Does anyone actually catch fish?

Conachair

Conachair

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Does everyone catch fish apart from me? I just trailed a lure for 5 days straight from Cadiz to Lanzarote and caught a total of zilch, absolutely nothing. Tried a squid lookalike, a plug, same plug wrapped in shiney wrapping paper and some feathers. All were tried along the surface and below using one of those things like an upside down underwater kite. but nothing. So what am I doing wrong or is it just me? What length of line works best? How many do you catch? 1 a day? more? What lures work best? Any other tips? Do you leave it out at night?

Oh, and I just wanted to gloat about my longest passage to date, 5 uneventful days fom Cadiz to Arrecife, lanzarote (motored for a couple of those). And now the long trousers are back in the locker /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif. And to answer my own question from a few days ago, saw a few ships most days, no fishing boats but heard a lot rabbiting away on vhf.

Padz- Conachair

just found a thread which answers most of this but please leave your surefire fish catching tips anyway.
 
Yes we catch quite a few fish using both swimming lures and plastic squid. In fact fish will take almost anything multi-coloured or shiny although swimming lures seem most effective (the ones with a small plate beneath the lower jaw).

Fish are attracted to bubbles but won't enter the bubble area. Therefore place the lure just beyond the end of your wake (it's further than you think). For squid lures put a small lead weight in their head, keeps them just below the surface. Make sure the wire trace is at least 8 feet long - short traces are less successful, in our experience.

We normally stop after catching one fish, we don't have a freezer. Over the Atlantic we caught many Dorado and got so fed up eating it we stopped fishing.

Best time to fish is around dawn and dusk when the predators have just enough light to see prey. The only time we ever fished at night we caught a monster so we don't do that any more.

Well done on the passage!
 
Absolutely agree. You are right, even fresh dorado wears off after a while.
I reckon they wait at dawn and dusk though with a more sinister purpose. Just when you are putting up or taking down the spinnaker or cruising chute they send the suicide fish on his mission to disupt your life and further the cause of global pelagic domination.
 
Mrs L catches a decent tuna almost every passage we make. Crab line, €8 plastic lure, very small weight. Works fine. Several members on this forums have shared our tuna, and will confirm. We also have photo evidence. I say that only because fishermans' tales are legendary but you need to know the truth if you are going to succed. Ask Mrs L, not the pros!!
 
Conachair, firstly, congrats on the passage from Cadiz. I am still stuck in La Coruna, and am very jealous. I'd be curious to hear some info on Lanzarote, ie. the cost of the marina, crowding, and anything else you think is interesting. Oh, and are you on WIFI in the marina?

As for fishing... I laughed when I saw the topic, because I can't catch a single thing either. I meet a lot of people who ask me how much fish I eat - I tell them the closest I've been to fish in the last three months is canned tuna.
 
Good advice about the bubble area, we found that we caught more fish when we slowed down and presumably shortened our bubble area. Sailing at around four knots or less with a line off the back brought us a nice crop of mackerel. It was enough for us, I don't know what we would do with a whole tuna!
 
When we sailed across the Atlantic, we just put a short line out with the lure (typically a pink squid - once just a white rag, cos there wasnt anything else) skipping along in the wake one boat length behind the transom - and we invariably caught a dorado fairly quickly.
If the lure is airborne half the time, even better - the fish dont get much time to see it, and they thus have to do a very rapid risk assessment as to if they should go for it or not.
 
Cheers Nick, I was stuck in La Coruna for a bit last year, many worse places to be stuck! At the mo I'm anchored in the harbour in Puerto De Naos, next to capitol of Lanzerote, Arricife. Pilot book mentions harbour fees being colected every morning but I haven't seen anyone yet so might be free. No wifi, I'm using cheap (1.30 euro a day) but irratating (slow and keeps losing the link) spanish sim card (yoigo) and mobile. Nice run down, I had a friend with me for a change which was just as well, motored a fair bit and not sure what i would have done solo, no self steering without wind for the aries, heaved to and waited for wind I suppose. Best range in the chandlers here I've seen since Brest, and looks like quite a few workshops/fabricaters as well so might be here for a bit, now i'm hopefully anchoring more i need to get the solar panels to swivle, seem to loose huge amounts of juice with them flat. As for fish, I'm getting obsessed!!!! I need to catch even just one!!! Even a small one, but just one........
 
Are you going to go into the marina there? Hmm... Sure, La Coruna is nice, but... The next port on route is always nicer (much like the grass being greener!).

I know what it's like to not have wind and only a windvane... Horrific; glad to hear you had a crew member to help you out.

Anyway, I'm diverting this thread from the more important topic, of how the hell to convince those damn fish to jump on the line!

nick
 
Every time I try the line ends up wrapped around the towed genny lol... same reason I cant use a walker log....

I have fads for fish, then they ware away rapidly... ie, in the scillies we cought around 10 in a minute in between agnes and annet just drifting on a 4 knot tide.. got sort of carried away.. 10 mackeral ! .. 3 years later, I dont think I could face one.
On commercial boats I worked on (Max speed around 8-10 knots) we used to use around 8Lbs lead on orange polyprop on a hurdygurdy reel to catch "cheap" food... often then we had to slow to around 6 knots to stop the line and lure reaching the surface.. (UK waters) and I often ended up with a tin of beans.

In fact, Nick ? .. if ya wanna buy a nice fishing rod etc etc.... used many times, but hardly with success...
 
Only time I've had a chance to try it on passage was in the Pacific, so I don't know how relevant the advice will be. We used a huge (about the size of a banana) silver plug towed a few lengths back on Kevlar line at 8-10 knots. Caught a large Wahoo at sunset on the second day. Just put the line around a winch and ground 'er in. Didn't fish any more after that as we had had enough.

Felt something like commercial fishing (i.e. no sport in it), but then there were no anglers on board, just hungry sailors!
 
>We used a huge (about the size of a banana) silver plug... Caught a large Wahoo

That reminds me, we used to use large lures but they do tend to catch large fish. For a short handed crew that's a pain - you have to stop the boat; it can take over 30 mins to get the fish aboard; having a forty pound plus fish thrashing around on a rolling deck is not funny and potentially dangerous.

We changed down to smaller lures about 4 to 5 inches long. Most fish we catch now tend to be in the 7 to 10 pound range (two meals for two people), although we did once catch a monster bull Dorado on a small lure.
 
Oh happy is the Atlantic fisherman!

In the Med it is a different story. I've towed a lure for the best part of 800 miles in Eastern coastal waters in the last year and caught one 2Kg tuna...

Fished out doesn't start to get there /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
The only fish we caught were makeral crossing the channel on the way home. When i was sailing in OZ we used to catch loads of small tuna, fantastic sliced up raw with wassabi and soya sauce.
 
If you want to catch fish in the Med, livebait works better! First of all you catch your bait (small garfish) instead of using mackrel feathers you need loops of wool about 4 inches in diameter in place of the feathers. The Garfish attack the wool and get it caught around their beak.
Now you have your bait, put the Garfish on a twenty meter trace, put an elastic band around its beak or it will open when trolled and spin and it will drown, put a hook at the head and one at the tail. Put an 8 ounce lead weight 20 metres away from the bait and troll at no more than two knots so the bait is fished deep and a hundred metres away from the boat.
Then put the frying pan on! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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That reminds me, we used to use large lures but they do tend to catch large fish. For a short handed crew that's a pain - you have to stop the boat; it can take over 30 mins to get the fish aboard; having a forty pound plus fish thrashing around on a rolling deck is not funny and potentially dangerous.

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Best thing to kill a big fish quickly is to slosh some rum/vodka etc into its gills. Dead in seconds! We caught a 60lb tuna coming across the pond and I shouted for one of the crew to get the rum bottle. He nipped below, came up with it and proceeded to wallop the fish over the head with the bottle! DOH!
 
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and troll at no more than two knots

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Which is great if you are becalmed, but not much use if you're going somewhere!

ps. Garfish are pretty scarce win my part of the Med too...
 
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and troll at no more than two knots

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is great if you are becalmed, but not much use if you're going somewhere!

ps. Garfish are pretty scarce in my part of the Med too...
 
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Best thing to kill a big fish quickly is to slosh some rum/vodka etc into its gills. Dead in seconds!

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I'll second that. It's how we killed the Wahoo. The owner was worryied about getting blood in his teak cockpit. We were worried about the loss of a few tumblers of rum.
 
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