TEASERS:

The game-fishing season  is finally upon most of the north island, and it all looks very promising. Plenty of yellowfin, striped and blue marlin, and the odd other warm water visitors like mahimahi have also popped up from time to time.  However, there are always those who complain that they haven’t had much luck, and if that’s been the case with you here’s a few thoughts that may just be enough to pep up your spread with the addition of some surplus plastic !

When it comes to teasers, many people think immediately of wooden Kona-faced plugs run off corded line much as Zane Grey would have used. Their modern counterparts include giant marlin lures, daisy-chains, fender teasers such as those sold by Moldcraft, wooden birds by Boone, strings of CD’s and empty cans,  the odd plastic flying fish and Pakula Tackle’s Witchdoctor.  There’s an awful lot of toys being pulled around behind boats, no matter how you look at it.  But, before you turn the page because you think you’re happy with what you have , think a minute about what you’re pulling and what you exactly want your additional bits and pieces out the back to do.

If you want something behind the boat to create commotion and attract fish to your lures, than you’re running EXCITERS.  If you want to run something that attracts a fish and which you then retrieve to the boat so the fish follows it and then eats something you pitch at it, then you’re running TEASERS. And for different species you’re going to have to think differently about what you run. An exciter will normally consist of something that a fish cannot take away from the boat, and it can also be too big for a fish to eat.  A teaser, on the other hand, is designed to let a fish try and eat it so you can take it away and make the damn thing chase it to the back of the boat.  To confuse matters still further, some people try and do both things with the same article, and others will run both teasers and attractors at the same time.  As you can imagine, a 100kg yellowfin will happily eat a marlin teaser without warning and then not come back, whilst a marlin will try and eat an exciter such as a fender or WitchDoctor and then go away in disgust.  You really do have to work out what you want to do with both types of attractor.

Here’s a broad run-down of how you might look at the situation with each of the three main species of fish you’re likely to encounter in NZ waters.

- TUNA like to eat schooling fish, particularly bait-fish that ball.  If you run individual lures with hooks in them, the easiest way to attract tuna  to your spread is to make it irresistible to them, and the easiest way to do that is to add more fish to the “school” behind the boat.  This can best be achieved with daisy-chains and spreader-bars, as Exciters.  My preference is for my tuna exciters not to be hooked and part of the spread  -  many people run small daisy chains and add a hook to the last one for example, and some boats abroad will happily run five or more spreader bars and put an armed bait behind them.  However, my preference is to use exciters which are not armed, and as a result they will stay in your wake and not be taken away by hooked fish.  As a result of this, the tuna will continue to crash your exciters as you hook up on your lures. It’s a simple process, easy to set-up and you have little to do except pull in your exciters if needs be when the boat stops so you can play hooked fish to the boat. In addition, you don’t have to deploy your exciters a long way back, and two large spreader bars with 40 or more baits on each are easy to deploy and retrieve.  I personally like to rig these so they are run through an eye on the rigger (attached with a weak link so the eye can detach in an emergency) which allows you to wind the spreader bar to the eye and leave it dangling there out the way while you deal with your quarry.   On a small trailer boat it will pay to think outside the square and do something like this as two large bars with their baits in the boat in the heat of battle will cause chaos. Another alternative is to run large daisy chains off the corner cleats and feed them into a receptacle such as a thin tall blue poly-bin put into the corner of the boat specifically for that purpose. Either scenario will add meat to your spread and do far more to attract the attention of a shoal of tuna than a pattern of single baits.  Obviously you won’t need to use exciters if you’re in the midst a huge workup with fish leaping out the water, but they are a fantastic option on those days when bites spaced apart. 

Other options also include Strip Teasers, flying fish and exciters made from CD’s and cans. Strip Teasers (http://www.stripteaser.biz/) are long thin strips of clear plastic with holographic fish thermally bonded to them.  The strips roll up for stowage, weigh nothing, have little drag in the water and are substantially durable and relatively impervious to the antics of tunas. Running these on a spreader bar is a great option instead of proper plastic squids, and there is the added advantage of being able to change the strips so your baitfish profile matches the hatch. In the USA they are commonly deployed underwater on weighted dredges, but they work just as well on top of the water and I’m very fond of them. For the person who is limited for space, and who can’t be bothered to manhandle huge spreader bars with zillions of baits on them, a small 24” or 36” Super Bar with strips is a very realistic proposition.

Flying fish imitations come in a range of shapes and prices, be they Moldcrafts little softies, Yummies from Carolina Lures ( HYPERLINK "http://www.carolinalures.com/yummeefln.htm" http://www.carolinalures.com/yummeefln.htm), Area Rule’s little Fish Skin Flyers or similar. They can be used on spreader bars, but are normally rigged on reverse-droppers on a chain. If flying fish are the bait being eaten, an exciter that imitates the particular profile of a flier will elicit far more strikes than a regular fish shape. Indeed, if there is one rule in chasing tuna, it is to match the hatch in size and shape,  colour being far less important. I cannot stress that point more.  If tunas are feeding on 4” baits, you will do far better running 4” lures.  If they eating saury, you will do far better pulling something long and skinny than a fat short lure. Match the hatch  -  gut the first tuna of the day to see what in them and use the binos to see what the birds are eating.

CD’s strung in a chain or cans spaced apart on a knotted rope are also commonly seen offshore nowadays.  I have used both but much prefer to use plastics on spreader bars. CD’s should be chained in loops, and even then will quickly break up or delaminate.  They do flash like hell though, and are best used at relatively slow speeds.  I know of some people who make traditional small daisy chains of them and deploy them off a rigger whilst chunking or jigging on the drift.  I have never used this system but imagine it would create quite a flash and probably be very good for sharking too.  As for cans, I have it under oath that Red Bull is the can to use, and simply punch a hole in each end of the can, tie a knot in the line and continue, spacing them appropriately.  Quite apart from the effectiveness of the exciter, I’d imagine it’s a win/win situation as your crew will be wide awake all day long after drinking the Red Bull.

Finally, a small boat spread for tunas wouldn’t be complete without a few additional thoughts. I have found over the years that I have caught more tunas at slower speeds than high.  That such a 5 or 6 knot speed is better for both fuel consumption and running bibbed lures such as a Rapala is a simple benefit. Indeed, a spreader bar in each rigger works so well with a bibbed minnow running just under it from a flat-line clip on the corner of the boat that you’d think they were made for each other.  Throw in a couple of surface baits on the long riggers and a heavy sub-surface bait on the shotgun and you have a pretty darn good pattern for a small boat.  Tunas aren’t afraid of white water (albacore actually love the stuff) so try trimming the motor up slightly if you’re not getting your fair share of bites.  Last, but not least, if you only have one fish on, DON’T bring all the other gear in, leave it out there, point the boat downsea and bring the fish to the boat steadily.  You may well find the hooked fish will bring the rest of the school back up with it and you’ll suddenly find another fish hits a lure  -  this is particularly true of bibbed minnows.

STRIPED MARLIN  -  the fact that both yellowfin and stripies form a mixed target for many NZ boaties can pose a problem.  If you want to maximise your chances of either species during the day you’ll be better off running exciters rather than teasers.  There is nothing worse than running a teaser for marlin and having a large YF crush it in a crash bite and then go home without you. Likewise, there is nothing worse than wanting to catch a striped marlin and have one come up in a daisy chain and get tangled up so badly the fish is then spooked.  In this respect, spreader bars are a much better bet as an exciter for striped marlin than a daisy chain.  As a species of fish that habitually feeds on balling bait, a stripie will recognise and respond more actively to a bunch of bait than a series of individuals  Indeed, the second largest NZ mainland stripie last season was caught exactly this way  -  it ate a bait run just behind a hook-less spreader bar.

The other simpler option for exciters for striped marlin are very large lures, something along the lines of Black Bart’s Extreme Breakfast, A Gunga, or a Zeus from Legend Lures.  This type of lure is good for both stripies and yellowfin being so large that it is almost impossible for them to eat.  However, the downside is that a 600lb plus blue marlin will have little hesitation in attacking something this size and this can be a problem……..more on this later. When running a large lure like this for any scenario, don’t be tempted into running it off a cleat with rope.  By all means run it off something strong, but wind that strong stuff onto a reel, an old Senator for example. A large blue marlin will happily break fixed rope at speed, but a lure on a reel with a drag will often survive the encounter and you’ll get your $300 exciter back again. 

If you want to tease a striped marlin to the boats so it then eats a bait on whichever tackle you’ve chosen, there’s a few more points to think about other than a YF might eat it first !  Your teaser lure needs to be smooth running and easy to pull to the boat.  An angled head can jump and tangle, turning a hungry fish into a fussy eater, and it can also dig in and make retrieval uneasy, leaving a fish enough time to eat the teaser properly and then go away.  A good teaser is traditionally a symmetrical lure, whether flat faced or cupped, and whether you want it to be hard of soft is a matter of personal preference.  Personally, I think it matters not a jot to the fish, but from the crew’s point of view a softhead is very difficult to take away from a fish that has it firmly in its mouth, while a hard head is much easier to pull out and away from a hungry fish. Indeed, many of the top marlin boats in the world are turning back to hard heads for this very reason, despite the popularity of the SoftHead and its kindness to deck and hullsides.

BLUE MARLIN  -  when you go to sea to catch a blue marlin, it is best to understand that this fish, along with a black marlin, are true beasts, heavy in size and quick in speed. To understand them fully, try to catch a loose bull with your bare hands and some rope to appreciate the damage bulk can do at close quarters, particularly when that bulk is moving at speed close to you. As a result, there is little you can do when it all goes wrong, but by starting off with a few pointers it may be possible to alleviate some of the collateral damage.

Firstly, it almost impossible to think of an effective exciter for a blue marlin.  And by this I’m referring to the removal of the exciter, not the fact that it will attract fish. Almost anything you can physically put in the water can be eaten by this species, and most of the time a blue marlin will eat it in a hurry and in such a way as to sometimes necessitate a change of underwear. Indeed, a large 600lb plus blue marlin will eat a 30lb tuna for breakfast, so an exciter like Bart’s Lunch or a Zeus is but a snack. Even a large fender teaser is a likely sized bait, and this is one of the reasons why I will not run them for blues.  In fact, in my opinion anything that you cannot remove from the water in a hurry is a no-no for blue marlin, and this includes daisy chains, spreader bars, the popular lulu bowling-pins, WitchDoctors and Enormous Johnsons from Moldcraft.  Indeed, nothing gets me worked up more than a professional crew who are proud of the fender that is ripped off their cleat or the disappearing Lunch.  Especially when it’s the only bite they got that day and the fish never came back. 

But, if you’re not going to use exciters, you may choose to bait and switch and that means teasers,  at which point I will point out that anything you put in the water for blue marlin should be rigged on 400lb mono at the very least.  Personally I use 650lb Extra Hard Moimoi or Superior Suffix as my starting point and I go up from there. Leader can break during a fight just as easily as line, and there is no excuse for losing fish by the boat if you’ve knowingly gone too light on the leader. Tangled fish will snap leader, and a jumping fish can break it by landing on it.  So go big from the off, and to get away with using that bulk, go to wind-ons. Wind-ons are excellent for teasers, especially on electric reels where you may have gone for the full 15’ of leader. Indeed, a wind-on can let you bring a teaser right up to the rigger eye, leaving little to dangle in the briny and provide a target for a teased fish  -  more than one rigger has been broken by a blue inhaling a dangling lure.

The teasers themselves can be of the same ilk as those mentioned for the striped marlin earlier, although as a blue marlin is more than capable of eating larger bait the teasers can be larger too. Remember the golden rule, you must be able to get it way from the fish, and with a blue marlin this is all but impossible if they’re really fired up.  You’re trying to get them it a bait, remember, and a fish attached to 400 yards of mono and with your teaser in its mouth is not likely to reappear for dessert.

Incidentally, one piece of advice you may balk at and think unnecessary, is to run your teasers on at least 300 lb mono.  This is not so much for the strength issue, but more for the fact that when a blue eventually does eat your teaser and you want to get it away from the fish, it is far safer on your fingers and hands when you grab the line or jam them in the spool to have that nice big kind mono to get hold of, not some nasty thin line.  Under no circumstances should you ever use braid for teaser lines, by the way.

As one of the apex predators of the ocean, a blue has little to fear in the wild, and your boat is the main attraction for such a fish.  Remember that.  Many, many blues are caught every year by people who put four lures in the water and nothing else. No teasers, no exciters, nothing. The best blue marlin crews in the world rarely use more than four lures, and whether they are hooked or used as teasers, you’ll often find that they are not overly sized and are easy to eat. The “Hawaiian huge lure” mindset that I touched on last month is rarely encountered on most of these boats   -  it is much more the reserve of the many thousands of people who fish recreationally and consider themselves at the front of their game  -  but that’s another story. Just remember, to catch a blue marlin, it can be as simple as being in the right place at the right time with a lure that is easy to eat, and with hooks/leader/tackle capable of handling your victim.

Now, it may be that a larger lure may attract a blue marlin better than a smaller one, and an active lure may trigger a response quicker or more violent than a quiet lure.  But a lure pattern carefully thought out to cater for the predatory instincts of a blue can tick all the boxes, and a wise angler who thinks a little can make all sorts of lures work to their advantage.  One of the commonest ways to resolve some issues is to run an easy-to-eat lure behind a large lure.  In this scenario, the large lure, although armed with hooks, plays the role of an exciter. The easy-to-eat lure, on the other hand, can be any lure you would use as a teaser and is therefore easy running. 

If ever there was one thing to remember about blue marlin, it is not to over-complicate the issue.  Blues are so quick, so strong and so unexpected that it pays to keep things very, very simple.  Indeed, in its simplest form, a good set-up for blue marlin from small boats is a couple of loud active lures with hooks up short, and a couple of easy to eat lures on the riggers.  A bait is then set up in the boat with loose line in a bucket of water, that, when dropped back, will end up in the area exactly where the short lure is run.  A Power Gum loop or Dacron loop is attached to the line and put in another rigger clip.  When a fish appears on the short bait, the lure is simply retrieved to the boat, smoothly, but quickly, allowing the blue to come to the boat with it.  As the lure is taken out of the water, the bait is thrown outboard and will come tight on the loop in the clip. The angler holding the rod should have the reel in free-spool and the rod out to one side.  As the blue reaches the boat it will turn in a circle back towards the area where the short bait was. On its circle it will come across the newly-arrived bait, and it will eat it.  It is as simple as that.  Blue are programmed to do this manoeuvre almost automatically, and 9 times out of 10, this is what will happen.  As the fish eats the bait, the angler should drop the rod backwards towards the fish and free-spool (and I mean free-spool, no fingers, nothing) for a count of at least 10 before coming tight.  If you’re using a circle hook, simply load the rod and hang on without striking.

All of this means that a crew prepared to adapt to the situation, can run a generic marlin/tuna pattern that caters for almost anything in NZ waters, as long as at least one person is prepared to work a little and be close to a teaser rod. For tunas alone, it is better to put out a spread that caters exclusively for tunas and count a billfish as bycatch, though anyone who pulls hook-less spreader bars will be well advised to have a bait ready to drop back to a stripie or marlin if raised.  On my 509 Stabi this season, for example, I’ll be running a hook-less spreader bar off one rigger, and a large hook-less lure off the other. I don’t want a blue marlin, so there will be no hooks in the large lure, but there will be a saury bait rigged to drop back to either a stripie or a YF.  I’ll also have another stick set-up for casting lures at surface fish, and another for dropping live-baits to targets on the sounder  -  but that’s another story.