A GREAT NEW WAY TO TROLL..AND WIN!

[Fred Archer]

IF YOU ARE EVEN THINKING OF GETTING INTO A LOCAL MARLIN TOURNAMENT AND THINK THAT YOU STAND A CHANCE OF PLAYING "THE BIG GUYS' GAME" AND WINNING, FORGET IT! YOU NEED THE BATTLEWAGON, UNLIMITED BUDGET, HUGE BAIT TANKS, A BUNCH OF GUYS IN GYROS AND MUCH, MUCH MORE. TRYING TO DO THAT IS A SUCKER'S GAME THAT TOO MANY PLAY. HERE IS AN EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE, EASY, FUN ALTERNATIVE THAT YOU CAN PRACTICE EVERY TIME THAT YOU FISH, NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE FISHING FOR AT THE TIME. AND SOONER OR LATER, IT WILL PUT SOMEONE IN THE MARLIN MONEY!

THIS MAY BE NEW TO MANY, BUT IT IS NOT NEW AND HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY PROVEN BY MANY TOP ANGLERS AFTER BIG MARLIN AMONG SMALLER ONES, OR AMONG TUNA OR EVEN DORADOS, EITHER "JUST FISHING", OR IN A TOURNAMENT SITUATION. IT REALLY WORKS! SORRY FOR THE BIG PRINT, BUT I AM HAVING VISION PROBLEMS AND THIS IS SO THAT I CAN SEE WHAT I AM TYPING...I'M NOT YELLING HERE.

AS A DIED-IN-THE-WOOL, LONG TERM BAIT AND SWITCHER, MY FAVORITE WAY OF FISHING FOR ANYTHING, THERE'S NO DOUBT WHAT I'D BE DOING, WHEREVER I WAS FISHING IN A BIG FISH MARLIN TOURNAMENT. BUT I MIGHT NOT BE DOING WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T PLAYED THE GAME MUCH MIGHT THINK.

FIRST, A BIT OF BACKGROUND FROM CHAPTER TWELVE OF MY MARLIN BOOK, WRITTEN BY CAPTAIN RODDY HAYS, ENTITLED "BIG LURES ALL OF THE TIME?" (A REMINDER, STRIPED MARLIN AND WHITEY ARE KISSIN' COUSINS AND THIS REALLY APPLIES TO MR. WHITE BOY TOO.)

".......One of the reasons for that is because plenty of anglers are happy in the belief that marlin, both striped and blue, feed a lot on skipjacks and tunas. The truth could hardly be further away from that. While both species will eat larger prey, the stripy is a different animal from a blue, in so much as the spreads that some people run hardly suit either species while trying to attempt to do just that.
Mr. Stripie likes small fish, particularly those they can ball up, either individually or as a group of predators, and then pick them off in the way that striped marlin have been doing forever. Most baits ball up readily as part of their genetic evolution – mackerels, sauries, sardines and squid being just some examples. Therefore, a lot of the time the lures we run for stripies in no way come close to resembling the bait they WANT to eat, although they might emulate food that they might try to munch on if nothing else is available. A much better bet for striped marlin (as has been proven by those who use them) is a spread of spreaderbars, or two, or three or more of them, with individual baits alongside or, as it is with spreaderbar chasebaits, close behind the teaser pods, all presented in a way that they can still work and be eaten when the boat is slowed. While a high speed lure will, and does, catch many fish, the bait ball imitation theory will always be my first choice for stripies. Note, trolling eleven lures from a 6mm tinny does not, in my view, constitute an accurate representation of what I’m talking about here!.......
Blue marlin, on the other hand, do chase down and eat fish such as tuna and skipjack on a regular basis, and are much better prospects for lures than stripies are. Unfortunately, though, when the layers of blue water society are peeled back, we find that this majestic and speedy, spool-emptying creature, which has a habit of filling us with shrieking terror, is, like the smaller marlin, in fact a couch potato at heart as well! Yes, our beloved blue marlin will happily eat the tiniest of baitfish, for days at a time, rather than frantically rip up miles of ocean in pursuit of yellowfin or dorado. I have lost count a long time ago of the amount of blues I have caught either directly from, or around, bait balls of fish ranging in length from four inches up to typical slimy mackerel size. Indeed, some of the largest fish of my career have been caught on the smallest baits in my spread.
So while the lures that we pull behind our boats might well have caught fish before, they will in all likelihood in no way represent what the fish REALLY wants to eat when she comes a-visiting. For the traditional blue marlin lure-dragger, who is in the thrall of the whole Hawaiian “thing”, this may come as a blow. But to be truthful, blue marlin love to feed on shoaling (schooling) fish as much as they can, be it squid, mackerel, sardines or deep water bait suspended above their natural habitat by up-wellings.
This is why, after many an attempt at a large lure on the corner, a big fish is often caught on the wee thing out there on the shotgun or long rigger. Instinctively, as an apex predator, they know that the smaller, less agile fish represents a better return for the effort spent in pursuit.”

HOPEFULLY, THIS WILL HELP EXPLAIN HOW I WOULD AND DO GO ABOUT BAIT AND SWITCHING FOR A BIG BLUE OR BLACK. MY TEASERS WOULD BE "BAIT PODS IN PANICKED, PURSUED FORMATIONS": IN OTHER WORDS, UNARMED SUPERBARS. THE REASONS WOULD BE TWOFOLD (I AM GOING TO TRY TO KEEP THIS SHORT AND I AM NOT ABOUT TO TRY TO PUT WHAT TAKES UP MANY PAGES OF A LARGE BOOK HERE ON THIS SITE.)

FIRST, AS RODDY POINTED OUT, BAIT ALWAYS TRAVELS IN SCHOOLS. A SINGLE LURE OR A COUPLE OF THEM REPRESENT TARGET OPPORTUNITIES, NOT THE MORE COMMON AND NATURAL SCHOOLS THAT, NUMBER TWO, A BAIT OR BAITS HAVE TO BE FLUSHED OR SPOOKED OUT OF IN ORDER FOR THEM TO BECOME INDIVIDUAL TARGETS FOR MARLIN OR OTHER GAMEFISH. THE FORMER IS IMPORTANT FROM THE STANDPOINT OF RAISING FISH IN THE FIRST PLACE AND THE LATTER IS KEY TO NOT HAVING TO PLAY TUG OF WAR WITH THE WRONG SIZE OR SPECIES OF BILLFISH.

SPEND ENOUGH TOWER TIME, EAKING OUT EVERY BIT OF KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU CAN GAIN WATCHING MARLIN OF ALL KINDS COME IN ON A MEATBALL OF BAIT (A SPREADERBAR), OR WATCH ANY VIDEO OF THEM AFTER A MOVING BAIT BALL AND YOU WILL QUICKLY SEE THAT THEY APPROACH THE MEATBALL FAR DIFFERENTLY THAN THE SINGLE TARGET OPPORTUNITY. INSTEAD OF POUNCING ON THE POD OF BAIT, MARLIN OF ALL KINDS TRY TO BLUFF OR SPOOK A TARGET OR TARGETS OUT OF THE POD THAT THEY CAN THEN ZERO IN ON AND EAT. THEY SIMPLY DO NOT ATTACK THE ENTIRE BALL. SCHOOLS OF SAILS ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE ONE OR TWO FISH BUST UP A MEATBALL. IT SIMPLY IS NOT HOW INDIVIDUAL MARLIN FEED. AND SO IF YOU ARE RUNNING BAIT PODS, YOU HAVE TIME TO EITHER WAIT UNTIL THE WRONG FISH GIVES UP AND LEAVES, OR YOU PULL THE BARS AWAY FROM HIM - A VERY EASY MATTER WITH A LIGHTWEIGHT MARLINBAR VERSUS HUGE, HARD-PULLING TEASERS THAT A BIG MARLIN IS PROBABLY GRABBING AND TRYING TO EAT.

MAXIMIZING TEASING TROLL TIME IS ONE OF THE ESSENCES OF BIG FISH BAIT AND SWITCH FISHING. BARS MAXIMIZE IT AND MINIMIZE ACTUAL "GRAB AND YANK" TIME. AND ON TOP OF THAT, FAR MORE THAN ONCE WE HAVE HAD AN AMPED-UP, SUPER-FRUSTRATED SMALLER BLUE OR EVEN STRIPER BACK THERE TRYING TO SPOOK A BAIT OUT OF A POD, WHEN A FAR BIGGER UNIT, OBVIOUSLY ATTACTED BY THE SITE AND SOUND OF THE FIRST FISH FREAKING OUT SHOWS UP, SHOVES THE LITTLE ONE ASIDE (LITERALLY!) AND WE WIND UP PITCHING TO THAT SECOND ONE BECAUSE SHE IS WHAT WE WERE AFTER. THE SAME THING HAPPENS WHEN THE TUNAS SHOW UP AND START BOMBING THE HELL OUT OF THE BARS. ANYONE WHO HAS SEEN THAT HAS TO KNOW WHAT A GREAT BIG MARLIN ATTRACTION THAT IS! (AND IT'S A BLAST AND A HALF TO WITNESS, TOO!) BESIDES NOT RUINING THAT GREAT "NATURAL TEASER" BY HOOKING THE TUNAS, YOU DO NOT WANT TUNA THAT DON'T COUNT EATING UP YOUR MARLIN FISHING TIME!

I MAKE MARLIN AND GIANT TUNA BARS WITH SQUIDS AS LARGE AS 20' LONG. BIG, FAT ONES THAT RIVAL VERY LARGE MARLIN LURES, BE THEY TEASERS OR ARMED, IN A WIDE SELECTION OF COLORS THAT MIMIC DORADO, TUNA, SKIPJACK AND OF COURSE, GIANT SQUID. BUT UNLESS I KNEW OR SUSPECTED THAT THE FISH WERE FEEDING ON THOSE BIG BAITS, I WOULDN'T BE TROLLING THE BIG CRITTERS. INSTEAD, AND GOING BACK TO AND AGREEING WHOLEHEARTEDLY WITH RODDY ABOUT BLUES FEEDING ON SMALLER BAITS, I'D BE RUNNING FULL MARLINBAR TEASERS WITH 8.5" PROSQUIDS ON EACH CORNER, IN TIGHT AND EASY TO SEE AND PITCH A BAIT BEHIND (THAT REPRESENTS THE TARGET THAT MARLIN BACK THERE IS TRYING TO BUST OUT OF THE BAIT POD.)

THIS KIND OF BAIT AND SWITCH CAN BE DONE 100% IGFA LEGALLY.

THAT'S ENOUGH. I DON'T WANT TO TAKE UP ANY MORE SPACE THAN THIS AND DON'T WANT TO RE-WRITE WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN.

THIS IS EASY AND FUN AND IT REALLY WORKS, WHETHER YOU ARE FISHING TUNA, MARLIN, OR BOTH.