Fishing on long haul or ocean passage

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by n5ama

My experience has been around Cozumel. I've never had a problem eating them but some of the locals are reluctant to eat barracuda. That may be from a steady diet for those locals versus me (a very occasional diver in the area).



Most of the cuda on the reefs in Cozumel are small. I've never seen one over 3' long; however, the ones that park under the rigs in offshore Texas or Louisiana are commonly over 6' long.

Another rule of thumb I follow (not backed up by any actual data) is to watch/ask the locals, if they dont eat certain fish there is probably a reason.

[Ken Z]

Lucky for a fish a week, or 6a day. H.D. rods, penn on the low good end 100# maybe a camo 12” steel leader, barrel swivels are best 150#. Hand lines are better , sailboats are hard to stop ,coiled on yoyos and I like outrigger fishing clips for tension and the “ clip” when the line is tensioned and released, hopefully from a fish. I paint , by soaking in misc. paints then other colors get splashed on ,yellow, blue ,red, green, zero pattern ,drilled and strung on knotted camo parachute cord , spaced 4” -6” apart, a string about 41/2 ‘ trolled about 225’ behind boat and lure, bait 300’. I almost forgot the weeds....lol, good luck.....

[Ken Z]

sorry folks, I paint wine corks for my teasers, forgot to mention....

[sck5]

You dont need a rod if you are fishing for meat rather than sport. I have a good reel which clamps onto the stern rail. You will hear the drag when a fish hits your lure. I kept an airplane bottle of vodka to squirt in their gills. Kills them almost instantly and is way better than beating them to death with a winch handle on the side deck.

[pterrien]

Some thirty years ago, sure, you could count on catching a fish every time you tried. Those days are long gone. On our passage from Carabean to Açores in 2018, there were millions of Portugese man at war on the surface all the way across. Not very good for fishing.

[smacksman]

From Cape Town to Brazil we caught 1 dorado over a sea mount. Flying fish on deck was a much more reliable catch - delicious fried. Over the abyssal plain it is a desert as mentioned earlier.

[pendragon]

25 years ago there was plenty fish in the S. Pacific/tasman/Coral seas.
We troll a spoon lure on a stainless trace to 200Lb mono, 30/40 feet behind the boat. In those days mahi mahi, tunas, Spanish mackerel were the order of the day for an hour or less trolling.
On consequent voyages, it took longer and longer to catch anything
Until our recent trip from NZ to Aus to NZ, we caught nothing, zero.
It seems that all those commercial trawlers, purse seiners , long liners have taken most of the big fish. There is nothing anymore at sea, only near coastal islands in reserves.
It's called progress.......

[teneicm]

Our preferred offshore setup is 100 pound test on a yoyo handline with 6 feet of 400 lb test leader. Yoyo is secured to the rear lifeline/ stanchion with heavy duty shock cord that allows about 4 feet of stretch. Lures are squid for Mahi and tuna or redhead rappala types for wahoo and tuna. You can spend a ton of money on rods and reels, but the handlines are just as effective and dirt cheap. Put the money into lures, as you do lose a fair amount.

[captstu]

On my last Atlantic Crossing from Cape Town to Barbados, I had two Cuban YoYos with 100 pound test line, steel leaders and "dolphin Delight" lures - the crew was only interested in Dolphin so we sent the fish a message.

We fished until we caught one fish large enough to feed the 4 crew then stopped for the day. We reliably caught when near islands - every third or 4th day or so - and usually nothing in open ocean.

After making landfall in Trinidad, we adopted two cats. They reliably watched the two rigs for hours each day and were rewarded with part of each fish that was caught. Once in the islands, we caught our fill (1 fish) by noon quite reliably. We credited the cats.

[Olorin]

I think it may have been mentioned but the best book I have found is "Cruisers Handbook of Fishing" by Scott Bannerot.

We put out 100 feet of 200lb line from a yoyo with about 10 feet of steel leader with a blue and silver rubber squid-like lure tied to the back rail with a loop of surgical tube as a shock absorber.

All across the pacific we would catch Bonita tuna (and throw them back) every few hours and a Dorado (Mahi-Mahi) every day. Each Mahi would feed my wife and I for about four days so we didn't fish every day.

[A CheeseHead]

We trolled a plug on our way from Gran Canaria to Barbados in Jan-Feb of 2007. We had a heavy monofilament line on a reel that was then held by a clip to the bimini that would release with a loud 'snap'. We caught four ~36" dorado, and the 5 of us usually got three meals out of each (sahimi, steaks, then fish fingers). Alcohol in the gills didn't seem to do all that much.

[MicHughV]

...I pretty much always drag some lures behind my boat and " hope for the best"...not exactly the best fishing strategy in the world....my catch rate was dismal to say the least, often times complete zero !!

...I have since " learned" how to fish, taught by lifelong fishermen.....that know their game inside out.

...to successfully catch fish requires some knowledge of the species you are after, the parts of the ocean that they frequent, the lure they are most likely to take, the depth the lure needs to run at, the speed at which the lure needs to run, the right rod, the right reel, the right line, the right line strength etc.....and even then, there is no guarantee you will catch anything.

fish eat other fish.....if there are no " other fish"...there won't be any " fish" there either.

also, consider, that many fish you are likely to catch...barracuda, amberjack, various tuna, king mackerel, etc, are not exactly known for being good table fare..

bringing a big fish onboard, and they are generally "big", requires a gaff....usually resulting in buckets of blood, slime, etc, and may still thrash around, breaking everything in sight...plus a gaff point in your foot is sharp....ask me...I know...

then you still have to clean it, and clean the boat afterwards..

granted, on an ocean voyage, you may have little to do, and spending all day trying to catch and clean a fish may amuse you for a while..

finally, there will be you...after dealing with catching and cleaning a fish, you will reek of fish and blood from one end of the boat to the other and everybody will make sure they sit upwind of you..

enjoy !!

[mpaule]

On a sailboat without a “swim platform” with pretty good freeboard, a MkI Catalina 36 in my case, how do you get your catch on board? Do I need a long gaff, or with 100# line can you just pull it up with a pair of gloves? Not sure in So. California waters if one would likely hook up with a 400# bluefin tuna 😄

[Laurie watson]

Originally Posted by cooper1991

Are you guaranteed to catch fish every day across the oceans?

What kit or lines do you need? What bait or lures?

Obviously most time it's mackerel and tuna and other top feeders so is it just the same coloured feathers or silver paper lures you use?

Just planning ahead to when I buy a sailboat.

They say there is no such thing as a stupid question, this forum often gets that theory !!

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by SVHarmonie

Guaranteed??? They call it fishing, not "catching."

I'm the poster boy for this. *sigh* I may not be able to fish very well but I can deal with food. If someone in my crew can get a fish on a line to within about four feet of the boat it's food.

Auspicious has teak decks and on delivery I'm responsible for a customer's boat so I'm fussy about messes. If you don't make a mess you don't have to clean it up. If we have a gaff I'll use that to control the fish. Regardless the goal is to get a tail rope on the fish and hoist it on something: outboard hoist, davits, arch, lashed down boat hook. I clip in with PFD and harness and either hang over the stern or stand on the swim platform (if there is one) and bleed out the fish and then butcher it. A dish pan works best to collect filets and steaks but any platter or large bowl will do. Carcass and other debris goes back in the water and product goes to the galley for another check for bones and prep.

Cue Jaws music here. *grin*

If you're planning to fish you'll definitely want to carry a pair or two of heavy leather gloves. If you don't have practice butchering fish I suggest you get some. See Bannerot. A really sharp knife is important to avoid making a mess. Galley knives are poor on a LOT of boats.

Originally Posted by slug

Cube the flesh , pack into a jar , fill the jar completely with olive oil , add some flavor ... capers, dill or your choice

Cover the jar . Put in a pot of water , bring water to boil for ten or fifteen min , let cool , refrigerate

NO. No no no no no. This is not food safe. First person to say "I don't get sick" or "Grandma did it this way" gets keel hauled. Not statistically significant.

What is described is called water bath canning and is only appropriate for very high acid (low pH) foods. The processing time cited is not nearly long enough even for high acid foods. Just not okay.

Fish needs to be pressure canned. See https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/u...an_rev0715.pdf page 5-10. My 16 qt pressure canner easily earns its storage space on board. In addition to canning it's our big stock pot and is used for seafood boils. Canning in accordance with USDA guidelines (the only such published in the world) yields a shelf stable product that lasts a long time - often years. See the USDA Guide 01 from the National Center for Home Food Preservation on the UGA site for overview information. https://nchfp.uga.edu/index.html . Note that USDA has guidelines for all kinds of preservation techniques that are useful for cruising sailors: canning, freezing, drying, pickling, ....

If you dive down the rabbit hole of canning and other means of preservation you'll see concerns about botulism over and over. Botulism is actually extremely rare. It is the consequence of a toxin excreted by a particular bacterium. You can kill the bacteria with heat but the resulting toxins are unaffected. That means cooking something preserved in a dodgy fashion won't address the root cause of illness and often death. You have to kill the bacteria at the point of preservation before the amount of toxins have a chance to build up. The reason for the focus on botulism is that the bacterium that generates the toxins that lead to botulism is really hard to kill. If you maintain standards of sanitation, processing, preservation, and cooking that are food safe to avoid botulism all the other sources of food poisoning and food-borne sickness will be killed. If your technique is safe in the face of botulism it is safe in the face of everything else. The exception is your sailing partner who is really really unhappy with you. *grin* Don't screw with the person who makes your food.