Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Tackle & Techniques

Rigging a stick bait for marlin

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Shane Hartstone:
Gavin, I too am looking at a stella 10000FA with a 20K spool, with PE5.  Two rod options, my stickbait rod (zenaq fokeeto 83/7) or a 7ft 20-50lb calstar, if switch baiting.

For the trace I would be looking at a hard leader, rather than a soft leader.  When marlin wrap themselves in the leader, their scales scuff the leader pretty bad.  A 3ft bite leader will be good, but the rest of the trace can still be critically damaged.

Was on the water yesterday, temp was 17.2 degrees...  A few more weeks and the striped Marlin will be in range!

Gavin Ng:
arron, was thinking of attaching the bite leader via a 4 turn uni to a quality swivel, not confident in my crips to be using them unfortunatley, but a crimp or nail knot might be the only option if im tying heavy fc for the bite leader.

Shane, in your expereince a softer leader like black magic 150 supple wont cut it? reason for going soft is for castability more than anything. If you guys have shredded 150 soft leader then i might just go the tougher stuff at the expence of a bit of casting trouble. from what i understand you can either switch bait when they come up behind the spread or cast to them sunning themselves, so casting will have get its fair share of a go.

tight lines

Andre van Wyk:
Gavin

This is what was left of 150lb bite trace after a beaky b1tch slapped me on a Wahoo 125 stickbait, double Baker rigged, in Madagascar... Stella 10K with a 20K spool, 500 metres of YGK Ultra PE 6, matched to a DJ83MH... 100lb casting leader single strand into 1metre of 150lb ( 1.2 mm ).... 300 odd metres of nearly pulling me off the back of the boat, which was an open dive boat with no transom,drag at about 12 kilos or more, she went airborne for about the 6th and final time into the sunset and left me with shaky knees and this:


I guess she might have gone 100 to 150 kilos..... never really wanted to chase billfish before... as a kid growing up, it was always a "rich mans game" and even since, the idea of pulling lures all day and then sitting in a chair had no appeal to me... skippering and wire man duties are a completely different story of course....

But the rush this fish gave me was beyond belief, and DEFINTELY something I want to do again....

Gavin Ng:
thanks for the feedback Andre, I would of thought 150 would have sufficed as thats what they use on overhead gear but considering braid has no stretch and possibly fishing more drag maybe put more strain on the leader? would you mind telling me what method you used to connect the 150 to the 100?

Cheers

Andre van Wyk:
Gavin - The above was my first, and only run in with a Beaky on popping gear, so please don't take the above as anything more than an observation from a single instance in my experience.... I came off second best in the encounter, so perhaps my points above shouldn't be considered advice of any kind, but rather an observation of sorts...  ;D 8)

I too would have thought 150 would have been plenty... but as you mentioned, with braid and drag settings, and perhaps just being unlucky in the way the fish was hooked and how the leader ran along the bill as it was chafed for at least 30 cm above the breaking point as well.... possibly bill wrapped? Who knows...

I justed used a regular Double Uni to join the 100lb to the 150lb.... had no problems with this connection at all...

As has been mentioned previously in this thread I think, perhaps using a hard mono bite trace would serve you better... maybe 1m to 1.2m, or whatever you are comfortable with hanging out of the tip when casting, then match that to soft mono for the reast of your leader to aid in casting... would give you decent abrasion protection, without having to go to a higher strength bite trace.... for the record I was using soft mono....


I also think heavy drag settings are a no-no.... trying to stop a greyhounding Billfish on its first run, especially if its going airborne, is a recipe for heartbreak I reckon... You'bve got plenty of string on hand, so my advice is to make use of it, and get the skipper on the helm to get you heading towards the fish until she settles down, then go to work on the drag.

Cheers
Nepps

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