Fishing?

[Mike Sibley]

Wife and I are coastal cruisers. On a recent 2-week trip along the gulf coast (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama), we decided that we needed to learn how to fish, both for fun and to provide protein. The problem is neither of us know anything about fishing. A recent trip to a sporting goods store proved totally confusing. We hear of some cruisers using a hand line to fish, but we don't know what that involves. We have seen some cruisers fishing with a rod and reel after they have anchored, but there seem to be a thousand different types of rods and reels. And what bait to use? Any cruisers out there have any suggestions on a simple and inexpensive way to get started?

[Cheechako]

Just get some weighted rubber squid for trolling while moving. Green and yellow are good. Get one about 8" long. Usually the lead weights and rubber squid are sold separately. Get the Bullet shaped weights that the line goes through. Get large hooks bigger than your thumb for sure. A stout pole and reel with 60-80 lb line is good for "meat fishing". Just get a used one or cheap one, really doesnt matter. Get some stainless steel leader 4 ft ong or so to put between the line and the lure. This avoids barracuda taking your rig! Any small fish, clams, little animals in shells you find on the beach etc can be used as bait while fishing when anchored. The key is to catch the first fish with what you can find, and then use parts of that fish for bait! Or buy some bait, not sure what is best down there, but I suspect shrimp bait is widely available...

[mesquaukee]

We use the bungee cord method when under way. Same kind of heavy headed squid rig as Cheechako described, color is important. There are numerous theories about what color to use.
We attached the squid to 100 or 200 lbs monofilament with a wire leader of course. The line is wound around a large diameter hand spool. We let out a couple hundred feet of line and attach it to one of those black rubber straps. When a fish strikes it stretches. We wait until the fish stops thrashing around. Then we wind the line in by hand. A gaff is used to land the fish. We rarely slow down.
Some of the fish we have caught have been self cleaning. A shark snipped the tail off and the flow of water through the open mouth would nicely rinse all the guts away.

[Cheechako]

Yes, I've used that method it works well too. And the self cleaning can be overdone.... once I got the head of a wahoo... only! The one advantage of the pole and reel is you can leave the clicker on and when you get a fish, it is more noticeable, so the barracuda or sharks dont eat most of it before you notice! Although, there have been times when I noticed a drowned smaller fish skating on top of the water behind the boat!

[Boomp]

We use a piece of pvc pipe about 18" long and have it zip tied to one of the stanchions. It perfect for holding a pole and just trolling along.

[mesquaukee]

We use a homemade alarm system using a clothes pin clipped on the line. If the bungee cord stretches it pops off swings in on another line and attracts our attention.
A rod and reel does not work well on our boat. We do have mounted on the port side one of those downrigger reels for winding down a 10 lbs weight. I replaced the stainless wire and weight with 200 lbs monofilament and use it as a reel. Letting line out is easy as it has a brake on it. Pulling in line is a snap, one crank of the handle pulls in 3 ft of line. Works well.

Those sharks can be a real pain, they can get carried away cleaning the fish for you. Reeling a fish one time it was struck 3 times. All we had left was the line and leader.

[MarkJ]

People don't really catch fish at all. I think they all lie and buy them at the shops.

We have sailed for 14,000 nms and have caught 4 fish.... thats one fish per 6,000 kilometers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the fishing shops sell lures that cost about the same as a teenagers education and to get what?

Save your sanity and just download fish photos off the internet!


Mark

[Bash]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

We have sailed for 14,000 nms and have caught 4 fish.... thats one fish per 6,000 kilometers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Catching fish is the sign of a slow boat.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Bash

Catching fish is the sign of a slow boat.

Really?

I would say that every fish I have caught trolling was at over 6 knots

Have had them on the chew at times where we couldn't even get the line fully out before getting hit.

Almost every fish (over 1000lb of them) we got on this trip was at 8 knots .


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...94&postcount=4

Even had hookups (and landed) when up in the mid teens under sail

[David M]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

People don't really catch fish at all. I think they all lie and buy them at the shops.

We have sailed for 14,000 nms and have caught 4 fish.... thats one fish per 6,000 kilometers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the fishing shops sell lures that cost about the same as a teenagers education and to get what?

Save your sanity and just download fish photos off the internet!


Mark

Mark,
Try some live bait....like that yappy terrier at the marina.

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by David M

Mark,
Try some live bait....like that yappy terrier at the marina.

the cheeepo silver colored rattletrap is awesome---i caught 6 fish in 5 weeks....not bad average, actually--donot need live bait to troll behind the sailboat as ye cruise.....donot need to spend big bux on a fishie, either--the fishies donot know the difference between cheeepo and spensive lures----go to walmart and find a cheepo silver colored lure and fish while sailing---also buy some latex palmed garden gloves---cheep---for whenye catch th efishie so doesnt slip out of your hands.....wow---gooood luck...smooth sailing and goood fishing......~~~~~_/)~~~~~~

[Bash]

Originally Posted by David M

Mark,
Try some live bait....like that yappy terrier at the marina.

...with yappy terriers. Do you use downriggers, or just troll them at the surface?

[Vasco]

On the surface, by the tails!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

.

We have sailed for 14,000 nms and have caught 4 fish.... thats one fish per 6,000 kilometers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Mark

Update: We have done another 2,000nms and still no more fish


Mind you, this is asia and I am not sure I would want to eat anything out of this water....

[captain58sailin]

You can drag just about anything behind the boat with a hook in it and you should get some kind of action, anything that splashes or is silvery will work. I have used the tuna jigs that have the feathers, and the rubber squid jigs as well and they both work or a large silver jig. I personally prefer a hand line, less monkeying around and using a snubber is a good idea, it doesn't have to be fancy, you can just use a tarp strap. 100 yards of 150 lb to 250 lb mono makes a good hand line, then put a big barrel swivel in the end of it and put a couple of fathoms of 80 to 100 lb test on it as a leader, then connect some stainless wire about 18" long and put a swivel on the end of that and connect your jig.
A stainless steel gaff hook and a short club can come in handy. There are a lot of big tuna in the gulf of Mexico. You can also catch the King mackerel, any piece of flotsam or jetsam is a place for potential fish action. You can hang a cat's bell on the line as an alarm.
Mark you must not be holding your mouth right, I have caught fish from Alaska, all the way through the west coast, and up through the Caribbean, and all over the gulf of Mexico, dragging a jig behind the boat, some days we'd have to pull the line out of the water because there was no place left to store the fish.