Swordfishing techniques - daytime drops

Regrettably business commitments overseas really eat into my marlin fishing season during the southern hemisphere’s summer, so I only get a very small window to enjoy the great fishing available here on my doorstep in the Bay of Islands.

It was during the latter part of the New Zealand marlin season that I hatched a plan to chase swordfish during the day. It was the perfect time of year, with the marlin fishing tapering off and the swords just beginning to bite.

However, while it was all very well deciding to target swordfish during the day, all my experience with swords had been gained by targeting them at night. Daytime swords are a different proposition.

For a start, as these fish tend to be deeper in the water column during the daytime, I wasn’t sure of the best way to deploy a bait in 400-500m of water. In such situations there is only one correct response – Google it! So I set about researching every article I could find online. All the information I came up with was from anglers fishing the high-current areas out of Florida. The rigs used here looked very complicated, but I decided to give some a try on my next few marlin fishing trips. A few dummy drops in relatively shallow water seemed to be the best approach, as I didn’t want to try dropping in deeper water until I had my system working in a completely foolproof way. It is fair to say I wasn’t keen on dropping a 5kg weight into 500m of water and then trying to wind it up again.

Regrettably my shallow water test drops did not go as planned, with my Florida-style rigs ending up spinning into what looked like a spider’s web. Frustration quickly set in – and the reports of great sword fishing on the Garden Patch only made my frustration worse. There had to be a better way. It was time to get some help.

As I have mentioned in the past, a good network of fishing friends is invaluable, not only for finding fish, but also for sharing knowledge. I have never been shy about asking fellow fisherman for information on the rigs or techniques they are using, so I made a phone call to a good mate of mine, Chris Ash. Chris is one of those extraordinary fishermen who can catch anything that swims and has the uncanny ability to adjust to any fishing situation he’s faced with. Surely Chris would be able to shed some light on the subject?

After chatting to Chris for a few minutes on the phone and explaining what I had been doing, Chris suggested simplifying my rig into what was basically a glorified hapuku rig. While I have always found simplicity is best, I had a tough time believing that a ‘modified hapuku rig’ would do the job on the gladiators of the sea! But as Chris has more experience with swords than me, I headed back to the workshop to make some new rigs for Chris to have a look at.

Later, with my rigs having received Chris’s approval, we agreed to head to the Garden Patch to test them when the next fine-weather window arrived.

As luck would have it, the weather gods smiled the following week, with a large high pushing across the country and producing perfect conditions for our mission. So we loaded the little Lazercraft and headed to Matai Bay for an early morning start. Sure enough, the weather was perfect and the sea like a mirror.

It is only a relatively short run from Matai Bay to the Garden Patch, so we were at our spot in less than an hour.

We started off with a dummy drift while Chris rigged a squid as bait. The drift direction and speed was great, so we motored back up to the top mark and dropped our bait. With this being a test trip, I had not gone to great lengths to get any flash gear. Instead, I just used what I had on hand – in this case an 80-wide outfit loaded with 80lb mono. The new rig seemed to work well though, with the bait dropping to the bottom and coming to a stop. Chris then wound the stretch out of the mono until the weight came on the rod and bent it over. With the conditions being so perfect, I did not have to use the engine to keep the boat straight up and down on the bait, so it was just a matter of waiting.

The bait had only been down a maximum of five minutes when the rod straightened and the weight came off. Chris began winding in to see what was going on, but the weight stayed off; we decided we might have a swordfish on and it was swimming to the surface.

So Chris got all harnessed up and started winding the slack line in. There was actually a constant weight all the way up once we got settled into things; the fish must have created a large belly with so much line out. Consequently, it was not until Chris got to within about 75m from the surface that the weight really came on and the reel started to lose some line. I kept nudging the boat ahead, trying to keep the line away from us, as we were not sure where the fish actually was.

After some committed winding by Chris and a few deft boat manoeuvres by me, we saw the ghostly shape of a very fat sword appear down deep below the boat – prompting us to exchange a couple of high fives!

It was now a matter of getting it in the boat, and my past experiences of catching swords at night told me this was going to be easier said than done. I also knew that if we got an early shot we should take it, as I have ended up with fights going on for a good few hours after missing a shot at the trace early in the fight. Chris kept working the fish up, and I kept driving forward to keep up with it.

We must have been doing about eight knots when the swivel popped up and I got my first shot at the leader. I got a good wrap on it, but the sword was trucking ahead far too fast for me to drive the boat and leader her without something going very wrong. So with a heavy heart I let the trace go, then pulled the boat away to hopefully have another attempt at the trace when circumstances allowed. But had I just sentenced Chris to two or three more hours of pulling?

The sword shot off on the surface and then gave an amazing display around the boat, but without pulling more than about 50 metres of line. By chance, once the display was all over, the sword just lay in the water shaking its head, presenting the perfect chance for another shot at the leader. So we raced over and grabbed it. This saw the fish charging around the back of the boat while I hunkered down and hung on, allowing Chris to come over with a gaff and place a good shot. I was then able to drop the trace and come in with a second gaff – and the fish was ours.

Chris didn’t muck around, and I was still in shock as I helped him pull our fish into the Lazercraft; it was only 8.30 in the morning and a mere 25 minutes after dropping the bait – now we had a 130kg sword in the boat. Plenty of time for another one, too!

We sat there for a few minutes so we could catch our breath and tidy up the boat a bit before heading back to our marks for another drop. Chris mentioned he’d better rig up a second bait, but when he pulled the rig out of our swordfish, the bait looked absolutely perfect. No point in wasting good bait, so Chris simply tied on another weight and we were ready for our next drop.

Our second-hand bait didn’t even reach the bottom before the weight came off the rod. It was my turn as angler, so I started the long wind to the top.

Meantime, I had a friendly word to Chris: under no circumstances was he to let go of the trace if we got an early shot, as I didn’t want to fight this fish for hours. Naturally Chris was quick to remind me of my recent decision to drop the trace on his fish!

The weight slowly came on again with about 100m of line out, and then the fish came to life with constant head shakes. I decided to keep the drag light, as I didn’t want to pull the hook. I had just enough drag on the fish to gain line. After about another five minutes the fish was in view – it was another sword of about 95kg!

We slowly worked the fish up, Chris got the trace and eased the fish within gaffing range, enabling me to get a good gaff shot, with Chris quickly following with a second gaff. This one was also pulled into the boat extremely quickly, as Chris was concerned a mako shark might be nearby. (Taking a fish under these circumstances means things can turn to custard very quickly.)

Chris told me to get a tail rope on the fish fast and tie it off tight. This was a wise move, as my sword proceeded to explode soon after. Luckily, Chris was able to maintain some control by standing on the broadie’s bill, so with the tail tied off short the enraged sword could not get up enough steam to wreck my diminutive craft.

Consequently, we’d got our second sword in the boat in less than an hour and a half of fishing time – a great start to our daytime sword-fishing missions!

Since that first mission I have done a couple more, with action from swords occurring on each occasion, but without any more successful landings.

I have noticed a few things from these trips that may help you to be successful if you also decide to chase swordfish during the day.

First, nearly all the bites happened very soon after dropping the bait to the bottom or on the way down. It is almost as if the swords chase the bait as it descends.

Second, I do not leave my bait down too long. If I have not had a bite in the first 15 minutes of dropping, I will only leave the bait down another 5 to 10 minutes before pulling it up so I can drop it again. Third, I also slowly move down the edge I’m fishing with each drop so I can cover a larger area.

Of course these observations are made on the basis of a very small sample of days chasing swords, so I’m sure I will learn more as time goes by. 

A deepwater strobe light is clipped a couple of metres from the top of the leader.

The rig

After some thought, the concept of utilising heavier weights in our rigs was abandoned, as we are very close to spots where we fish for bluenose and only need heavy sinkers to successfully harvest them. Also, our sea conditions are very different to those facing the guys in Florida; we don’t have anywhere near the current they have, so we can use a rig that requires relatively little weight.

I start off with an 8-metre length of 600lb mono with a two-hook rig on the end. The rear hook is the biggest J hook I can get – I have been using 16/0 so I can really put some heat on the fish – while the leading hook is a circle type, so if the J hook tears out, this one hopefully ends up catching the fish in the corner of the mouth. I use a length of cable between the hooks, just like a lure rig.

On the leader I whip two wax-thread loops. The first is placed about three metres up from the top hook; I attach a small diamond-shaped light to it. I then whip another loop two metres from the swivel end of the leader, and this is where I put the big strobe light.

On the weight front I only use a 30-ounce ‘puka bomb’. I tie 2-3m of 10-15kg mono from the weight up to a small swivel, and then one metre of 6kg mono to the hook. I found this was the best breakaway weight as the sinker stayed on if we didn't get a bite and I could wind it pretty easily back up and still have it attached.

I have also been using squid for bait. The reason for this is that they are readily available and extremely streamlined, which makes them easy to send to the bottom and – importantly – easy to wind up if you have not had a bite. Large skipjack are nowhere near as manageable when using this rig.