Swordfish Trolling Report

[islandshark633]

We went out Monday and Wednesday nights specifically to troll for swordfish off Fort Lauderdale/Miami on the 50 line, here's the results -

Monday - 0/5 knockdowns. Best chance came on a fake rubber 6" tuna with a circle hook in front of it but the swordy had slashed through the 200#leader and got off. Other 4 hits came on my white lures, they did not touch the dark blue or purples. 4/5 hits came on lures trolled with no lightstiks. The fish were definately very interested in eating the lures but we just could not get them to set the hooks. Drags were at 18# and we had several long runs peeling off plenty of line, then nothing.

Wednesday - 0/1. Tried drifting squid the first 2 hours - nothing. Trolled from 10 pm to 3 am all over the place with one lone hit, screaming reel - then nothing.

Over all the fishing had been slow for everyone and only small fish at or below 48" keeper length. Even the buoy guys gave up on Wed by 1 am as they caught nothing either.

Both nights were dark, no moon and cloudy. So my theory of dark lure/dark night goes out the window. Light is definatly not required, they had absolutely no problem finding the lures in pitch dark. I would say that a small lightstik at the swivel was more useful to the fishermen so you can sett he lines without tangling.

Trolling speeds were never less than 5 knots, we had hits up to 11 knots. Leaders must be 400# or greater for trolling these guys.

I have ideas for trying other things next time........

[BiggestT]

Alan, try doing the opposite on your drag settings: the minimum necessary to stop line from going out while trolling. Also, I realize you can cover a lot more ground at 7 knots, but try going slower like around 3 knots. I imagine it is harder than hell to stick a sword on a reaction bite. The boy's in NZ will rig a drop back by rubber banding to a flatline clip at the transom and dumping a loop of line in the wash between the flatline clip and the rod tip (down below the also rubber band to a piece of dacron off the downrigger weight). They'll have the reel barely in gear with clicker on. You want the fish to get the offering in its mouth and going away from you. Otherwise, you're probably dealing with bill whacks/strikes and tanglement on the bill which does not make for solid hook sets.

[BiggestT]

Alan, try doing the opposite on your drag settings: the minimum necessary to stop line from going out while trolling. Also, I realize you can cover a lot more ground at 7 knots, but try going slower like around 3 knots. I imagine it is harder than hell to stick a sword on a reaction bite. The boy's in NZ will rig a drop back by rubber banding to a flatline clip at the transom and dumping a loop of line in the wash between the flatline clip and the rod tip (down below the also rubber band to a piece of dacron off the downrigger weight). They'll have the reel barely in gear with clicker on. You want the fish to get the offering in its mouth and going away from you. Otherwise, you're probably dealing with bill whacks/strikes and tanglement on the bill which does not make for solid hook sets.

I would love to bring my stuff and get out with you guys.

[Ali]

Nice Report.

Keep us posted on the swordie action over that way!

[islandshark633]

dropping back a real squid was discussed on the boat and we might even go so far as to troll the lures with no hooks in them, then drop back the squid once we know they are back there getting all worked up with the lures.

the drags are set heavy due to the speed of trolling, we were going up to 14 knots at times. One lure was on a hi-speed wahoo rig, 3# torpedo weight in line and 30ft leader to the lure. You must keep significant drag to run this set ( it was hit twice ) If the fish is large, 150# and up they will hang themselves as my buddy Dan has proven repeatedly. We are 99% sure we were dealing with very few and very small fish last week.

now it remains for me to find the swords here in the Bahamas, covering lots of ground at hi speeds seems to be the way to go here as I am not aware of them concentrating anywhere. We also have a sharky problem so trolling will negate that irritation too.

[BiggestT]

Alan, in the current (May '07) issue of Marlin Magazine there is an excellent article on the science behind the behavior of bigeye tuna. The opening three paragraphs caught my attention in particular:

'Bigeye tuna have evolved to live at very deep ocean depths --sometimes 400 to 600 meters from the surface during daylight hours, " says Richard Brill, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (actually a friend of mine who works for the IATTC has several archival tag returns from bigeye tuna that dove as deep as 900 meters). Bigeye hang much closer to the surface during the dark of night, at depth of 30 to 100 meters depending on the amount of light from the moon. This daily vertical-migration pattern mimics the movement of the DSL, or deep scattering layer --a large ecosystem of of planktonic organisms, squid, crustaceans and fish that migrate up and down in the ocean following an isolume, or particular level of light.

"Because of the sheer volume of the oceans, the daily movement of the DSL is actually the largest migration of organisms on the entire planet," Brill says.

Scientists believe that the organisms in the DSL (Deep Scattering Layer) developed the vertical migration pattern to escape predation by hiding in the cold and oxygen-deprived water of the deep during vulnerable daylight hours In a sort of "physiological arms race," bigeye tuna, swordfish and bigeye thresher sharks evolved to follow this rich ecosystem as it migrates so they can exploit it as a food source.

Remember what I said about the night sword trolling boys in NZ hooking bigeye threshers in the same zone as swords? Same eye adaptations, same isolume (light level) = same zone.

Interestingly the article talked about how the bigeye's retina has a tapetum -- a reflective coating at the back of the eye that gives the retina a second chance at absorbing the light it receives. Having a tapetum greatly increases the sensitivity of an animal's eyes in low-light conditions. The article goes on to say: "With such a specialized eye, on can't help but wonder if the bigeye can see color. "By dedicating cells in the retina to absorbing a greater range of color, the eye loses sensitivity," says Kerstin Fritsches, a research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia focusing solely on the visual capabilities of pelagic fish. "Since the majority of a bigeye's feeding is done in low light, it makes sense that they've given up the majority of their color vision as a trade-off to being sensitive."

I notice that the color of your skirts are black/purple and that you prefer trolling without the chem sticks. I think you also said that you did not like the glow Moldcraft lures made for swords. I have not had success with those and have very little confidence in them. When I ordered my shell squids for sword lures, I included black/purple along with purple/pink, and oranges, but I gave my black/purple skirts to a buddy. I think I need to order some more

[islandshark633]

finally found and read the article, very interesting.

here in the Bahamas we have some extreemely deep water, like well beyond 10,000 ft. There are humps rising 3000 ft from the bottom, but they peak 6000 ft below the surface. We do not have the relatively flat bottom of the gulf stream near S. Fl in 400-1500 ft that the Fl boys catch so many swords in.

my question is do swords actually like to be near the bottom or are they quite happy to be in the DSL, even tho the bottom may still be thousands of feet below? i.e. would I be wasting my time going to one of these deep water humps 30 miles away or would it be a great idea? Gas is $4.12 a gallon here so I need to make some good guesses where to go......

[BiggestT]

Good question. Unless you plan on deep dropping in 3000' of water during the day, I would think those humps are way too deep to have any influence (ie upwelling and food concentration) on surface trolling. Given your fuel cost, I don't think it would be worth the run. I'll try and find out, but I think that 1000 meters is towards the deeper end of how deep they go during the day, but that will vary depending on the area.

Way back in the day, Milt Shedd stuck some acoustic tracking tags in swordfish off of Cabo and SoCal. They had one fish tracked that was stationary on the bottom in 1200' of water during the day. They were thinking it was resting on the bottom, pointed into the current, using its pectoral fins and tail as a tripod. Probably just sitting down there waiting for feed to wash into its face. At dusk the fish rose to the surface and moved to deeper open water offshore, typically following routes along canyon walls.