Trolling for fish in blue water

[KevinV]

From all the mentions of lost lures, I would infer that the use of a trailed log is ill-advised?

Yep, don't try and bludgeon them till they're on deck

 

[capnsensible]

Problem once past the Verdes is the huge amount of seaweed. Huge carpets of it.....

 

[geem]

As we prepare for our Atlantic Crossing and Sailing in the car, we are thinking about our fishing capabilities. Has anyone had any experience of trolling for fish in blue waters? The advice I’m getting is that ideally one need a boat rod and a rather expensive multiplier reel. I appreciate it’s possible to troll with a hand line, but I hear you lose a lot of fish and it’s hard work trying to real them . The idea of the rod was the it takes a lot of the shocks and allows you to mount a proper multiplyer reel. However the reels that are recommended when I do a Google search are rather expensive. I appreciate you need a reel with a bigger capacity for lots of quite heavy weight line but which sort and make of reel is adequate rather than ‘best’. Any other tips?

The last East to West crossing we landed 70kg of fish. The previous one we landed 80kg. We don't fish all the time as the freezer isn't big enough. We also need a break from eating fresh tuna and dorado every day.
No you don't need a rod. We don't even have one. We use hand lines. No, it's easy to haul in the fish on a hand line. Keep the boat moving and wait for the fish to tire. Once they stop swimming they come to the surface and you simply pull them in surfing.
Get yourself some 100kg line. It's durable. Small to medium sized muppets work fine. Thread two to bulk them up. Green and pink seem to work best for us. A small weight in the head helps. The muppet should be bouncing along the surface ideally. We fish at about the distance that the wake from out boat finishes, sometimes shorter. We always set lines up from each stern cleat. A piece of bungy cord attaches to the rigging to give it some absorbtion when hooking in. We also hang a bit of wood off it so if we get a strike it bangs on the deck to let us know. Often small fish can be lifted easily on the hook but larger fish will need a gaff.
For the first part of the trip there won't be much weed so I would suggest you use triple hooks. The hooks don't need to be too big. They should hide in the skirt of the muppet reasonably well. As you get in to weed you are far better off with single hooks as they will hook less weed.
Landing a fish can be like a visit to the abattoir if you get it wrong. We set up a bucket on the aft deck tied to the guard wires so it can't fall over. When you land the fish regardless of size, the head goes in the bucket. Whilst you hold it head first in the bucket, your accomplice ties a slip knot tightly over the fish tail and ties it to the guardrail to keep the fish from jumping out of the bucket. Take a long knife and stick it through the brain. You can use cheap alcohol to stun the fish. Just pour a little in the gills. Often this will kill the fish anyway. You need to bleed the fish out to remove the blood or the meat will be tainted. This technique ensure you don't have a cockpit full of blood.
Happy fishing

 

[Gerry]

I highly recommend this book-changed our entire fishing life aboard! From never catching to always catching... We use a trawled line on a shock cord as recommended in the book. The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing

 

[JFowler]

Which type of line is best- Mono or Dyneema Braid?

 

[dgadee]

Paravane anyone? Or do Atlantic fish feed on the surface?

 

[Davy_S]

Which type of line is best- Mono or Dyneema Braid?

Mono because it stretches, whilst you get more feel with braid, it does not stretch so offers no give, its good for bottom fishing whilst at anchor, but not for trolling.

 

[Beelzebub]

Making a shock absorber out of strong elastic can help alleviate a lot of snatch. Think mooring line snubbers.

As for trailing logs, we lost 3 Walker log rotators on one transatlantic trip ☹

 

[AndrewB]

The last East to West crossing we landed 70kg of fish. The previous one we landed 80kg. We don't fish all the time as the freezer isn't big enough. We also need a break from eating fresh tuna and dorado every day.

Impressive! My experience was very rarely to catch fish in open ocean (other than suicidal flying fish landing on deck) , though I did pretty well once we got within 25 miles or so of land, specially around island groups. Tuna, dorado, dolphinfish, wahoo, also the occasional barracuda and snapper. Ciguatera made me a bit edgy about eating these latter, specially in the Caribbean.

I only rarely saw fish in open ocean, other than dolphins and whales, and became concerned about actually hooking a dolphin as they often came close. Hooked sharks once or twice but they broke free. Occasionally seabirds would take a trailed lure, on one occasion I had to release a young albatross - not easy!

 

[geem]

Impressive! My experience was very rarely to catch fish in open ocean (other than suicidal flying fish landing on deck) , though I did pretty well once we got within 25 miles or so of land, specially around island groups. Tuna, dorado, dolphinfish, wahoo, also the occasional barracuda and snapper. Ciguatera made me a bit edgy about eating these latter, specially in the Caribbean.

I only rarely saw fish in open ocean, other than dolphins and whales, and became concerned about actually hooking a dolphin as they often came close. Hooked sharks once or twice but they broke free. Occasionally seabirds would take a trailed lure, on one occasion I had to release a young albatross - not easy!

We have landed blue and white marlin. Stunningly beautiful fish. We put them back. Also Wahoo. They taste great. No putting those back. Big eye tuna, yellow fin tuna, skipjack all get eaten. We seem to catch dorado more than anything but no complaints. They taste great. We put weight on on the last Atlantic crossing

 

[geem]

Which type of line is best- Mono or Dyneema Braid?

Mono 100kg is perfect

 

[Tradewinds]

Thanks. We’ve actually got a copy of that book and that’s where some of the advice has come from that appears slightly contradictory. (Perhaps I ought to read it again?) They certainly recommend reels and rods rather than yo-yos although they do say a multiplier clamped onto the rail can work.

I thought it was going to be full of practical advice, but a lot of the advice seems to be towards catching bigger and bigger fish. Certainly a lot of reports of very large fish being caught and how to catch bigger fish! We just want small fish that we can eat.

I would say he was a bit of an obsessive 'fisher'. We met him in Suwarrow where he was constantly fishing from his yacht where he was surrounded by blacktip sharks. My 9 yr old son was pretty impressed and hung a shark hook over the side in competition - unfortunately he was successful. I subsequently bought his book which my son read avidly. We just trolled a heavy monofilament line from a home made line holder - caught mahi mahi, smallish tuna on a regular basis plus a swordfish (panic!) and a sailfish (yet more panic). I agree with Stingo - getting the line to trail in your wake seemed to be the way to go.

 

[ean_p]

Google 'Cuban Yo-Yo' and get a big one, a pair of gloves and some lures.

Then hold on tight.......................................

Mmmmm they look like they have the potential to be decidedly dodgy.........what happens if the line goes off the 'inboard' side of the reel around your wrist etc?

 

[AndrewB]

As all good fisherman's yarns need to be illustrated, here's a pic of a barracuda hooked by SWMBO.



And the albatross I mentioned above. Fortunately it was hooked by the wing, and it was possible to release (the line can just be made out in this photo). If it had swallowed the hook, it would have been doomed to a lingering death.

 

[capnsensible]

It's a terrible thing when you inadvertently snare a seabird. You just know it's death in an unpleasant way. But there again, death in the predatory world always is, I suppose.

 

[Goldie]

This was caught by our crew’s ‘fisherman‘ on a lure made from a rubber glove and kitchen foil.

 

[Dino]

I watched this video before and thought it was a good approach…

 

[Stingo]

@john_morris_uk do you ever check your PMs or do you have me on ignore?

 

[Neil_Y]

As we prepare for our Atlantic Crossing and Sailing in the car, we are thinking about our fishing capabilities. Has anyone had any experience of trolling for fish in blue waters? The advice I’m getting is that ideally one need a boat rod and a rather expensive multiplier reel. I appreciate it’s possible to troll with a hand line, but I hear you lose a lot of fish and it’s hard work trying to real them . The idea of the rod was the it takes a lot of the shocks and allows you to mount a proper multiplyer reel. However the reels that are recommended when I do a Google search are rather expensive. I appreciate you need a reel with a bigger capacity for lots of quite heavy weight line but which sort and make of reel is adequate rather than ‘best’. Any other tips?

My experience resulted in many good sized tuna and dolphin fish, 5 to 15Kg Not much blood and easily killed
Hand line and squid lure with some strong elastic bands. I don't remember losing any.
The elastic gives then breaks when you catch a fish, so it takes the shock just as a bendy rod will.
Then (with gloves) you can get it in quicker than using a reel. Grab it through the gills and cut the neck behind the head. You need a good sharp knife. All done from swim platform hooked on with a safety line. Not much blood at all. We kept a cool box on the side deck in the corner to put the fish in. Some were a tight fit. There can be a lot of meat but most got used with two of us, some people I heard store any excess in oil.

 

[john_morris_uk]

My experience resulted in many good sized tuna and dolphin fish, 5 to 15Kg Not much blood and easily killed
Hand line and squid lure with some strong elastic bands. I don't remember losing any.
The elastic gives then breaks when you catch a fish, so it takes the shock just as a bendy rod will.
Then (with gloves) you can get it in quicker than using a reel. Grab it through the gills and cut the neck behind the head. You need a good sharp knife. All done from swim platform hooked on with a safety line. Not much blood at all. We kept a cool box on the side deck in the corner to put the fish in. Some were a tight fit. There can be a lot of meat but most got used with two of us, some people I heard store any excess in oil.

All good points and I hope others will find them helpful. Regrettably we have no swim platform so it’ll be a gaff from the side deck and head into a bucket for us as per others suggestions.