Sea Angling for Spearos

[Bill McIntyre]

Sweet fish! did you catch them in a competition?

Yes. They had a big tarpon contest lasting three months every summer and covering the entire Tampa Bay area.

 

[Magpie]

Yes but we're talking lure fishing here, there is no need to wring every inch out of each cast. You can cast a weight with trailing lure as hard as you can if it setup right, I often fish redgills or sandeels with just a round ball weight, swivel, trace, hook type setup with no tangles at all, as I said before, stopping the line before it hits the water is key, especially when casting into the wind.

Having to clip up a lure before each cast would wind me up something cronic! Its ok when you're smacking a bottom rig out to sit there for 15mins, but reclipping for a cast every 30secs...no thanks.

Not many trout down this way unfortunately!

He did specify light boat work....and the 525s have a surprising amount of retrieving power as well as speed, and also doesn't rot like abu's, and of course the other option if you wanted something a bit more powerful than a 525 would be the Slosh.

Just mu opinions of course :-D

 

[atomichaggis]

Yes. They had a big tarpon contest lasting three months every summer and covering the entire Tampa Bay area.

Can't think of a better time to bag a huge tarpon than that

 

[Bill McIntyre]

The big ones were fun, but in a way it was more fun when I rode my bicycle across town to a canal to fish for the small ones with a fly rod.

 

[atomichaggis]

Yes but we're talking lure fishing here, there is no need to wring every inch out of each cast. You can cast a weight with trailing lure as hard as you can if it setup right, I often fish redgills or sandeels with just a round ball weight, swivel, trace, hook type setup with no tangles at all, as I said before, stopping the line before it hits the water is key, especially when casting into the wind.

Having to clip up a lure before each cast would wind me up something cronic! Its ok when you're smacking a bottom rig out to sit there for 15mins, but reclipping for a cast every 30secs...no thanks.

Not many trout down this way unfortunately!

He did specify light boat work....and the 525s have a surprising amount of retrieving power as well as speed, and also doesn't rot like abu's, and of course the other option if you wanted something a bit more powerful than a 525 would be the Slosh.

Just mu opinions of course :-D

The spinning problem is specific to float fishing and happens when the lure/bait causes sufficient drag against the pull of the float to cause like a backlash... Float speeds off then is grabbed by the lure and slows and is overtaken by the lure.
This doesn't happen with leads but then we are talking about floating an eel... powerballs go someway to evening up that difference but they don't cast like leads.
which brings us back to range... getting any worthwhile range with a small, inconspicuous float is not easy... especially when you got a long trace and lure flapping behind it. I guess mileage varies from situation to situation but I would certainly like more range with small floats.

If it wasn't troublesome they wouldn't jab the points in... hence the clip idea.
Clippin is no hassle for floatin a fly or worm as you can hang it out a good while but I see your point with the eel.

RE "light boatwork": This is Mr.X we are talking about... that could mean mid channel wrecking only on tuesdays

 

[atomichaggis]

The big ones were fun, but in a way it was more fun when I rode my bicycle across town to a canal to fish for the small ones with a fly rod.

I was gonna suggest fishing the Tarpon on the fly to whet your appetite for angling again... that would get your heart racing!

 

[Magpie]

So why not use a sliding float for floatfishing? That negates the need for a long trace flapping around when cast.

Mid channel in his kayak probably! rofl

 

[Mr. X]

Amazing fish Bill, as usual! Did you grow in the US in the 1950s? It seems like something of a golden era - not just the fish but the cars, music, guitars, amplifiers, ... Did you catch the Tarpon from a boat with bait (rather than lure)?

Lots of interesting info., ideas & tips flying around here.

Re. leads, the Jardine weight sure caused some undesirable looking spinning of lure & weight around each other. They didn't tangle but it looked like all the spinning around would have reduced the cast distance.

Re. powerballs, I think the article suggested hooking the ball for the longer 6ft trace, pos. not for the original 3ft trace (I should probably re-read it). That would be more like the bored bullet set up -- Magpie have your caught anything using that set up (I met a guy on Chesil when I was starting out last year & he had one rod equipped like that & reckoned you might catch anything on with that set-up).

re. distance - some interesting points. Setting up a bait clip would slow down the normal speed & rhythm of lure fishing that allows a lot of beach to be covered quickly but might be appropriate if targeting a particular spot (one comes to mind). Although getting the optimum cast isn't as critical as when bait fishing, I notice one of the reasons that Mike Ladle is so enamoured of the Japenese Maria lures is because they cast so well - if it allows you to cast, say, 30% further then you can cover much more ground, increasing your odds of your lure coming into contact with fish (I know it isn't quite that simple in practice).

If I end up mid-channel, at least 2 of the following 3 will probably apply, I will:
* be sea sick
* drifting in my kayak
* on my way to Guernsey (hopefully on a ferry rather than the kayak!)


Doh! Magpie beat me to it:

Mid channel in his kayak probably! rofl

BTW There are some very good big bass catches in Sea Angler this month -- although it's not clear exactly when they were all caught. It said one big fish was caught on a whole squid on a size 6 hook -- probably meant 6/0.

 

[foxfish]

Amazing fish Bill, as usual! Did you grow in the US in the 1950s? It seems like something of a golden era - not just the fish but the cars, guitars, ...
Did you catch the Tarpon from a boat with bait (rather than lure)?

I have noticed that some of Bills post are full of more than the average info - Bill is a dude for sure rofl

 

[Magpie]

Mr X, thats just a basic running ledger rig, its the simplest way to start fishing really and is widely used by all.

Use a bored ball for spinning (yes, caught plenty like that), or the same with a sliding float and stop knot above it for float fishing, or change the ball for a bomb weight of various descriptions for general bottom fishing.

www.SeaFishingSupplies.com

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Amazing fish Bill, as usual! Did you grow in the US in the 1950s? It seems like something of a golden era - not just the fish but the cars, guitars, amplifiers, ... Did you catch the Tarpon from a boat with bait (rather than lure)?

I was born and raised in St. Petersburg, FL and I caught my prize winning fish in 1953 and 1954. The photo of me looking up at the fish was in Sports Illustrated magazine in the first year of its publication. You won't find photos of a kid with a fish in the current issues.

I caught them on live bait hanging under a cork float on a wire leader. The preferred way to fish was to spot a school moving along rolling (they roll like dolphin, although they are not breathing air) maneuver the boat to get in front of them, and then cast the bait in their path. When the cork went under, you reeled up all the slack and tried to set the hook at hard as possible. They have very bony plates in their mouths and they move their head in a blur through a 180 degree arc on the initial jumps, so about 9 out of 10 throw the hook.

The preferred bait fish were pinfish, sort of like a bream, about the size of your hand. Most fishing guides, including my father, had the customers catch their own bait on the way to the tarpon grounds. We used cane poles and very small hooks with cut pieces of shrimp and drifted over the grass flats, and it was so much fun for many of the customers from the Mid-Western US that they would have been happy to spend the day catching bait.

One of the first jobs I ever had was as a professional fisherman, so to speak, maybe at around age 12. The fishing guide who's boat was docked next to my father's boat didn't want to be bothered catching bait, so he hired me to do it. He had a wood flat bottom skiff with a live bait well and a 10 hp outboard tied up next to his boat. When he would depart early in the morning, he would leave a pound of frozen shrimp in the skiff for me.

I would peddle down to the harbor on my bike and go out fishing for bait. I had to provide him with 60 bait fish per day, and even if I could do better, I could only get one day ahead for a total of 120 at once. I put them in a wire cage hanging under the dock, and he felt that if they stayed too long in the cage, they wore out their tails and fins on the wire and looked ragged.

When I had trouble finding pinfish, it could be a very long and lonely day out there, but I was allowed to bring along a friend, so if I did that, it made it easier. After we caught the bait, we would run around over the shallow grass flats gigging sting rays and sharks. Of course we had no use for them, but I'm afraid that in those days, the level of environmental conscientiousness was not as high.

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to grow up on the water.

 

[atomichaggis]

So why not use a sliding float for floatfishing? That negates the need for a long trace flapping around when cast.

Mid channel in his kayak probably! rofl

how do you keep 6 ft between a sliding float and the lure when retrieving tho? I have this problem with the bombers when fishing a fly, always need to put a stop on the line and cast the lot :vangry... works fine when fishing a heavy bait thats gonna sit tho.

At least if we read about someone in a kayak mid channel on the news we'll get to see Mr. X's photie!

 

[atomichaggis]

Re. powerballs, I think the article suggested hooking the ball for the longer 6ft trace, pos. not for the original 3ft trace (I should probably re-read it). That would be more like the bored bullet set up -- Magpie have your caught anything using that set up (I met a guy on Chesil when I was starting out last year & he had one rod equipped like that & reckoned you might catch anything on with that set-up).

re. distance - some interesting points. Setting up a bait clip would slow down the normal speed & rhythm of lure fishing that allows a lot of beach to be covered quickly but might be appropriate if targeting a particular spot (one comes to mind). Although getting the optimum cast isn't as critical as when bait fishing, I notice one of the reasons that Mike Ladle is so enamoured of the Japenese Maria lures is because they cast so well - if it allows you to cast, say, 30% further then you can cover much more ground, increasing your odds of your lure coming into contact with fish (I know it isn't quite that simple in practice).

A 3"er and a 3' trace should be fairly easy to cast without any trickery... just a decent cast. 6 foot traces and big eels are gonna gonna be tricky but desperate times call for desperate measures so jabbin and clippin may be worth the hassle then.

What size eels are you using?

 

[Magpie]

I'm missing the point somewhere....if you're fishing a lure that you need to retrieve why use a float at all?

 

[atomichaggis]

I'm missing the point somewhere....if you're fishing a lure that you need to retrieve why use a float at all?

You have been all along :t

It stays high on the water out of the way of snags n' stuff and wont sink to the bottom when you stop as it does with a lead.
It was developed as an alternative to bubble floats that were more conspicuous and noisy and put the bass off. Its a bit like fly n float... you wouldn't fish a fly on a lead either.
Read the articles... all will be revealed.

 

[atomichaggis]

Bill,
What a life!

 

[Magpie]

Thats what my counsellor has said all along! rofl

Just retrieve all the way in then, or use a floating diving plug if you want to be able to stop the retrieve, I really can't see the need for overcomplicating lure fishing, the essense of which is simplicity keeping tackle to a minimum, to this degree.

Though if you insist maybe something like this would be useful?

Welcome to FOX - Fox International are the largest suppliers of carp, pike, specialist and match angling equipment in the UK.

As far as I've read Mr X won't be doing any fly fishing, SWFF is still fairly rare here (there).

 

[atomichaggis]

Thats what my counsellor has said all along! rofl

Just retrieve all the way in then, or use a floating diving plug if you want to be able to stop the retrieve, I really can't see the need for overcomplicating lure fishing, the essense of which is simplicity keeping tackle to a minimum, to this degree.

Though if you insist maybe something like this would be useful?

Welcome to FOX - Fox International are the largest suppliers of carp, pike, specialist and match angling equipment in the UK.

As far as I've read Mr X won't be doing any fly fishing, SWFF is still fairly rare here (there).

The technique is specifically for fishing rubber eels which are light and don't cast very well... or at all really. so the problem is the same as how to fish a (big)fly on (relatively heavy) spinning gear.
Over here we use trout bombers and over there they use powerballs.
Reasons for going to all the trouble... sometimes the best lure is the one you can't cast. Powerballing an eel is for when the bass are feasting on eels.
I can think of another simple solution myself but powerballs n' eels are cheaper than Rapala Sliver's... and then again, which catches more bass?
I can't say that rubber eels are the best as I don't use em and we got very few bass but I can identify with the problem and the technique.

The fox deadbait bomb is just the same kind of thing as a trout bomber, only the trout bomber is a sliding float but he ruled that out as powerballs cost 10p
personally i think a clear intermediate trout bomber would be better than the powerball as it leaves no wake... which is another reason for powerballing over bubble floating (smaller wake).

 

[Magpie]

How about this as a solution then?

Interex Trading - marine equipment, lobster pots, fishing equipment, miniature fishing reels, fish traps, fresh water crayfish, prawn trap, shrimp trap, fish trap, interex international, crab trap catch, fishing nets, collapsible nets, fishing bait,

Selfweighted eels, cast well, catch fish. Weighted shads do the same.

 

[atomichaggis]

Last year I failed to catch the elusive western Norway sea bass... in all I saw 3 of them. One when i was diving without a gun, another when i just took the top section off my flyrod and another who chased my lure as far as my groundbait which became dinner.
This year Hell freezes over, pigs are gonna fly and I am going to catch a bass in western Norway.

I'm gonna go on a lure spree shortly as I smashed my second last x-rap off the underside of a bridge the other night.
So a question to all you bass fishermen down in the channel and med...

What is Your top Bass Killers?
Any other tips n' tricks are welcome... except powerballing