Big Fish Battle Damage - Reel & Shooting Line

[Jay Styron]

Nice

Now the truth finally comes out. All this time of Iya crying about no fish or little fish and now all of the sudden these monsters appear. Been holding out on us ,huh, Iya. That's it I'm coming to visit you. Seriously though, nice fish Iya. Be careful out there.
Jay

 

[Iyadiver]

Just lucky Jay...lucky to find a few new dive spots. I have been fishing the area 7 years ago and never really put enough diving time there because no one knows a good spot and the trolling pattern been by the deep water. Spent some 4-5 trips last year with poor result. Untill early this year a friend found the shallow sea mount and last week the deep pinnacle........everything just goes along well. Sometime funny how a place being only 1.5 miles away on the same strecth of ocean can be so different.

Jay, Cingene & W3 you may drop in anytime..... . I hope by then I will have a few more dive spots discovered. W3, Brian Yoshikawa does YF Tuna hunting in Hawaii, I read that in Terry Maas book. I am sure Hawaii have more fishes than my place is you know where to find them. If the big game fishing boat can survive....there are confirmed fishes there.


ULUA,
I have seen the Hawaiin catch....great stuff. I heard one of the best place on Earth for Ulua is at the Midway Island. Where 100 pounder is so abundant and the place been off limits after the world war II. I read there is a dive and fishing operator there, but the sharks are plenty full too.


IYA

 

[w3ac]

Iya,
It's kinda hard to hunt yellow fin here. I have only seen one, and personally know only one guy who shot a yellowfin here. I read the same story of Brian and from what I understand, they had a good sized boat and went to the south side of Maui looking for bird piles. Good strategy. Josh and I checked out a bird pile once but as we approached, two sharks were on the surface and we were still 25 yards off of the bird pile. Maybe I pussed out but I know two guys that brought up Mako sharks while bag lining from shore. We were way past their range, way the heck out there and I wasn't too keen on jumping in knowing there were galapagos sharks on the outskirts and who knows what else mingling in with the Aku (skipjack) under the surface. Maybe there were big yellows, maybe big makos. I wasn't curious enough to find out.

Another way to hunt them would be to look for the dolfin schools and jump in ahead of them, waiting for them to pass. Good sized yellow often follow these guys and I know of one guy who spotted nice fish but wasn't within range of a shot.

The commercial ahi fisherman say they usually bite deep. Maybe 20-40 fathoms. A friend of mine constantly brags that he has gotten his technique down. They put out their own FADs :naughty. According to him, two guys fishing can pull in something like 2,000 pounds of ahi a day when the fish are around. He showed me a picture of bright blue water and huge blimps right under the surface. I have offered to help fish all day without pay, help fill up the box, and once the box is full, give me an hour to dive. All I want is to shoot and land one. He is really apprehensive because they are constantly having to shoot sharks to keep them from stealing fish. One day I'll get mine, one day.

Brad :martial

 

[Rax]

Hi Iya,

Congrats to your great catches. I believe the drilling strategies mentioned above would not work too well for the doggies. When it comes to sportfishing they are known to be CRAZY swimmers. Most big fish you can catch because the fish will fight in your neigbourhood. For example marlins they can swim like hell but you can often sort of lead them in a circular spiral up to the surface. This way you can often catch fish that wouls be lost if the fish died and started to sink.

The doggies however are known to spool your reel since they just swim away from you full speed. I believe this is one of the hardest fish to drill with a rod and a reel if you will not used some oversized equipment.

I noticed also in the Philippines that you almost never could find doggies in the market. A few times I also tried to fish an area where I while scuba diving always see lots of very big ones. Strange fish, hard to catch on a hook but usually you can swim quite close.

By the way Iya could I send you an email and ask some questions on the situation in Indonesia? Is the email in your profile ok?

 

[Iyadiver]

Hi Rax,

The email in the profile is OK, blast away.
The same is in my area, Doggies are not easily found in the market. The fishing boys told me they are not easily landed, maybe because they love to head for the rocks. Even a 130 pound fishing line is nothing to a 40 pounder dogie if rocks are their destination. In Midway island, they said 100 pounder Giant Trevaly is common but landing them is very tough, they head for the rocks. Minimum is 80# gear they are using.

The yellowfin tuna I have been landing last time has always been those feeding frenzy in very deep water with no rocks to cut my line. I can land a 50-70 pounder easy in less than 20 minutes with my 30 pound line on a simple Ugly Stick 2 piece rod, Pen small lever drag reels with 500 yards capacity, standing up with only a belt. The captain was good, he does most of the chasing with the boat. Sailfish is a sissy when fished on a line, I mean size for size, only a bit more hard working than a spanish mack. Marlin & Wahoo I don't know, never caught any.

I just talked today to a very good freediver hunter, he made the Collins Speargun. He was in one of Indonesia remote eastern area/sea. His friend shot a Doggie no bigger than 70 pounds and it managed to sink 3 of Riffe Torpedo floats. Man, that is at least 15 liters x 3 = 45 liters of floatation.

I thing for sure, a 5kg Dog when not shot vital can pull me for a short 100 feet ride if I just follow and no resisting. Even 10kg Giant Trevally can't do that.

I think jigging or mid water bait fishing can work well with doggies. Once I shot a 20 pounder and it has a small hook in the mouth. However, the area I hunt has many boats trolling, seldom they land doggies. They bottom fish for snappers where my dogie heaven is, same spot, those 30-50# mono won't stand more than a few seconds, not with the way the rocks pinnacle is popping out of the sea bed like what I saw.


IYA

 

[poacher]

Iya,
I am a big fan of using floats and in your situation a breakaway would be good
If you are not stoning your fish try using a pranger or Cluster head a lot of guys have used the 8" heavy duty prangers to stone doggies in australia.

These are available for about AU$30 app US$20 from any dive shop in Australia there is afew that sell online and may post to you.
Peter