Eight strikes in a row and seven fish on the same two lures in two trips – would you call that a coincidence?
Well, I don’t think it is and, believe me, I’m getting very excited about it. I can’t wait to get out again.
Since I sold Te Ariki Nui I haven’t been marlin fishing nearly as often as I used to, and therefore have had little to write about. So I very reluctantly retired from writing fishing articles for NZ Fishing News a few years ago. However, I love gamefishing, and although I am now 86 years of age, I still go out occasionally.
In the past I have experimented with many different methods to catch a marlin. When I first went game fishing many years ago, every boat pulled skip-baits and – in between the baits and close in the wash – a small Japanese feathered lure was usually placed for tuna. It was general practice in those days to immediately pull it in if a marlin came in on it, so it would eat one of the skip-baits instead.
Then, after a trip to Hawaii, I tried replacing the feather lure with a larger Hawaiian Kona-head lure, and was amazed at how many marlin came in to grab it rather than go after the skipbaits. As a result I changed over completely to lures, and my catch rate rose astronomically. I ended up being possibly the first New Zealand game boat to discard skip baits entirely and pull lures full time.
This then-new method of gamefishing required a steep learning curve. I needed to learn a different way of handling the boat when hooking up on lures as against skip baits. It also involved using a much faster trolling speed. I played around with various drag settings and tried out different lure rigs, including using one hook or two. It was all very exciting.
Then, in 1987, I ‘discovered’ the Three Kings Islands. I had just built Te Ariki Nui and she had a range of over 2000 miles, so I could spend plenty of time up there without worrying about fuel. Furthermore, as there were so many fish on the banks, I could experiment with different techniques, and get a result within a few days. Believe it or not, I once had 107 marlin on in four and a half hours trolling spread over two days. (Out of that I caught 18 on the method I was using then.)
I kept a log and discovered that on my two-hook lure rigs, 90% of my hook-ups were on the top hook. Why was that and what use was the second hook? My catch rate at the time using two hooks and a drag tight enough to set the hook was averaging only one in five strikes or, in a good season, one in four. Then the penny dropped: the top hook was actually hooking up prematurely.
A marlin comes in at a lure because it thinks it is a fish – something it can eat – but I wasn’t treating it as a fish. With the exception of very small fish like saury, a marlin always swallows them headfirst, because otherwise the fins spread out and stick in its throat on the way down. It never takes a baitfish by the tail, instead it strikes diagonally, usually across the body and the gills, then turns the fish around and swallows it head-first. An inspection of the contents of any marlin’s stomach will confirm this.
So the marlin grabs a lure thinking it’s a fish, not from the back, but diagonally, turns it around to swallow, and just as it has got the head in its mouth, up comes that top hook and quite often doesn’t allow the marlin to complete what it’s trying to do – which is swallow its fish head-first. Sure, sometimes it will hook up, but the average is only one out of four or five strikes.
Using two hooks, you may often see the marlin strike and then start jumping right away. That is because it has felt the top hook, which many times is hooked – or is in the process of hooking – in the hard part of its mouth. And being in the hard part, it has often not sunk in, so is easily shaken free. Then we hear the moan: “It threw the hook.”
So I started to experiment with one hook and its placement. Playing around at the Kings, I soon discovered the best place for the curve of a J-hook was at the bottom of the skirt. Furthermore, the hook had to have a long point and be needle-sharp so it could slide in without requiring much pressure.
There was also another problem to be sorted out though. If I was going to let the marlin treat the lure like a fish, it had to be allowed to run with it. How many times have you had a marlin grab a lure, run, then drop it? However, it didn’t actually drop it, you pulled it out of its mouth with too hard a drag.
So I reduced the drag until there was just enough to hold the lure in the Roller-Troller without sliding back. Now, when the marlin struck, it could run. And, for a similar reason, I tried not to tighten up too quickly either; I found the extra weight of the line running through the water was sufficient to drive a needle-sharp hook home. So clear the gear, let the marlin run, then slowly tighten up a bit. If it jumps, it’s felt the hook, so hit it.
Just before I sold Te Ariki Nui my hook-up rate was around 80%, or four out of five. (Because the marlin strikes diagonally, its bill can often come in contact with the leader so you get a bill-wrap, and that’s hard to avoid.)
“Fine,” you may say, “But what’s the old codger getting all excited about?”
Well, the above was to let you know what my fishing life has been about. I’ve tried this way, that way, and had the marlin to practice with, but there is one thing I regretted I never got around to. The leader.
I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while. When I was fishing in Kona on light tackle and we went to catch skipjack for live bait, they were sometimes very hard to catch. Our skipper, Jeff Fay, a well-known Kona skipper, would bring the gear in and transfer the skippy lures to 6kg leaders. We soon had our bag of skippies.
Frank Goodhue from Houhora, another mate of mine who has fished with me a lot and was a commercial fisherman, used to always use a very light leader if the snapper fishing was hard, and always got results. He used it commercially.
“Sure,” he said, “You may lose a few more hooks, but we got a lot more snapper than if we didn’t use them.”
Then I have an underwater video of a marlin coming in at a live bait that was on a 400 or 500lb leader. The leader could be seen clearly and the marlin came up twice, had a good look and then went away, completely ignoring the bait. That really set me thinking.
Late last year I went with some friends to the Kings on Malcolm Pitt’s boat Cara Mia. I told him beforehand that I had a couple of special lures I wanted to use.
“Use whatever you like, Bill,” he said. So when it came to putting the lures in the water, I brought out my two lures rigged on 200lb leader. His deckie, who was also a commercial fisherman, saw the leader and told me I was mad.
“If you can afford to lose the lures, it’s no skin off my nose!” I was told.
Mal put three of his lures out on 180kg (400lb) leader, while I set my two lures with one-hook rigs and 90kg (200lb) leaders. We were up at the Kings a day and a half and caught three marlin, all on my lures. Naturally I was quite excited, but who knows, it could have been a coincidence. Anyway, it was a good trip and we didn’t lose any lures.
A couple of weeks back I was again invited up to the Kings on Azraq, owned by Peter Blackwell, and he had Steve Devine, the ex-All Black with him. It was the same thing again: I brought two one-hook lures rigged on 90kg (200lb) leader, and again put them out amongst Peter’s other three, all on 180kg (400lb) leaders. We got near the top of the King Bank and chased some birds. Next thing, one of my lures took off. It was a kingie of some 35kg. Just as we boated that, my other lure took off, and again, it was a kingie of around the same size.
We continued trolling and my lure went off again – another kingie – but just at we got it near the boat it screamed out once more. When we eventually got it in, it turned out to be a smaller kingie than the others, but we could see where it had been grabbed by a marlin. Of course, we couldn’t hook up, but the marlin strike was quite clear on the body.
A little further on, as we were doing a turn, both my lures suddenly went off to a double strike of marlin. Steve landed one after 90 minutes, which was badly wrapped, but most important, the leader still held. The other marlin we lost.
The following day we went back to the King Bank before returning to North Cape, and my lure went off yet again. Once more it was a marlin, and once again it was wrapped. This time I was on it, and believe me, there was some weight. After almost 90 minutes the poor thing came in sideways, completely wrapped, and I felt as though I had broken my back and six ribs.
Now, let’s have another look. We had a full set of four or five lures out, but my two lures were the only ones to raise fish: three kingies (two of them good sized) and three marlin. As far as we know, we were the only boat out of five or six on the bank to report marlin catches. So, in two trips, one board Cara Mia and one on Azraq, my two lures had hooked six marlin and two large kingies, the only lures on both boats to perform. Was that coincidence? And another thing I noticed: not once did any of us see a marlin behind a lure as one usually does. They all came charging in like Zane Grey’s thundering herd. Not one did we see. Why? More food for thought.
On the heavier leaders I nearly always see them coming in, but now it’s making me wonder – are they first having a closer look before striking?
How often do they come up to a lure then veer off without striking? I remembered my underwater video and the marlin looking at the leader on the live bait and then swimming away. Is it because the lighter leader makes the lure look more like a free-swimming fish and they just charge in? I can miss seeing one marlin coming in, maybe two, but six? If they had followed the usual pattern, I am sure I would have seen at least half of them, but I didn’t, and neither did anyone else.
Both marlin landed were over the 100kg mark. I checked the leaders carefully and saw no signs of damage where they had been wrapped, although there was a small indentation on my Kona lure’s leader just where it emerges from the head. However, this is a very active lure and should be re-rigged regularly, regardless of the leader weight. To overcome this, I inserted plastic tubing down the lure for the leader to run through, and that seemed to stop the wear.
So, where to from here? I believe lighter leaders work and intend to follow up on it, perhaps going even lighter to 60kg (130lb). The obvious question everyone in the Bay has thrown at me is, “But what happens if a big fish gets on?”
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