Lures of Choice

[SteveK]

For trolling, we've had good success with zuchini's on the outside and black & white hex's on the inside trolling @ around 9 kts thru the water (GPS says a bit less). Any comparisons?

[josko]

Just sent ANOTHER long post to oblivion. This is really getting on my nerves! I'll re-type it tomorrow when I'm calmer. Surely, surely we don't have to put up with this much longer.

[DFix]

Josko - Same thing happened the other nite when responding to BobA on circle hooks. We're on AOL, and it asked me if I wanted to stay on line, I said yes, several minutes later it cut out without any further query. What ISP do you use?

[Slamdance]

I've found that if you try to change the screen size at any time it automatically erases anythiing you've written and the screen goes back to the original screen. Bad feature.

I've gotten into the (good) habit of using the Composer feature of Netscape Communicator to type my messages first and then cutting and pasting them into the reply screen. That way you can also add any HTML coding you'd like to use.

Just a suggestion.

[josko]

Here goes again, in notepad this time :-(

I'm not sure that we ever came up with a killer spread,but FWIW, here's what wqe did.

After much tangled line, we settled on a 9-rod spread this past summer. Two rods flat-lined off the transom corners, two off gunnel rod tips, two off short riggers, two off long riggers and one or sometimes two (long and short) shotgun down the middle.

When after schoolie BFT, we pulled Yo-Zuri Bonitas 20-30' off the transom flat-lines. You could see them clearly, working at the edge of the wake some 6-8' down. Behind and above was a chain of (3) unpainted cedar plugs off gunnel rods, followed by chain of feathers off short rigger. Green/yellow and white/blue worked reasonably. For some reason, black/purple single zucker did wonders, but a chain of them nought. At times, we pulled small chuggers or jet-heads off short-rigger instead of feather chains.

As schoolie BFT thinned out, we noticed yo-zuris were going untouched, so we changed the inside lines:
cedar plug chains off flat lines, feathers (single or chain) behind them, and jet-heads off short rigger. These latter proved killers with dolphin, and small tuna.

We never worked out the outside spread, and it went pretty much hitless all summer, but we dutifully pulled green machines, single or chains, with or without birds, off outside riggers all summer. Sometimes we'd switch to chuggers, with or without birds, but not much happened. Generally pulled thoise 150-200' behind, , i.e 6-9 wakes back.

The shotgun was generally one of my favorite lures, a big green/white boone chugger, that caught hundreds of fish in the pacific. It went unhit except for a couple of dolphin all summer, but did have a hit from a large (6'?) tuna which missed. Occasionally I pulled a second shotgun lure 'bout even with the out-rigger birds, with no luck.

In summary, I think our inside spread worked OK. Yozuris and cedar plugs for small BFT, and cedar plugs, feathers and jet-heads for other tuna. Dolphin really liked the single black/purple feather, but took feather chains and chuggers also. Outside spread was a near-total miss.

I KNOW we could have done better, though.

[SteveK]

We've given up on using outriggers. We only set up the two inside flat lines, two corners, one flat line down the middle (using the flag pole hole), and the midships angled holes. We had the same results; the fish only seem to like hitting stuff in the wake. Best results were in the 2nd to 3rd wakes. We also had more success with a little more boat speed ie: more wake or disturbance.

Nice to hear confirmation that the outriggers don't seem to be as productive.

[josko]

We typically trolled high 7s or low 8s in calm water, slowing down to high 6s in rough. never tried higher than 8, perhaps because my boat really starts to dig a hole in the water at about 8.5. definitely something worth trying for next summer.
BTW, many, many of our hookups came as I'd do hard starbord - hard port to leave a pocket of clear waterin the wake. I think this maneuvering makes the fish feel the lures are getting away from them, and they'd hit. Particularly effective when you spot a school or near high-fliers. in general, whenever we saw anything, I'd do a hard jig and that's when we'd get hits.

[Billyboy]

Lures of choice this summer were zukers green and yellow and green and yellow grass. Green jet heads. green and white jets, black and white jets, and black and green jets. Also those colors in jap feathers. Also trolled rapala metal lipped magnums, not the big 22's, but the 6-7" ones(I think cd-18) in blue mackerel and green mackerel. Caught all fish in the wash and the 2-4 wakes. Absolute waste of time on the outriggers. Try every lure in boat pretty much without a hit all summer. Even when into dolphin pretty good, would hit flatlines, but when pulled outriggers by highfliers, really wouldn't come and hammer it. We were so frustrated we started to ask around about outriggers to see if we were using them right, or not rigged correctly or presenting the lures correctly. Did alot of head scratching, frustated. Also agree with josko on the turning. Did alot of square trolling patterns this summer. When we would get a hookup, we would start to do squares(rectangles). That opened up a whole new set of questions while we were out there. East to west, north to south. Never ends. Made you look like the man one day, the goat the next time. Also was the most trolling we did than previous summers. We also had alot more knockdowns than normal. Don't know if we are starting to understand this or there are alot more dolphin and schoolie BFT around to make you a believer. I'm not a pro, but al least we are catching something everytime out instead of being skunked. At least it's justifying the fuel and time spent. Sorry for long post, subject that we talked alot about in the boat


BILL

[josko]

Wow, that makes me feel better. We sure were starting to feel a bit dumb putting out that outside spread every day. But surely there's got to be SOMETHING you can pull off outside rigger? Come to think of it, I did pretty good inshore pulling small het-heads outside so they're surfing down the first boat wake, i.e. < 3 wakes back.

Billyboy, how many lines do you pull? And where do you boat out of?

I've seen guys at the dump with as many as 13, and as few as 4 lines. Let's work at it a bit and see if we can find concensus on the spread. Also, is anyone pulling high-speed bars. I confess I only saw one boat with spreaders all summer, and he didn't look like he had his act together.

[backman]

<P><FONT color=black face=Verdana,Geneva size=2>Josko:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT color=black face=Verdana,Geneva size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</P>
<P><FONT color=black face=Verdana,Geneva size=2>we did get a couple good fish, a YFT, the big strike we missed and at least one 20# dolphin off the shotgun chugger.&nbsp; I think we want to think about mixing the long spread; keep the chugger/bird down the middle, but perhaps oull my new 9 oz wahoo whacker on one corner and a big rapapal on the other and see if we can get anything subsurface.</FONT></P>

[franks]

Josko,

I don't know if my experience is relevant, because we pull a lot more dead baits than lures, but ...

Nine rods sounds like a lot to me. We rarely pull more than six and very rarely seven - and that's on a big boat with two or three people in the cockpit. A big spread is hard to deal with when it's windy (tangles), or when fish hit (clearing everything to avoid tangles). I've fished out of Oregon Inlet the past couple of years and the charter boats down there usually stick to six or seven rods as well. I guess we usually have a couple of hookless teasers as well, if you want to count those.

I'd say we've caught as many fish on the riggers as off of flat lines, both up here and down south. That goes for both tunas and billfish.

We've caught quite a few yellowfin on spreader bars, here and in NC. Some of the charter captains down there swear by them. I can't say from experience that they're any more effective than anything else.

Frank

[SteveK]

Bill,
Nice post. I agree, we do not pull more than 5 lines which is the max we figure will fit in our wakes. More than that is just too much hassle, and doesn't seem to improve the chances much. The squares is a good idea to try next summer. I've taken off my outriggers. They just get in the way when you want to sight cast or fly fish. The mahi for us always hit "starboard inside flat line with the salt and pepper hex head." Don't ask me why.......... The tuna seem to prefer the outer green machines. Me thinks we'll try more patience and stay in one place once we get a strike.

Speedwise, we feel that 8 kts to 9 kts. gives us a good wake. Given that tunas can cruize at about 40kts.; we feel comfortable that they'll be able to catch us No Problemo.

[Billyboy]

Josko and everyone,

I sent a reply yesterday and it went into oblivion. First time it happened to me ever on this board. So I was ****ed today because I din't copy/save it.

We fish a 21 1/2 ft Pursuit cuddy. Usually troll 5 lines under control. Two on each side and shotgun down the middle. 1 lure I forgot to mention was the old reliable green machine. With or without a bird. Could fish more with the riggers but....you know.

When our friend(?) invites us, he has a 34 ft Luhrs docked in Westerly R.I. FIshes as many lines a he can get out. Bigger boat/beam and wake. Have seen fish on the outriggers , I think because the lure is in that sweetspot along the wake.

Sorry post is so short. Still mad.


Bill

[tonychaves]

Josko:

For the consensus, I don't use riggers either and fish with a maximum of 5 lines; two on each side with one down the middle. I find it easier to put the lines back in the water after a hook-up, which is the best chance for another hook-up. There were times last season when I got the second hook-up with only the first 2 lines in the water.

My Champion lure last season was the cedar plug. Blue or green mackerel colored fished in wake 3-4.

Second place goes to the sometimes overlooked greenmachine fished behind a bird in wake 6-7.

Had no luck whatsoever trollin a high speed squid bar (10 squids).

Trolled an average of 7 kts.

Also, trolling a square (after a hit)works for me too.