Heeia Kea 10/25

[ahi lawaia]

Originally Posted by Chasst

So how about those multiple fish on one bar? Does it happen? When we've got 4 or 5 fish on troll gear, it seams like they wouldn't hesitate to bit an extra lure next to a hooked fish . . . that could be exciting!

Chass
ct

Chass - On a bar, only the trailing chasebait has a hook in it, none of the teaser squid do, hence you will not catch multiple fish on one bar at the same time. You might catch multiple fish on the same bar, but it'll have to be one at a time. What else may happen is that you may get multiple fish on at the same time, but on different lines. On an Archer bar, the last teaser squid has a snap in it that allows quick easy attachment/changing of chasebaits. See the below for an illustration of the chasebait configuration and also the versatility of the bars regarding different chasebaits (this is just one of many Archer bars; go to his website to see more).



In a nutshell, the bars represent little pods of bait with the chasebait representing a laggard weak member of the pod or a pursuing predator. The real predator, the one you want to hook, is stimulated to bite the chasebait, either because it percieves the chasebait as easy pickings or as a competing predator.

Aloha.

[LundieF]

You guys run these bars at your usual trolling speed, or gotta run slower?

[patfishhi]

Lundie,
We have the 6"&9" (ruckus raisers) and run them at regular trolling speeds. We did actually tangle them once when surfing down sea, but only once.

Pat

[jonesd055]

Last year we ran some Archer Meatball Bars at T-Buoy/FAD. Was pretty flat and we had four Meatball Bars out, trolled at regular trolling speed. We ended up pulling two (the outrigger) Meatball Bars in because it was to much of a hassle to put the outrigger lines back out after we took multiple hookups (almost every time) passing by the pile. That was the first day I ever got multiples on my boat so I was pretty stoked.


Here's the birds cruising around the FAD that day:

YouTube - T Buoy


This:

From Fishing

+ This:

From Fishing

= This:

From Fishing

and This:

From Fishing

[Fred Archer]

Thanks for the comments, advice, experiences, etc., guys. Superbars and RuckusRaisers are so new to many fishermen, it really helps when the first actual users (pioneers, in fact) pass on their experiences to others who may be curious about things like this. As you can see, they really do kick ass when it comes to catching fish and are easy as pie to use and are very versatile.

On the speed issue, they run fine from slow, like four knots, to very fast, as in up to and over twelve knots. In the case of the RuckusRaisers, even faster. They are great for cruising from spot to spot at moderately fast speeds and account for a lot of bonus fish where there are no signs (make sure those clickers are on!) Wahoo really love bars and we had great success with them at virtually all speeds with faster being better at times. RuckusRaisers and ProBars are our best high speed bars.

Jonesy...ha, ha! I LOVED that ("had to pull two of them in because we were getting four fish multiples on them over and over again." That's the kind of trouble that I love having happen and it does happen more often and over and over again more with SuperBars than any other lure I've ever seen. We used to go for what we called an "El Ocho Grande" often down in Cabo. The object was to hook and land eight fish out of one stop. And the amazing thing is that we accomplished it many, many times. The stops were often multiple species, too, usually tuna, often with dorado and/or wahoo, but sometimes included striped marlin. They were an absolute blast and a half and the less crankers we had, the better as far as we were concerned. Of course, we never had more than six clients and actually that many was rare. We usually had only three or four and those El Ocho's were wild and crazy. Our customers loved 'em!

The secrets to multiples of all kinds is first of all to offer enough "food" in the pattern to interest big schools in the first place, then to keep going in the same direction and at the same speed when you hook up. The rest of the schools will stay with the boat wake and remaining lures until they are all gone, then it's time to slow down some and for the cockpit dancing and cutting in to start happening. I might have had the most fun of all, driving from up in the tuna tower. Wonderful stuff that, like I said, happened a lot, the reason being there were close to, or depending on the bars used, well over a hundred lures in the pattern. That's plenty of chow for whole schools and they really come up for it. (Hell, less than half that is a lot of "trolling chum"!)

Before I forget, your vid came through, but your picts wouldn't show, Jonesy. Man, what a tease!

As for the more fish on one bar, as Ahi Lawaia pointed out, they are designed to catch fish one at a time. Back in the early days we did a video that was meant to show how strong the little, light composite bars were. So we put hooks on the last two squids on the outside. We hooked up a couple of little, twenty-five pound yellowfins and when we got them up to the boat, I grabbed the center of the bar itself and heaved it over my shoulder with the fish hanging, looked at the video camera and simply said, "And they're strong, too!" Meanwhile, one of the damned fish slapped me in the gonads and dropped me to my knees! Needless to say, we only did one take of that one!

Finally, every bar bite is a surface bite and each bar is easy to see as it swims along the top, looking exactly like a small school of bait. It is downright addicting watching them cruising along and then seeing the pattern literally explode with tuna or whatever suddenly blasting them. Regular lures were hard for folks to see, so they didn't watch the pattern very much. But things were far different when it came to the bars. After they saw them get gang-banged on the first time, they never took their eyes off of them for the rest of the day, waiting for that next bunch of explosions. It's a sight to see and I have included a couple of them here for you. Live is better, of course, but I think you can get an idea from these.

Thanks again for the inputs, guys!

The MarlinBar shown is one of those high speed ProBars.

Now, as we used to say in Mexico, "hooka, hooka, hooka, hooka, hooka, hooka!!!!!"

[jonesd055]

Photos should be fixed now!

[Chasst]

Originally Posted by Fred Archer

As for the more fish on one bar, as Ahi Lawaia pointed out, they are designed to catch fish one at a time. Back in the early days we did a video that was meant to show how strong the little, light composite bars were. So we put hooks on the last two squids on the outside. We hooked up a couple of little, twenty-five pound yellowfins and when we got them up to the boat, I grabbed the center of the bar itself and heaved it over my shoulder with the fish hanging, looked at the video camera and simply said, "And they're strong, too!" Meanwhile, one of the damned fish slapped me in the gonads and dropped me to my knees! Needless to say, we only did one take of that one!

Nice! Sorry about the nut shot I f-ing dig multiple fish on one line, thats why ask! Depends on the gear and the type of fish but it can make a mess if they are strong.

Thanks for all the great info. I'm still new to albacore but we've probably brought in over 4500 lbs of them this year. Not a fishless trip yet. I think the bars will increase our catch and I'm going to need some of them.

Chass
ct

[fishnsoldier]

Nice to see someone else using the Archer Bars.... Mike just bought some used them last week... I know given some time they will produce.

[Fred Archer]

Trooper,

Good luck, the bars won't let you down, just as you don't let your country down. I thank you for that.

God Speed.

Jonesy,

Pictures are there now. Thank you. Good stuff. That's a Classic Little Meatball Bar in the pict. It's a fish killer all over the world! Rigged with 300# leader and for good reason. Big guys pile on lots of times and it's ready for that. Run wire on the chasebaits when in Ono Country...the FangBangers love 'em!

Keep hangin' around dem bars, J-Man!

Some local talent and some ex-resident fishes.

[molokaipake]

Yup, the bars have proven themselves aboard the "Hallelujah Hou". Still haven't caught on a couple of the bars, but if there's no fish around, no matter what you pull won't produce results. For me, I'm a "believer", it does take some tweaking of chase baits etc, but they do work.
Lost a donkey Marlin on the Fat Boy bar with the big 15 inch pink/white hollow squid chase bait with the huge Hayes hook, one day after something came up and bit the line, while fighting an estimated 5-600 lb Pacific Blue.
I think the meatballs are one of the real consistent bars. As I said before, buy some you will NOT be sorry. If you consider what you pay for a single skirted lure, versus what a bar costs that you can continue to use over and over again, its really a no brainer.
If anything you just gotta "Get the chains off your brains" and try something new that does work.

[Fred Archer]

Little bait being the most abundant of them all, little bars can and do have a devastating effect on tunas of all kinds and mahis and surprisingly, ono's too, expecially when they are on hatches of reef and other species. Of course, little tunas rarely eat even medium sized baits, so tiny stuff often does a job on them.

Here's a look at a little bar and a very small chasebait. Naturally it's murder on the little fellers, but it's downright amazing how many good, to downright big fish these little rascals catch. It's usually (hey, this is fishing, so nothing is always and you should always let the fish and not me show you what speed they prefer on a given day) best to troll the smaller bars at slower speeds, like 4-6 knots. Most of that tiny bait might look fast, but most of it isn't actually covering water at high speed.

Bigger bait that day? Just change the chasebait to a bigger one.

[ahi lawaia]

Went bottom fishing on the Banks on a buddy's boat and while jamming back to Oahu at the end of the day, going 14-16 kts, dragged his Archer ProBar just to see what would happen. We normally don't troll lures that fast 'cause they fly outta the water and sometimes the lure flips over and the hook hangs up on the leader and stuff li'dat. We didn't catch anything (like molokaipake said if "there's no fish around, no matter what you pull won't produce results") but the amazing thing was the ProBar ran true and stayed "bite-able" the whole time. By that I mean the Probar didn't tangle and the squids stayed in the water where something coulda-shoulda-woulda bit the chasebait if we'd run across some fish. Gonna have to get my buddy to try that on the ledge to see if any ono are home instedda mid-channel where nomo nuttin around. I might have to $pring for the ProBar too if we catch going that fast .