Catching big gamefish out of trailer boats is one of the most thrilling experiences in modern sportfishing. DAVID GREEN explains how to make the most of your chances when targeting marlin offshore.
ONE of the challenges for anglers fishing from trailer boats is chasing big marlin, particularly big blue marlin. It’s a pretty steep learning curve where you get busted up and wiped out a lot more often than you win. I’m somewhere on the lower to middle sections of this learning curve now, and catching really big blues from my six-metre plate alloy boat Gemma 3 has become my focus for this season. There’s a lot to learn, constant updates in tackle, a lot of new rigs to try and a lot of money to spend in a business where the swivels can cost you 10 bucks each. Encounters may be wild and brief, or dour and tough where the angler gets busted under the strain of long fights in a stand up harness. It’s a totally different game to chasing smaller black marlin and sails on light tackle.
This season we’ve had a few wins, been monumentally wiped out and have slowly refined our techniques to the point we are having a few more wins. I lost the first seven blues I hooked out of Gemma 3 about six years back. This put me off and I stayed closer inshore and chased the more manageable black marlin that peaked for us at about 140 kilos. The mission to chase blues more seriously really only started a few seasons back. The biggest single change that got us more fish was changing to a set of stand up 37 kilo outfits rather than the 24 kilo outfits we used to use, and every time we lost one we always found there was something we needed to modify or fix.
Our biggest win came on November 18, my birthday. There is a nice area off the Gold Coast located a few miles wide of the 50 fathom line between 100 and 130 fathoms that seems to be a bit of a blue marlin corridor. I’ve fished that area for around 15 years, mainly out of big game boats. I’ve also been spooled there, busted up when fish changed direction and broke the line through water pressure and caught blues up to around 140 kilos from my small boat in the vicinity. On this particular day we were trolling a spread of five 24 kilo outfits. We’d caught three big dolphin fish early and were in the process of cleaning them when the Meridian Ahi on the short corner line was eaten. Normally blues scream off and rip and tear, but this fish slowly pulled off around 50m of line and sat there. We cleared all the gear, my mate Aykut picked up the rod and at that stage I thought we had a nice wahoo to supplement our dolphin fish. Aykut reckoned the fish had “a bit of weight”, and it slowly motored forwards and then a really big blue appeared in front of the boat with my favourite pink bonito Meridian strapped to its face.
I suppose over the years I’ve seen roughly one to two hundred blue marlin in the water, and this one was certainly in the size range of the top 10 or so I’ve seen from big game boats. It was long, thickset and bulky, and its fight was very uncharacteristic. We strapped Aykut into the harness, the blue marlin set his engine on cruise control and over the next three hours and 20 minutes he towed the boat 14kms to the south-east. We started in 130 fathoms and finished the fight in 290 fathoms. That fish spent most of its time deep. It jumped twice at the start, made a few jumps at the two hour mark and a couple more just prior to being leadered and released. With a short length (tip of bottom jaw to fork of tail – roughly equating to how much scuff there is on a fresh leader) probably a bit over three metres it was a beast of a fish somewhere in the 260 to 300 kilo range. While we slowly beat that fish over a long period, it was still lit up blue and fresh, with none of the brown colouration of a tired blue marlin. Graham did a great job on the leader and Aykut worked really well in the harness to eventually break the fish’s deep circle and get it up. I’d be pretty sure that fish was the biggest marlin ever caught from Gemma 3 by over a hundred kilos. It was great to get a win, but it was a lazy fish that was hardly the athlete of the sea that most blue marlin are. We had hooked a fat slow blue marlin, a very rare animal.
Two days later my son Michael was keen to get into the action, as he has few windows of opportunity to fish these days between study and work. Strike one dumped around 750m of 24 kilo mono into the ocean in about 90 seconds followed by a loud “crack”. Being spooled is the most comprehensive way you can be done over by a bloody fish! That rod has to go back in the rack with the shiny gold of the bottom of the spool glinting in the sun. We then went on to catch five nice dolphin fish up to 15 kilos before our second marlin appointment arrived like the 12 o’clock bus. It ate the lumo white lure in the shotgun position, and looked about 180 to 200 kilos. It ripped about 300m off heading south, then a minute later started jumping well to the north in a greyhounding run before it busted the line on water pressure. Strike two to the fish. The next bite was big, with lots of head shakes. I was hoping for another fat slow one like we had two days earlier but it turned out to be a 27.5 kilo wahoo, a great fish but a tiddler compared to the blues that destroyed us.
It was clear that we needed to go up a notch, and I’ve now got four stand up 37 kilo outfits and am entering a whole new world of pain. But you need a big gun for really big fish, and when you see lighter tackle stripped bare before you’ve cleared the teaser and one rod, you come to a realisation that you need a lot of really strong string to stay in the game. The following are some of the lessons I’ve learnt on the big marlin small boat game.
(1) Nice weather
Running out to the blue marlin grounds from my home port is roughly 50kms from the Gold Coast Seaway. It is not something to take on lightly. Don’t risk going that far unless you are experienced and have a capable, seaworthy vessel with plenty of fuel. You won’t swim home! Make your trips to the far offshore on days when weather reports predict light winds and low swell.
(2) Three up
One of the biggest problems chasing blues from a small boat is clearing the gear quickly once you get a fish on. On a five spread this means winding in four other lines and the teaser while the skipper drives and the angler fights the fish. All of our “spoolings” have happened when we had only two on board. Having three onboard is much better. If you’re getting low on line chase the fish, and always wind the short lines in first. While we have caught blues with only two on board, it is a very busy experience! A crew of three experienced anglers gives you a reasonable shot at the prize.
(3) A good harness is a must!
In a game boat the fish is fought from a chair which lets the angler exert maximum pressure on the fish for long periods. From a small boat there are no such luxuries, and a good harness and fighting belt are a must. The Black Magic harnesses and slotted rod bucket that sits on your thighs is outstanding and this type of gear is essential for any long fight on 24 or 37 kilo stand up tackle. Using this style of harness requires a bit of practice but gives the angler the power of their quadriceps and lower back rather than fighting the fish from their arms alone. Fishing stand up 37 kilo for prolonged periods also requires strength and fitness as well as good technique. This isn’t the place for sweaty fat buggers who can’t walk up a flight of stairs without puffing.
(4) Use wind-on leaders
It is important in a small boat to keep the entire leader off the deck, and a wind-on leader system lets you get the leader on to the rod and hold the fish. There are plenty of reliable wind-on leaders commercially available or you can make your own. I generally use about eight metres of 300 to 400 pound mono as a wind-on leader to which a swivel is crimped that I attach the lure or bait rig to. In a small boat a wind-on leader gives better control in the final stages of the fight.
(5) Spooling up
Stand up 37 kilo works best with a manageable sized reel, and you can use smaller class reels such as the Shimano Tiagra 50W LRS if you fill the reel with 37 kilo Dacron and then run a top shot of about one hundred metres of 37 kilo mono on top of it. This gives some stretch via the mono, increases line capacity and lets you get better control of the fish when it goes deep by reducing stretch via the Dacron. If you aren’t worried about line class you can use woven Spectra 100 or 150 pound braid underneath as this is thin and allows you to greatly increase line capacity. This is a very common method in the US and a pending world record yellowfin tuna was caught on a 30 pound rated game reel filled with Spectra. This braid is woven like Dacron and can be joined and spliced with the same tools as used for Dacron.
(6) Use strong hooks
There is a considerable difference in the hooks we use on our 37 kilo rigs to those on 24 kilo. Under sustained heavy drag, hooks not up to the mark will bend. I now use Mustad 7691S, heavy Pakula Dojos and Hayes Hooks. Owner Jobus are another alternative. I use a mix of single and double hook rigs, depending on lure type. This could be the topic of an entire article, but regardless of rigs, all hooks must be razor sharp and honed with a file. If you have a spread of favourite lures never put them in the water without a touch up from your file.
(7) Mix up your lures
Preferences seem to vary according to the different moods of the fish. In general, blue marlin are extremely aggressive and the bites are explosive, while black and striped marlin are more circumspect. I like a mix of cup faces and slant head style lures in my spread, and generally run the bigger lures closer to the boat. I like to run a smaller white lure, such as a Black Snack Fat Simmo or a Meridian Ahi in the shotgun position, and on the ’riggers I run one sliced face and a cup faced pusher. Colours are a matter of personal preference but white, lumo green, “evil” (blue and silver outerskirt over green and gold underskirt) and purple over pink are time proven colours.
(8) Don’t panic!
There’s a lot of water out there and it’s common to spend a whole day out past the shelf and not get a bite. There are hours and hours of nothing on most trips. But there will come a moment in time when you get that sudden impact bite from hell that can be so alarming and brutal that people tend to panic and stuff up. If the hooks stay in, clear the gear as rapidly as possible, drive the boat to avoid getting spooled (I’ve got work to do in that area!) and watch the show. With blues the take off is generally as fast as any fish in the ocean and you will never hear a ratchet scream more. If you survive that bit the fish usually goes deep and you can settle into the fight. But a calm and ordered approach is the best option.
There are a lot more technical aspects I haven’t covered, and while I’ve done quite a bit of blue marlin fishing from bigger game boats, catching them from trailer boats is definitely a more challenging option. I’m aiming at catching 10 blues this season from my tinny, and if the quality of the early 2011-2012 season fishing continues on, I’m in with a chance.
ONE of the challenges for anglers fishing from trailer boats is chasing big marlin, particularly big blue marlin. It’s a pretty steep learning curve where you get busted up and wiped out a lot more often than you win. I’m somewhere on the lower to middle sections of this learning curve now, and catching really big blues from my six-metre plate alloy boat Gemma 3 has become my focus for this season. There’s a lot to learn, constant updates in tackle, a lot of new rigs to try and a lot of money to spend in a business where the swivels can cost you 10 bucks each. Encounters may be wild and brief, or dour and tough where the angler gets busted under the strain of long fights in a stand up harness. It’s a totally different game to chasing smaller black marlin and sails on light tackle.
This season we’ve had a few wins, been monumentally wiped out and have slowly refined our techniques to the point we are having a few more wins. I lost the first seven blues I hooked out of Gemma 3 about six years back. This put me off and I stayed closer inshore and chased the more manageable black marlin that peaked for us at about 140 kilos. The mission to chase blues more seriously really only started a few seasons back. The biggest single change that got us more fish was changing to a set of stand up 37 kilo outfits rather than the 24 kilo outfits we used to use, and every time we lost one we always found there was something we needed to modify or fix.
Our biggest win came on November 18, my birthday. There is a nice area off the Gold Coast located a few miles wide of the 50 fathom line between 100 and 130 fathoms that seems to be a bit of a blue marlin corridor. I’ve fished that area for around 15 years, mainly out of big game boats. I’ve also been spooled there, busted up when fish changed direction and broke the line through water pressure and caught blues up to around 140 kilos from my small boat in the vicinity. On this particular day we were trolling a spread of five 24 kilo outfits. We’d caught three big dolphin fish early and were in the process of cleaning them when the Meridian Ahi on the short corner line was eaten. Normally blues scream off and rip and tear, but this fish slowly pulled off around 50m of line and sat there. We cleared all the gear, my mate Aykut picked up the rod and at that stage I thought we had a nice wahoo to supplement our dolphin fish. Aykut reckoned the fish had “a bit of weight”, and it slowly motored forwards and then a really big blue appeared in front of the boat with my favourite pink bonito Meridian strapped to its face.
I suppose over the years I’ve seen roughly one to two hundred blue marlin in the water, and this one was certainly in the size range of the top 10 or so I’ve seen from big game boats. It was long, thickset and bulky, and its fight was very uncharacteristic. We strapped Aykut into the harness, the blue marlin set his engine on cruise control and over the next three hours and 20 minutes he towed the boat 14kms to the south-east. We started in 130 fathoms and finished the fight in 290 fathoms. That fish spent most of its time deep. It jumped twice at the start, made a few jumps at the two hour mark and a couple more just prior to being leadered and released. With a short length (tip of bottom jaw to fork of tail – roughly equating to how much scuff there is on a fresh leader) probably a bit over three metres it was a beast of a fish somewhere in the 260 to 300 kilo range. While we slowly beat that fish over a long period, it was still lit up blue and fresh, with none of the brown colouration of a tired blue marlin. Graham did a great job on the leader and Aykut worked really well in the harness to eventually break the fish’s deep circle and get it up. I’d be pretty sure that fish was the biggest marlin ever caught from Gemma 3 by over a hundred kilos. It was great to get a win, but it was a lazy fish that was hardly the athlete of the sea that most blue marlin are. We had hooked a fat slow blue marlin, a very rare animal.
Two days later my son Michael was keen to get into the action, as he has few windows of opportunity to fish these days between study and work. Strike one dumped around 750m of 24 kilo mono into the ocean in about 90 seconds followed by a loud “crack”. Being spooled is the most comprehensive way you can be done over by a bloody fish! That rod has to go back in the rack with the shiny gold of the bottom of the spool glinting in the sun. We then went on to catch five nice dolphin fish up to 15 kilos before our second marlin appointment arrived like the 12 o’clock bus. It ate the lumo white lure in the shotgun position, and looked about 180 to 200 kilos. It ripped about 300m off heading south, then a minute later started jumping well to the north in a greyhounding run before it busted the line on water pressure. Strike two to the fish. The next bite was big, with lots of head shakes. I was hoping for another fat slow one like we had two days earlier but it turned out to be a 27.5 kilo wahoo, a great fish but a tiddler compared to the blues that destroyed us.
It was clear that we needed to go up a notch, and I’ve now got four stand up 37 kilo outfits and am entering a whole new world of pain. But you need a big gun for really big fish, and when you see lighter tackle stripped bare before you’ve cleared the teaser and one rod, you come to a realisation that you need a lot of really strong string to stay in the game. The following are some of the lessons I’ve learnt on the big marlin small boat game.
(1) Nice weather
Running out to the blue marlin grounds from my home port is roughly 50kms from the Gold Coast Seaway. It is not something to take on lightly. Don’t risk going that far unless you are experienced and have a capable, seaworthy vessel with plenty of fuel. You won’t swim home! Make your trips to the far offshore on days when weather reports predict light winds and low swell.
(2) Three up
One of the biggest problems chasing blues from a small boat is clearing the gear quickly once you get a fish on. On a five spread this means winding in four other lines and the teaser while the skipper drives and the angler fights the fish. All of our “spoolings” have happened when we had only two on board. Having three onboard is much better. If you’re getting low on line chase the fish, and always wind the short lines in first. While we have caught blues with only two on board, it is a very busy experience! A crew of three experienced anglers gives you a reasonable shot at the prize.
(3) A good harness is a must!
In a game boat the fish is fought from a chair which lets the angler exert maximum pressure on the fish for long periods. From a small boat there are no such luxuries, and a good harness and fighting belt are a must. The Black Magic harnesses and slotted rod bucket that sits on your thighs is outstanding and this type of gear is essential for any long fight on 24 or 37 kilo stand up tackle. Using this style of harness requires a bit of practice but gives the angler the power of their quadriceps and lower back rather than fighting the fish from their arms alone. Fishing stand up 37 kilo for prolonged periods also requires strength and fitness as well as good technique. This isn’t the place for sweaty fat buggers who can’t walk up a flight of stairs without puffing.
(4) Use wind-on leaders
It is important in a small boat to keep the entire leader off the deck, and a wind-on leader system lets you get the leader on to the rod and hold the fish. There are plenty of reliable wind-on leaders commercially available or you can make your own. I generally use about eight metres of 300 to 400 pound mono as a wind-on leader to which a swivel is crimped that I attach the lure or bait rig to. In a small boat a wind-on leader gives better control in the final stages of the fight.
(5) Spooling up
Stand up 37 kilo works best with a manageable sized reel, and you can use smaller class reels such as the Shimano Tiagra 50W LRS if you fill the reel with 37 kilo Dacron and then run a top shot of about one hundred metres of 37 kilo mono on top of it. This gives some stretch via the mono, increases line capacity and lets you get better control of the fish when it goes deep by reducing stretch via the Dacron. If you aren’t worried about line class you can use woven Spectra 100 or 150 pound braid underneath as this is thin and allows you to greatly increase line capacity. This is a very common method in the US and a pending world record yellowfin tuna was caught on a 30 pound rated game reel filled with Spectra. This braid is woven like Dacron and can be joined and spliced with the same tools as used for Dacron.
(6) Use strong hooks
There is a considerable difference in the hooks we use on our 37 kilo rigs to those on 24 kilo. Under sustained heavy drag, hooks not up to the mark will bend. I now use Mustad 7691S, heavy Pakula Dojos and Hayes Hooks. Owner Jobus are another alternative. I use a mix of single and double hook rigs, depending on lure type. This could be the topic of an entire article, but regardless of rigs, all hooks must be razor sharp and honed with a file. If you have a spread of favourite lures never put them in the water without a touch up from your file.
(7) Mix up your lures
Preferences seem to vary according to the different moods of the fish. In general, blue marlin are extremely aggressive and the bites are explosive, while black and striped marlin are more circumspect. I like a mix of cup faces and slant head style lures in my spread, and generally run the bigger lures closer to the boat. I like to run a smaller white lure, such as a Black Snack Fat Simmo or a Meridian Ahi in the shotgun position, and on the ’riggers I run one sliced face and a cup faced pusher. Colours are a matter of personal preference but white, lumo green, “evil” (blue and silver outerskirt over green and gold underskirt) and purple over pink are time proven colours.
(8) Don’t panic!
There’s a lot of water out there and it’s common to spend a whole day out past the shelf and not get a bite. There are hours and hours of nothing on most trips. But there will come a moment in time when you get that sudden impact bite from hell that can be so alarming and brutal that people tend to panic and stuff up. If the hooks stay in, clear the gear as rapidly as possible, drive the boat to avoid getting spooled (I’ve got work to do in that area!) and watch the show. With blues the take off is generally as fast as any fish in the ocean and you will never hear a ratchet scream more. If you survive that bit the fish usually goes deep and you can settle into the fight. But a calm and ordered approach is the best option.
There are a lot more technical aspects I haven’t covered, and while I’ve done quite a bit of blue marlin fishing from bigger game boats, catching them from trailer boats is definitely a more challenging option. I’m aiming at catching 10 blues this season from my tinny, and if the quality of the early 2011-2012 season fishing continues on, I’m in with a chance.
