloon fishing I do for sharks. I have one 6’ live-bait rod on board and like it a lot less than my trolling rods.

The rest of my rods are Penn tuna sticks. 2255ARS for 50s and 2155ARS for 30s. I hear folks with outboards prefer 6’ers, but I really like clipping into my 50 outfit and 5’6” rod and going at it with a big fish. These are short-stroking rods, meaning you can pump them in a short motion, recovering perhaps ½ turn every stroke. Some people like the detachable-butt ARA, but I never saw the need. There’s been some interesting developments in short-stroker bent-butt rods, and it’s conceivable you might want to change butts if going after BFT. I’ll wait.
These come in glass and carbon fiber. Graphite rods are more break-prone, but are easier and more fun to fish with. Somehow, a glass rod feels ‘mushy’, and does take more effort to complete each pump. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s very noticeable. Steve Moore lent me a International graphite rod, 1555ARA, and it’s a lot nicer than my glass sticks. You get what you pay for. I can’t help it, I get visions of going stand-up against a BFT, and think a graphite rod would make an appreciable difference. Try pumping it, even in a store, and you’ll see the difference. That said, this year I’ll buy a couple more glass ARS’s.

Lastly, with a 50 outfit, and say 27-30 lbs of drag, there is a huge friction difference between ring and roller guides. With a 30, it doesn’t matter so much, but trying to crank against a 30# drag, roller guides make all the difference. Think twice before buying ring-guide rods for 50 wt fishing.

Finally, get a harness you like and practice with it. If you’ve ever done any boardsailing, the knack of putting your weight on the harness and pumping from the harness is exactly the same. Make sure you like the rod+harness combo. 50TW can fish against a 30# drag, and that’s serious back-pulling territory.

backman

01-30-2000, 10:13 PM

Josko's mate's perspective.  If your trolling, 5'6" is a must for rods in gunwale holders; as the boat make acute turns a longer rod can snag the crossing line from an ourrigger which is a pain and potentially a lost fish or broken rod if a strike occurs when a line is across a rod tip.
I nhave huge respect for those glass tuna sticks; we put the screws to them all year with no problems whatsoever.  I recall (my mistake) putting the reel into strike when a 200# blue shark hit; watched the rod bend sideways as the shark went down and around the corner of the boat; watched in amazement as it arced into a sideways U before the 80# test mono snapped.  I'm not sure a gr5aphite rod could have taken that stress.
 
We broke a nice 5' Silstar on a 30# tuna early in the season; that short rod, combined w. a Shimano TLD was a very sweet and powerful light tackle combo.

Adam-Albino

01-31-2000, 11:03 AM

Curious:

>"Lastly, with a 50 outfit, and say 27-30 lbs of drag, there >is a huge friction
> difference between ring and roller guides. With a 30, it >doesn’t matter so much, but
> trying to crank against a 30# drag, roller guides make >all the difference. Think
> twice before buying ring-guide rods for 50 wt fishing. "

Where I grew up most of the folks did just the opposite. Most felt the fancy roller guides are just one more movable part that could fail (many replayed stories of jamed rollers, ones that loosened up, etc.). Most felt that good Hardaloy, SiC, or other ceramics where better. It's the main reason I have that St. Croix stand-up Graphite, with all Fuji's... I wouldn't discount ceramics.
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SteveK

01-31-2000, 02:10 PM

Last season I bought the Penn flex tips which seemed to be easier on the back when pumping the BFT's to the boat. The reels are 6.0 Senators -- larger equals more line @ 50 #test which is less disturbing when a larger tuna hits and runs on you while trolling..... of course I'm still secretly waiting to get spooled......

gfm

02-01-2000, 12:29 PM

I have to assume that you guys are saving me big time from learning the hard way.  Thanks alot.  If I can induldge your patience a little more I will ask what is likely a stupid question (I spent years learning how to catch the stripers / blues and until I spoke to those "in the know" I caught very little - I want to speed up this learning curve as much as I can)  I am Assuming I set the drag on these new (and very cool looking) reels at approx 27-30lbs.  Trollling along - bang a fish hits (hopefully) - assuming I know how to handle the boat (which I think I do) - when do you push into "strike" and do you ever move to "full" -

Adam-Albino

02-01-2000, 02:06 PM

Personally I think 27-30 pounds (roughly 50%) drag is way to high, but I guess it depends on your rigs and the fish your going for. I scale test the drags all the time and don't go much beyond 20lbs with my 50sw. At least one guide told me last season he sets his at 15-17lbs. The "strike" setting is were this is set. I know of no time that I ever went beyond this - but I guess I've never caught a fish it was necessary for..

As far as boat handling goes - I think it is the single most important element in landing BIG fish. I am always at awe watching "good" captains maneuver, back down, and parallel fish, always keeping the angler in the best position. All this and making it look easy. I know I certainly couldn't do it.
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josko

02-01-2000, 02:45 PM

It's good to disagree...

offshore reels/rods are set up to set the reel 'strike' drag to 1/3 the line breaking strength, i.e. 80 lb line => 27 lb drag. This sets up the 'full' drag to 50% of line's breaking strength, still giving you reasonable safety margin wrt breaking the line.

If you want to fish 20 lb drag, spool up with 60# line. I do this with 50-sized reels when fishing from big ships, where it takes a long timew to slow or shop the ship after a strike. Otherwise, get a 30, spool it up with 50 0r 60 lb line, and fish with a 20# drag.

Personally, I like a 30# drag when in a full harness. I can use my weight to good advantage, don't get tirid for a long time, and have been able to land some pretty good-sized fish. a 20# drag gives line before I've really put my back into it. You can still land amazingly large fish, I just never really get a chance to get the full body into fighting the fish. On the pother side, I'm not sure i could fish a 35-40# drag for very long, but I'm dying to try this summer.

When trolling with reels set at 27#, you'll catch a few sets of albie lips and jaws occasionally. many people will set the drags to roughly the letter 'K' in 'STRIKE' when trolling. This gives you ~20# on a 50, and is tight enough to set the hook, and loose enough so even a bonito or albie will have a chance to take some line, avoiding the inital jerk which can break off the small fish.

There's three times I kick the drag to full:

1. you're about to get spooled, and have nothing to loose. It's turn the fish or loose it. You've got 500 yds of mono out there, and need to do something before reaching the spool knot.

2. You've got the frish boatside and double line is on the reel. The full drag is likely to hold him there for the wiremen or gaffer.

3. Mate's flubbering around for a gaff or somesuch and you're covered. :-) Set the boat to slow ahead, pick one reel to fight a fish, and set the others to full so they don't spool you while you're busy.

SteveK

02-01-2000, 06:43 PM

aahhhh....don't you just love #3 when it happens.... Too many big fish and not enough rods.

backman

02-01-2000, 10:16 PM

Steve:
we only had 1 day w/ repeated #3's; and one 3-count other than that; but boy...does the adrenelin flow when 3 or 4 reels are dumping line.
 
On the K in strike mode; I have to agree w. my captain here; setting the drag to strike early in the season cost us a number of dolphin, especially when we kept on trolling for that magic 10 count, waiting for a multiple hookup.  Once we learned to backoff a bit to the K we did a lot better on the smaller fish.
 
On the other hand; when we did have the 3 YFT blast and the TLD was set to K rather than strike I somehow lost the fish by not getting enough pressure on it before it turned and spit the hook.  The damned mate is still floundering on for the gaff on one of the other YFT's and the 3rd one broke off.
 
GFM:  one tip we learned was that if you had one hit, wait 10 seconds before backing off and to surge and turn the boat to try and induce multiple strikes. As scary as it seems; 10 seconds at 40 MPH (fish + boat speed) is still less than 200 yards which gives you half a spool+ left to play with on a wide reel.
 
On the other hand when we got a YFT strike on a big spinning reel with only 250 yards on it that line melted almost instantly and if Josko hadn't shut down almost instantly we would have been spooled.