Suggestions for a Marlin rod

[Nathan Tsao]

Aloha everyone,

Does anyone here have any experience with catching blue/striped marlin on popping gear. I live and work in Kona, Hawaii and have very easy access to catch blue marlin close to shore. Sometimes while plugging for GT from the shoreline, we see marlin jump only a few hundred meters away.

What I'm looking to do is tease up marlin with small tuna rigged without hooks. When the marlin comes up and if it looks like its under the 300lb range we'll cast poppers/stickbaits to the marlin and hopefully kick some ass.

Any recommendations? I have a Fisherman BG Jack that may work, but i think i want something a bit more forgiving on the body just in case we hook into something that will take a while. My Black Hole 80N and 86N seem too light for the task.
Most likely using 130lb line with 400lb leader.
Any thoughts?

[Mark Harris]

No experience whatsoever (aside from smallish sailfish!),  but that sounds like an interesting prospect Nathan.

If you are looking for a PE10 type rod that is more forgiving on the body than the older, stiffer models then your first stops should be Carpenter or Ripple Fisher.

Are you likely to be using poppers or stickbaits? That will have a large effect on any rod recommendations you might get.  Also,  I am unsure as to what a Marlin is likely to do when taking a surface lure close to land... will they stay in the top water or go deep?

[Nathan Tsao]

HI Mark,

Thanks for the reply. Since the presentation of the stickbait/popper will not be very important in this particular application, i dont feel it will be necessary for a strictly popper or stickbait rod. When the fish gets all excited over the live bait teaser, it will hit just about anything in the water regardless of proper technique. So really the comfort of fighting the fish in this case is my most important concern. Most likely, casting will be 20-50 feet from the boat, as the marlin in kona will come right behind your engine to investigate a teaser.

Also, i overwhelmingly prefer to build my own rods, is it possible to get a Ripplefisher or Carpenter blank?

The water depth here in kona is severe. At some locations the water can be 1000ft within a 10 minute boat ride from the shoreline. Many of the charter marlin captains back down on their fish and land them within 10 minutes before the fish makes a deep run.
Before we even think about tackling these fish on plugging gear, we will have to take a good look at the fish to estimate the size of them before ever putting a lure to them. The last thing i would want to do is make a hasty decision to cast a lure to a 600lb marlin and end up losing 400meters of line to deep diving fish. Everyone loses in that situation.

Mahalo for the feedback.

[Mark Harris]

If you only have to cast 20 to 50 feet, use a jigging rod!  Seriously, there would be zero point going out with a rod designed to cast 300 feet. Build a nice 5 foot 4 inch rod from something like a Synit 550 blank  - hugely powerful but relatively kind to the bod.

As an aside, I do not believe you can buy Carpenter or Ripple blanks. They make the best popping rods bar none, but as far as I know you have to buy built rods from them or place a custom order.

[Chris Webster]

Hi Nathan.

I just returned from Hawaii and know exactly what you mean regarding the extreme depth drop off. Unfortunately we didnt get and stickface though.

I agree with Mark in saying that if you only need to cast between 20 - 50 feet then just use a jigging rod.

Imagine of GT's grew to Marlin size.... Grander GT!

Cheers,

Chris

[Aaron Concord]

Nathan,

I have done a fair bit of tease-and-switch marlin fishing so I agree that, when fired up, they will eat a rubber sandal if thrown at them!
Most guys I know will throw a relatively small stick bait around 8-10inches long but rigged to slide up the leader.
As you probably know, getting a bite is one thing. having the bloody things stay on is another!
Weight is pretty critical.  Anything too heavy will help the fish throw the hooks when they jump.
Poppers and stick baits rigged to slide up the leader are your best bet to help get the weight away from the hooks so the lure cannot be used against you.

If you try a popper, try something like a Hammerhead Popping Pencil style of lure that pops well, though doesn't have a huge mouth.  Streamlined poppers and stick baits offer the best hook exposure and run a single hook on the tail as you would a marlin skirt.

A jig stick may be all you require to get casting distance, though working a lure to a fussy eater (yes, it happens!) may mean the use of a stick bait rod. 
I have filmed a Japanese angler that we teased and fed a lai to (queenfish) on GT gear in 2003......the heavy popping rod, EVEN in a decent harness, nearly killed him after a 4 1/2 hour fight.  Admittedly, it was a big girl around 700+ pounds, though a tuna/GT stick bait rod would have been more comfortable for him.  We were in 400-500m of water and the fish never got any deeper than 50-60m which was why we got to keep it on for as long as we did.  If it had of crash-dived and died, we would have been spooled for sure!  I am glad you are going to try and pick the "right size" fish

Also, wherever you read above "jig stick", assume a spinning reel version.......you don't want a backlash to happen when all the adrenalin kicks in!!!!!!!!

Cheers,

Aaron.

[Mark Harris]

Brilliant answer Aaron.  Not for the first time , I feel like I have really learned something from one of your posts.

[Aaron Concord]

Hey Mark,

Thanks for the kind words.

Nathan is going to try and attempt something myself and several other GT anglers have been wanting to do for a while now.
The biggest stumbling block for me isn't the gear or even access to the fish.
It's actually getting a crew and a boat that wants to tease-and-switch with GT/Tuna gear as their sole focus.
Most still prefer to have a spread of lures out on 37kg stand-up marlin rods so they have the best chance of landing/tagging these amazing animals.

Without sufficient height or a skipper/crew with good eyes, teasing is difficult from the smaller 23-27ft class boats I am fishing on at present.
You need a dedicated skipper. A dedicated angler and at least 2 extra crew to run the teasers properly.
It can be done with less, though your opportunities to convert marlin hitting teasers to marlin hooked up on the casting rig would be slim at best and without the advantage of height, you may cast to the monster you didn't mean to because you didn't judge it's weight at all!
A blue marlin was weighed around 5 days ago on the Gold Coast.....it was 836lbs!!!!!!
It died during the fight on proper marlin gear on a boat skippered by one of the best in the business.
This is NOT the sort of animal that you want to muck with on casting tackle........not unless you have tried it 100 times before and you are looking for a bigger kick in life........

It may be fun on the initial hookup, though to be fair on the fish, I'd pick out blues under 400lb for this kind of fishing shenanigans!!!!!!!!
They are far tooo crazy........even a 'normal' size blue around 250-300lb mark are ballistic animals!!!

Still, it's something I want to do.......that and cast flies at appropriate sized models

Cheers,

Aaron.

[Nathan Tsao]

Thanks for the replies Aaron, spot on the money. The sliding lure rig was exactly what i had in mind for this, glad to have someone second that theory!

And yes, i have no intention of messing around with any big blue marlin, haha! I will be fishing from my own boat, and to be honest, we have more fun chasing small game than chasing pelagics. Trolling is not really for me, i'll take bonefish over pelagics almost any day. After my first time leadering a 500lb blue, i realized that bigger does not necessarily mean better. Pelagic fishing doesnt seem to have the love that inshore/freshwater fishing has. Much respect to any dedicated marlin team though, there is so much work that goes into it.

Here in Kona, just about anyone off the street has a ton of experience with marlin fishing. Alot of them are so jaded by the day to day marlin grind that they are begging to do something different. The guys i will be doing this with are all tournament winning marlin captains/deckhands, with honed skills. One of them boated a 350lb blue on his popping rod in about 15 minutes.
Trying this fishing will really just an afterthought from the morning GT fishing. I would only cast a lure to a marlin if we got a REALLY close look at it. The last thing i want is a dead marlin attached to my line.
Many times they will come up under boats in Kona while fishing for mahimahi around the floaters or the FAD's (Fish Aggregation Devices) without having the need to be trolling at all.

Thanks again, for the replies. Once summertime comes around and the marlin/ahi bite turns on, i'll hope to have some pictures of the action to show. And we'll definitely let you know what works and what doesn't after a few shots, if we get them

Aloha, Nate

[Aaron Concord]

Nate,

The reasons to try this type of fishing is fairly wide!
Mine come down to the "I reckon it would be really cool to do this!" category.
I've caught plenty of sailfish, black marlin and blue marlin on "standard" live bait and lure trolling rigs.
Having been part of a crew that was specialising in teasing billfish for fly anglers a few years back, I reckoned early on that if you didn't like fly or could not use fly gear, using casting gear with poppers or stick baits would be a certainty of having a ball.
Unlike a marlin that is hooked amongst 4 other troll lines and can literally be over the horizon before you can get the other gear in to chase it, teasing fish is sooooo different!
First, you make them real mad!
Second, they are right next to the boat or no more than 30 feet so you actually see the fish before you cast.
Thirdly, once hooked, the action stays very close to the boat so everyone can enjoy the action.
Keeping them close usually means a quick fight and release so you can get another!!

I added some of the above not necessarily for you, Nate, but for other forum readers to see what the fuss is all about.

Casting around the FAD's would be fun!!!! You could get mahimahi, wahoo, ahi or billfish......now THERE is a bunch to try and get in one day on casting gear!!!!!!!

BTW, who is it that you are fishing with???

Yeah, I figured that many charter operators would feel a tad dull just trolling/live baiting for billfish day in day out. 
It seems incredulous though I have felt the same once or twice from a glut of too many billfish!
Poor ole me eh???
Now that the normal run of small black marlin and sailfish have not turned up, I want them bad again!

Cheers,

Aaron.

[Bernie Keys]

Most likely using 130lb line with 400lb leader.
Any thoughts?

I used to do a bit of land based game fishing. I think it could be done but I would worry a bit about the 130lb line. On a boat whether in a chair or standup, you are close to the water but have the sides of the boat to protect you when things go  pear shaped. I once saw a bloke over run a 50lb Penn international with about 150 yards of line out with a good sized yellowfin tuna on the business end. He was in real trouble and looked like going for a swim until a couple of blokes grabbed him. Unless you are a rather "large" gentleman  there is no way you will be able to break 130lb if something goes wrong. If you setup with safety ropes/harness then that is fine. I assume you would be in a harness of some sort so there may be no opportunity to just sacrifice the gear if something does go wrong.

In deep water a fish may be unstoppable but that being said, i have seen a few marlin of the size you are talking about landed off the shore. They were on 80lb gear though.

I have seen a few "hybrid" rods made for fighting & casting off the rocks but they all had to be a compromise either long to make casting easier & clear the rocks or short for the fight and have little ability to get any distance. The trouble with the first is that they will kill you in a long fight and in the second case its hard to keep line off the rocks/shore when you have lots of line out.

My guess would be just use a GT rod with the weight you can handle.  You may have to go down a size in line simply to have enough line on a spool. In a boat its easy, if you start getting down a bit you just chase the fish (if you aren't actively doing it already).

Get someone to video it all when you do it because we will all want to share the buzz 

[Gavin Ng]

Interesting topic. Are there any commercially made poppers/stickbaits that are designed to have the leader run down the middle of the lure? the only ones i have seen have been custom made acrylic, resin or wood lures designed specifically for casting at billfish.

Cheers

[mark gaal]

Quite a lot of dollies on the fads at present, we have been getting them around fish traps a stones throw off the rocks lately so it could be a good time to toss some smaller stick baits, on the subject of marlin on popper gear , I think the hardest thing would be trying to set the hook, and then keep it there, a big angry blue will see you lineless in no time unless you can follow it somehow. We have toyed with the idea of raising one then trying to get a lure to it.