Your most productive sailboat fishing rig?

[wathey]

A couple of thoughts. For context we live aboard and fish everyday. We usually catch 2 fish per day while out sailing and that is correlated to running over two schools so if we have 2 rods out then we frequently double up on the schoolies. 8 to 9 kts is the right speed. Slower than 5ish and it's unnatural and we almost never catch one. Put some simple lures in your inventory for starters. Wooden plugs are very productive. 6in squid immitation chuggers in pink and blue are also effective. We also carry a few large spoons. The spoons are about 2in across and 5in long. Drop them back behind the boat where they are in the water 15 to 20 sec and occasionally pop up then goes back in for another half minute. Err on the too far from the boat to close in to the stern. Use snap swivels in the 120lb class range. Makes it simple to change lures and also to remove the leader and lure at the end of the day or whenever you want to store a rod. Also keeps the line twist to near zero which can be a major issue if you sail all day with the line twisting 3 to 4 rpm and you hook up at 5pm.
As another poster mentioned, if you're not catching adjust the depth. You can change the depth using a plane or a large weight. In my opinion don't put larger lures out than you are willing to fight larger fish. A multi hour fight on passage is fun but your night watch will require some serious coffee. Cleaning a 80lb blackfin in a monohull cockpit will result in a MASH operating room look. IMHO go much bigger on the line and leader than what it's designed for. We have tried many variations. If you're fishing for food go larger. We're not out to set an IGFA 30lb test record so we have since gone much bigger. We run 80lb braid underneath and 100lb mono on top. We sometimes go all braid. Remember when the fish are bighting that's the time. Keep a spare leader / lure at the ready, use snap swivels to quickly remove the broken leader and replace with the next lure. When it's on its on. Your welcome to PM me if you have more questions. Good luck and remember the beauty of your situation, it's sailing until you have one on then it's fishing

[Cadence]

Sailing works, no engine noise or prop wash. I'm not a fisherman but hanging some lures overboard works.

[George_SD]

We went out a week ago and decided to slow down and actually intentionally fish - using small jigs sending them to about 100ft produced lots of bass.

The key was using Navionic's Relief Shading on Raymarine Axiom to identify bottom elevation changes and structure, since this is where fish tend to hand out. Biggest one was about 20".

[mangler68]

I use Shimano 50W lrsa with 80 lb mono, but you could get away with Shimano 30's with 50lb braid, I troll a single green/chartreuse Squid with a 9/0 hook in the wash within 25' of the transom, and do great with mahi, and tuna, on my second, I use a 15" wire, rigged to a chugger sweetened with ballyhoo about 100 yards out, I've caught Marlin, mahi and larger tunas! Experiment with different colors and sizes, singles and daisy chains, I've had many hits in the wash, just letting out the lines, check your lines frequently, remove any debris that doesn't let the lure appear natural, If I troll a lure for 10 minutes with not even a rise, I'll reel it in and change it to a different color. Also keep a couple of Green Machine Daisy chains on board rigged and ready they work everywhere

[George_SD]

Interesting - i usually let out my lures at least 75 feet or so