how to catch fish

[ColinR]

I am totally ignorant about fishing, but years ago I bought a plastic gizmo called something like paravane at a seaside fishing tackle shop and its incredibly effective for catching mackeral. You tow it and at a few knots it dives to 1 or 2 metres below the surface where the mackeral seem to hang out. It has a spinner on the back and if there are mackeral about you just haul them out one after another. I only catch as many as we want to eat that night and really fresh mackeral is delicious. Now my question is, are there any equally simple ways of catching something other than mackeral. After all there are plenty of fish in the sea but I have only ever caught mackeral with this brilliant device. I dont plan on taking up fishing as a hobby but if I could tow something else and catch another sort of fish it would provide welcome variety to my cruising diet.

Colin

 

[BarryH]

Red gill lure or an artificial sand eel will take bass. But theres more to it than just bunging a lure over and waiting for the fish to hook themselves. Mackerel are suicidal and can even be caught with a bit of silver foil wrapped around the hook shank.
Other species inhabit various areas of the coast line/seas/estuaries.

 

[TigaWave]

If your sailing across Biscay then use a Squid lure that jumps along the surface and you can catch Tuna.
If thats any help

 

[ColinR]

funny you should mention it but I do plan on sailing across Biscay this summer, so could you please give a bit more detail. And what do you do if you do catch a tuna? If they are all like the ones I saw in Tokyo fish market they are about as heavy as me and solid muscle.

Colin

 

[duncan]

that size tuna may well have you wishing you hadn't hooked it!

smallish bonito and skipjack will still be great fun and would be fantastic eating straight from the sea. Best use a purpose made trolling handline and lures.

your paravane is adjustable for depth by adjusting the position of the take off. Generally fish deeper as the daylight gets brighter and near or on the surface dawn/dusk. Deep with a redgill or plug on your 'vane (near bottom and inshore) will give you a chance of bass in most areas or even pollack over rocky/weedy areas.

 

[Viscount]

I've seen Mackerel caught using lines and feathers off the west of Scotland but never managed myself. I'd be interested to know the details of the "Trap" that you have used to see if I can source one locally.

 

[ColinR]

its a plastic vane or foil about 6" long which costs about £8 in seaside tackle shops, I think called a paravane. You tow it from a handline and attach a couple of metres of fishing line on the back with a mackeral spinner. It works a treat.

Colin

 

[duncan]

here's the same thead (but last years model!)

how to catch fish while sailing (2004)

includes paravanes, links to detailed articles and sources

 

[TigaWave]

Taught to me years ago by some local tuna boys in the Caribbean....
Big rubber/plastic squid lure 10" long-ish with a large hook 3-4" long on wire trace, then just onto a hand line ) cheap orange stuff was fine or the rope like thin brown stuff is easier to grip. One pair of gardening gloves to haul it in, and protect your hands when you get to the fishy bit.
To attach the line on the boat, two methods that work well are either a loop tied in the line then use a couple of elastic bands to attach it to something solid leaving a bit of slack...fish ..band stretches and breaks and you've hooked one...or a neat solution is to wrap the line several times the wrong way round a genoa winch, until it grips and doesn't slide out then some slack and tie it to a cleat...when a fish hooks theres enough pull to spin the winch which will wake you up if you've dozed off , and gives enough friction to hook he fish. (this was the locals technique)
You seem to need to be doing at least 5-6knots for tuna, and the lure can be bouncing out of the water at times, so quite shallow.
Then when you're pulling it in...they do fight and are very strong...but its easily possible by hand even up to quite big fish. As you lift it up be ready to grab up inside the gills with one hand, theres a big bone in the middle, thumb oneside fingers the other and hang on tight, it cant bite and you can hold it securely like that, then sharp knife across the back of the neck will kill it and it will bleed loads. You now have a dead fish that wont bleed any more, so its quite clean to put in a bucket/locker. Trying to hold them on the outside is almost impossible and they have spines and teeth.

Goos luck.. we caught some on our last trip but you have to be off the shelf it seems.

Neil

 

[MASH]

Tailor your lures to the size of the fish you want to catch. A 3inch will get you tuna and bonito up to 5Kg or so, maybe a bit bigger. If you get too ambitious and use a 10inch lure you seriously risk pointlessly injuring or killing huge fish that you cannot possibly use and probably couldn't laqnd anyway...

Surface popping lures do not need a paravane, just tie em on the end of the line and tow at 5-6 kts five boats length minimum. For sensible sized tuna and bonito no trace is needed, they don't have sharp teeth. If you plan to catch dolphin (dorado) or barracuda a trace most definitely is needed.

My rig is a short stiff stand-up boat rod 2m long, a cheap multiplier reel with 200m of 40kg line and a few lures, thats it. Cost £80 new, less on e-bay. Rod stands upright wedged in at the pushpit and the clutch ratchet announces a bite. Damn sight easier to use a rod if you are going to make a habit of this.

 

[MASH]

Tailor your lures to the size of the fish you want to catch. A 3inch will get you tuna and bonito up to 5Kg or so, maybe a bit bigger. If you get too ambitious and use a 10inch lure as above you seriously risk pointlessly injuring or killing huge fish that you cannot possibly use and probably couldn't laqnd anyway...

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

Entire reams have been written about this subject and the lure-making industry is multi-billion. IMHO the lures are better at catching fishermen than the actual fish!
It is more a matter of being in the right place at the right time and at the right speed. 5 to 6 knots for bonito, albacore and dolphin. Faster for the long finned tuna. You do not need a wire trace for any of these. Trust me: the dolphin (dorado, mahi, Coryphaena hippurus ) is our national summer fish-dish and anybody who has a boat and his cousin will be trolling for them between August and late October. Most everybody here uses plain soft plastic squid starting with 50mm at the start of the season and going up till around 100mm.
A predator will attack anything that moves in an unusual motion. Blue/silver combination works well on bright days; for dull weather go to bright colours. Kitchen foil works equally well.
For serious barracuda only do you need a wire trace. But then you would be using a real fish (eg Garfish) as bait and moving at a slower rate and using a graphic echo sounder to follow the contours of the seabed. Hardly likely while sailing!
Best times are pre-dawn till early morning and late afternoon till dark. Trying at mid-day is usually a complete waste of time.
Like someone else advised, why attempt to catch really big ones? There is a limit to how much fish you can store on board and, in any case, freshly caught fish tastes much nicer.
Believe me, a 4 kilo dolphin gives me as much pleasure as if I have broken the world record for rod-caught - 47 kilos!
I don't use line that is thicker than 0,40mm my reasoning being that an animal that breaks it would be too much of a handful anyway. Catch and release is not usually feasible when trolling.
Does all this apply to your sailing grounds? I haven't the slightest idea! It applies to the central mediterranean, an area that has been greatly over-fished to satisfy the demands of Japan for fresh tuna. The locating is done by spotter planes and then the fishermen race to the spot! They do catch the tuna; unfortunately a whole lot of other fish is destroyed unnecessarily /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Fair Winds!

 

[cliff]

I've always found ¼ to ½ a stick of "C-gel" works wonders.
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“Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity”
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