fishing off a yacht

I've caught mackerel using a crabbing line, feathers trace with six hooks and a large lead weight to keep it down. Trolling at 4kn often has results. Using rods on a moving yacht is asking for trouble IMHO.
My mates son makes a living kayak fishing off lands end for bass, bream and pollack. Apparently he doesn't need a licence for commercial small scale kayack fishing.
 
I’ve caught fish trolling at 6 knots on the Atlantic but river or estuaries I would agree with the 2kn being the best speed and drifting or anchored the preferred to optimal. But last time I went fishing the dinosaurs still walked the earth and mammoth could be seen grazing peacefully, some 36 years ago. I’m assuming fish these days have an App to avoid fishing hooks.
 
Hydrozoan said:
I've trolled for mackerel (when they were plentiful and shoaling) from a kayak with success, but dealing with the catch humanely (bopping them with a priest) and safely wasn't particularly easy!
Click to expand...

Many years ago, while doing my Offshore practical we were lining with feathers for mackerel and it was rather successful.

However, most of us spent too much time chasing mackerel around the scuppers which we had freed from their hook before trying to dispatch them.

Meanwhile a quiet gentlemanly GP sat in the stern and went about filling up his bucket without much ado. It turned out that he kept them on the hook, then thrust his thumb down their gullet with index finger behind the neck and simply snapped their neck and then released them into the bucket.

We jokingly said that we were a little wary of a GP with such a poisonous thumb :) but it was a lesson well learned.


AND before anyone asks it wasn't Shipman!!!
 
I use a Cuban Yoyo reel [ https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-HAND-R...ge-kite-line-plastic-GREEN-6-1-2/360500834814 ] to fish off the back of the boat. It's an easy way to let the line out - it flicks off the thin edge of the Yoyo - and easy to get it back in with one hand feeding it over and over the Yoyo in the other hand.

Once I've deployed enough line, I clip the line to the pushpit with a tarpaulin clip, and for safety I carabiner the Cuban Yoyo to a lanyard on the pushpit (and the bitter end of the line is tied through a 1mm hole in the Yoyo). I use a paravane and string of 6 mackerel feathers. Basically, you either catch nothing or 6 mackerel! In my very inexpert experience - but everyone seems to find this - more than 2-3 knots over the water is too fast to catch mackerel. You're after contours on the chart, where the mackerel are, and if you see the water frothing, sail through it as that's smaller fish being driven to the surface by the fish you want. There's plenty of advice on fishermen's forums on the web.
 
I think now I have the prospect of a new hobby, line fishing sounds like an uncomplicated and fun thing, and I can break out the lathe and turn up a cool aluminium yoyo.:encouragement:
 
Gin said:
Many years ago, while doing my Offshore practical we were lining with feathers for mackerel and it was rather successful.

However, most of us spent too much time chasing mackerel around the scuppers which we had freed from their hook before trying to dispatch them.

Meanwhile a quiet gentlemanly GP sat in the stern and went about filling up his bucket without much ado. It turned out that he kept them on the hook, then thrust his thumb down their gullet with index finger behind the neck and simply snapped their neck and then released them into the bucket.

We jokingly said that we were a little wary of a GP with such a poisonous thumb :) but it was a lesson well learned.


AND before anyone asks it wasn't Shipman!!!
Click to expand...

That sounds like a cracking method. I will try it when the time comes.
 
solent clown said:
I think now I have the prospect of a new hobby, line fishing sounds like an uncomplicated and fun thing, and I can break out the lathe and turn up a cool aluminium yoyo.:encouragement:
Click to expand...

Check out the cross-section you want on images on Google. The thing has a gentler lip to let the line out on the side held away from your palm, and a ridge inside that side for your fingers to hold on to.
 
I'm sure you hand liners know what you are doing, just I am a bit unsure of reeling in a line with 6 good mackerel or even the 4lb seith I got last weekend. Doesn't the line slice your fingers off? Guess not, unless there is a lot of 1 handed typing on this thread.
 
Lon nan Gruagach said:
I'm sure you hand liners know what you are doing, just I am a bit unsure of reeling in a line with 6 good mackerel or even the 4lb seith I got last weekend. Doesn't the line slice your fingers off? Guess not, unless there is a lot of 1 handed typing on this thread.
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I tend to go with a heavier line for my hand reel.
 
Apologies if this is earlier in the thread. Home made paravane, bean can, or plastic downpipe, both ends out, selection of holes round the rim to tow it from, the same at the back end. Attach opposite sides. With some experimentation it can be made to swim out to one side, deep or shallow, the originators used four a side, with a break link and slack back, so when a fish got on it would loose and the vane came to the surface.
 
Fishing is just not what it used to be. In my youth I was able to choose what species of fish I would like to catch. There are just not the fish around like there used to be. Comparing worldwide fish stocks with 1937, there are now only 6% of the fish left in the sea. No wonder we have such a hard job to catch any.
 
Hydrozoan said:
I've trolled for mackerel (when they were plentiful and shoaling) from a kayak with success, but dealing with the catch humanely (bopping them with a priest) and safely wasn't particularly easy!
Click to expand...
Put your finger in their mouth and pull the head back to break the neck.
 
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