[3 Marlin Hookups, 6 Dollies in a few hours - SYDNEY]

Great fishing! I'm interested in your game plan for running solo because I will fish solo more often than not. How many lures do you troll in your spread when solo? And how do you manage the lines? Do you retrieve them all before picking up the rod with the fish on, or do you let the lures sink and hope you don't tangle the lines up? Last time out, trolling in close, I struggled just trolling two lures - landed the fish on the X-rap but the Xmas tree sunk to the bottom and got stuck. Fortunately, I was able to motor around a bit and free it. Don't know how I'd go with a double hook-up??!! lol

Cheers,

Baz

you'll need outriggers, basically run a staggered spread, two on the outriggers longer and two on the corners, run it so you can do hard turns without your lures crossing

to get the lures out, run with wind and swell behind you with the boat just in gear, once your lures are out, you can pick up speed 7-9 knots and start trolling

set your drags tight for marlin and use the boat set your hook, if the marlin is on then pick up the speed to 10-12 knots for around 10-15 seconds to drive that hook in, once its on start slowing turning the boat downwind keeping the line tight, once the boat is downwind leave it neutral or just in gear, bring the other rods in get them out of the way.

now you have fight the marlin, leave the rod in the holder and put the boat in a really slow reverse, then wind the reel, once the boat goes off course and it will, get back to the steering wheel and bring in back on course and go slowly in reverse again, this way you can slowly start getting the fish in, keep doing it until the fish can be grabbed by the leader, towards the end of the fight when fish is tired, you can probably just let boat drift downwind and wind the fish up to leader, its heavy but it can be done

and be bloody careful, not to fast backwards

if its a smaller fish the same thing, once you have hooked the fish\ do a slow turn so the boat is going downwind if you are not already downwind. then wind the fish in, you can leave the boat in neutral or just in gear, on small fish you can leave the other lines out

once you have landed the fish, keep going downwind and put the lure back into the spread and start trolling again

[Does anybody write fishing reports when you don't catch anything?]

yeah, I have done quite a few on here with zeros, we've been lucky for about the last 2 months we always seem to get something, even its just a few small dollies

where you are not catching fish is also good info for other fishermen, it lets them know where not to go

[3 Marlin Hookups, 6 Dollies in a few hours - SYDNEY]

Awesome shot of the two Marlin together, did you do your usual run NE or were you wider this time.

Noel

Mate the same run, that's all we have been doing this season, warm blue water and lots of dollies, no need to go out further. The first hook-up was around Manly hydraulics which was the smaller fish, I trolled NE up to about 3 NM away it at times. The almost double hook up was happened about 2 miles NE of Manly Hydraulics. There are birds and at times dolphins out there, just keep the boat on the concentration of the birds and just keep trolling around them or near them.

Saw another boat hooked up about 1NM NE of Hydraulics.

[3 Marlin Hookups, 6 Dollies in a few hours - SYDNEY]

That's a fantastic effort especially on a solo trip! Double hook up!!! Hmmm that would have been interesting to try work that one out!

Great effort and photos. It just goes to show how well those lures work!

Cheers scratchie!!!

thanks mate, I may have considered cutting one off, I don't know. Its a good problem to have

[3 Marlin Hookups, 6 Dollies in a few hours - SYDNEY]

Simply insane. Catching fish solo and expert photographer. Is there anything you can't do!

I'm no expert LOL, I do like filming the underwater stuff, its pretty cool. The underwater shots where taken on Saturday when there was 3 on-board. No underwater footage yesterday, It's was too much equipment to put out when going solo.

From the underwater shots on Saturday I knew they were out there so I had get out there yesterday.

My go pro, the one that I put on my head crapped out yesterday about 1hr before the marlin hook-ups, I got the video on my Iphone, I recorded about 40mins, Its like the Blair Witch Hunt of fishing videos, but I did manage to get some useable bits of video from it.

[3 Marlin Hookups, 6 Dollies in a few hours - SYDNEY]

Hey, just a quick update, will update later with more photos.

3 of us went on Saturday,1-1-2014, hooked 2 marlin and whole lot of Dolphin Fish. The marlin unfortunately didn't stick to our hooks. We found and saw a tonne of bait out there, we got underwater footage of Marlin, Stripped Tuna, a million Leatherjacks and some small Yellowfin on our underwater camera. A underwater marlin shot attached.

I couldn't resist going out today, Monday 3-3-2014, I knew there would be fish out there, I could manage to get out there around 2.30pm, my regular fishing buddy couldn't make it on short notice so I said F$#K it. I will try it solo. I fuelled at up Rushcutters Bay and came up with game plan for running solo and got out there.

I hooked 3 marlin, 1 small one Striped Marlin got off, another busted me off and I landed one at around 250lb, took about an 1hr to land. Got around 6 dollies as well around 70cm.

2 of the marlin hook-ups were with in 5 seconds of each other, could have easily been a double hook-up, if one hadn't busted off. That would have been absolute kaos.

Successfully realised the marlin, would never dream of bringing one aboard and possibly hurting it, too nice a fish not to let go, pictures of it in the water I'm more than happy with.

Also really overcast and was running lights in the lures, they were lit up like stop signs

Peter - SB Lures
www.scentblazer.com

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

Damn that LJ shot is awesome! The dollies spat up a few of the smaller ones.

Are they normally in this close?

just depends if the water is warm and clean, they can literally be half a mile offshore

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

yeah thanks, we have some video as well

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

Hey mate

Had to get back and let you know this report inspired me to chase dollies again today. I decodes to leave the longy carpark and picked up two legals between whale and the fad. Been getting rats all season and chuffed with my first legals! They were free jumping everywhere but had to leave as the wind picked up. My mate reckons they jump like that when marlin are chasing them?!

Had four lures out and they hit the same one everytime. Great fun on 10lb gear.

Cheers

Paul

good stuff, there are few marlin out there so that could be making them jump, we hooked one last week and yesterday we saw a boat on with marlin on just east the whale, we didn't pick up any ourselves which is bummer, there is a million leatherjackets out there and we got 6 dollies yesterday a couple went about 5lb, not too bad

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

somewhere between 6 and 8 knots, if its rough and choppy around 6, when its smooth around 8

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

Interesting photos. Thanks for sharing. I had a hit from a black in JB years ago while trolling a Konahead. It jumped a couple of times then threw the lure. My first and only marlin encounter, so far. I was shaking for half an hour afterwards! The sight is still vivid in my mind. I swear it had the lure sideways in its mouth, like the dolly in your pics. I still have those Konaheads from the 80s, rigged with the hook hanging out of the skirt a bit. Might be time to re-rig them.

Baz

for sure, I reckon it happens more often than anyone thinks, I also have underwater photos of marlin with the lure in its mouth and hook is just swinging free, it has the lure but not the hook

also if a marlin or another fish has the lure in its mouth but not the hook, the rod will still buckle over and the ratchet will go screaming off as if the fish was hooked.

What we do when a marlin is hooked we yell out "Marlin on" and whoever is driving at the time will thrust the boat up a few knots in speed for about 10-15 seconds to drive the hook in, but if the marlin has the lure and not the hook all we are really doing is pulling the lure out of the marlin's mouth by speeding up

Baz you should resurrect your lure and get out there, I like all types of fishing but nothing get your heart pumping and puts a smile on your face like catching a marlin

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

Thanks for the report and great pics!

It's good to know there's something out there thinning the leather jacket population

yeah good point, I think it should be a rule if you catch a leatherjacket you have take it home and eat it, feed to the cat, use it as bait or burley, use it as fertiliser, but you not allowed realise it, fisheries should issue a $500 fine if you are caught releasing one

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

I hear you Billfisher, that's exactly what we do, we have a rigging sleeve which keeps hook straight and rigid, we have hook lock to position the hook upwards and we make sure the hook is really sharp and on our bigger lures we file the hooks down. And I agree driving a hook in a marlin's bill or mouth is hit and miss

but that's not the point I am trying make here, I am talking about the position of the hook in relation to lure itself, I have shots of marlin and dolphin fish with the lure in its mouth but you can see the hook is outside its mouth, so it doesn't matter how sharp your hooks are or how well your rig is setup that hook can't set because its literally not in its mouth, the lure is in its mouth but the hook isn't

see the photos attached as an example, if I pulled on that lure, all I would be doing is pulling lure out of its mouth. You can see the hook is not in its mouth, it probably won't hook up unless we jagged it

what we are trying to figure out by looking at our underwater footage is should we put the hook in the middle of the lure or the back?

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

Thanks. You have been pretty consistent with the dollies this season. I caught my first of many this year but all under so far.

Amazing looking fish, But yet to taste one!

yeah we have, its been great

we've have been unlucky with the marlin this year, we had 4 hook-ups but haven't managed to land one yet. But we did manage to get that underwater footage of a marlin busting off one our lures, which was great

dolphin fish we have been smashing, no real big ones yet, one around 15lb and stacks over 60cm, and even more under 60cm, but we always get a few every time we go out

you'll get one soon

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

So what is your conclusion as to the best way to rig a trolling lure?

PS: I wouldn't have thought you would need a camera to do this just a measurable and comparable

sets of empirical data. Ie the number of strikes converted into fish landed for each rigging

configuration. It would be handy though to know the species (which is where the camera would

come in handy)

it depends on how the lure is run, i.e. on the surface or down rigged, I don't have enough video information on tuna yet, but our new method of filming will allow us get close up footage of tuna hitting the lures once we start targeting the tuna, but for Dolphin Fish and Marlin I would say the following would work best

On a down rigged lure for Marlin and Dolphin Fish

The hook should be in the middle of the lure, not at the back or outside the skirt, they swim alongside the lure and can see the lure clearly, no bubbles, they line it up then turn at the last millisecond and bite the middle of the lure, that's where the hook should be

A Surface Lure for Marlin and Dolphin Fish

The barb of the hook should be inside the skirt, the hook should be about 3 quarters down the length of lure, somewhere between the middle and back. On a surface lure the hook can sit a bit further back from the middle because the fish are generally attacking from underneath at an angle and not directly alongside it like down rigged lure.

The above only applies to single hooks. We mainly run single hooks because we don't want to damage the fish so we can release them. However if you really want to nail a fish, use 2 hooks, middle and back you can't miss.

Just a general rule, they attack the lure not the hook.

I've read a lot of forums about hook positions, I know Black Bart and a lot of other lure experts alike recommend running the entire hook outside the skirt, only the eye of hook is inside the skirt for tournament legal. I think it looks cool, but I don't think its the best position anymore.

We currently have enough data of the fish hitting the lures and missing the hook, however we are fortunate because most of time when a fish attacks our lures they have multiple attempts, so we end up hooking them anyway through the fish's persistence. What we looking to change and improve upon is the hook-up rate on the fish's first strike at the lure.

I also know for a fact from video evidence that it is very common that once the fish strikes the lure and misses it may not come back on it, so getting that fish hooked up on it's first attempt could be difference between catching it and catching nothing.

Anyway we will try a different hook position and see what happens, we won't know for certain unless we try it.

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

not real wide, maybe 3 to 4 NM from Sydney Heads if that, on a east, north east heading, have a look at the 2nd photo of me holding the dollie, you can see Sydney and North Head in the background

water temp was about 23 half a mile out from the heads, we have been hooking dollies anywhere from about 1NM out of the heads

[SYDNEY OFFSHORE 25-2-2014]

about 20 dollies from 50 to 80cm and a black marlin hookup, only small around 150lb, it spat the hook on its first run, oh well these things happen

dollies were full of small leatherjackets, we cut up one of the leatherjackets and put it inside one of our lures, we couldn't keep the dollies off that lure, go figure huh, I suppose its pretty rare that someone would actually try using leatherjackets as bait, oh well you don't know if you don't try. The lure with leatherjacket inside even got hit a few times even when the boat was stopped, while pulling in other fish

tired a new underwater camera technique, might be getting rid of the troll pro, our new way of underwater filming seems to be better, needs some refining but so far so good, some still pics attached from the video, we'll post some videos on our youtube page if anyone is interested

also we have worked out from our new footage the best way to rig a trolling lure based on actual close-up underwater footage of the strikes, not theories from various fishermen and lure manufacturers, the good thing about video it doesn't lie or have theories . It is literally unbiased evidence of what is actually happening down there and can be studied to improve fishing techniques.

Peter
www.scentblazer.com

[Fishing East Manly Offshore]

Hey all, went off offshore last week, got to Sydney Heads around 1pm. Conditions were ideal, light winds, small swell and overcast, just the way we like it.

We were using a couple Scent Blazer trolling lure chains and a few larger lures with pilchards and stripped tuna inside the bait chambers of the lures. Also, because it was overcast at around 5pm we put some lights in a couple of the lures to increase their visibility.

We trolled to towards the Whale Fad straight out of from Sydney Heads.We got one Dolphin Fish on the Whale Fad and nothing around Manly Hydraulics, we could see some really small dollies jumping around it. We then trolled directly north about 3 NM from Manly Hydraulics, water was really blue and a warm 23 degrees. We were sounding bait fish all the way out from Sydney Heads. We find that a lot of time when we sounding a lots of bait it’s hard to get the fish to bite because they so well fed, so always have a really small lure out there, 3 inches or less.

Eventually we found a fish trap around Long Reef Wide and started hooking up on Dolphin Fish. Not real big all around 60 to 70cm, just legal size. Also they weren’t hitting any of lures on the surface, they were only taking the down rigged lures we had out. We hung around the fish trap for a few hours doing an occasional pass of the trap, hooking up on it and around it as and mainly on the down rigged lures, only one was caught on the surface lure. We caught 7 Dolphin Fish in total and dropped a few fish as well by about 4pm. The barometer then dropped and the fish just seem to shut down almost instantly, so we put out some really small lures out to try and get them back on the bite. We persisted for about another hour and started trolling back towards Sydney Heads.

It was really overcast and coming into evening so it was really dim, so we decided to put some LED lights in a couple of the lures. Not long after we hooked another Dollie on the lit up lure, we got it on the camera as well. We arrived at North Head at about 6.30 pm and hooked nice Bonito about 200 metres from headline. Not a bad fish around 5-6 lb I’m guessing.

All in all a good day out, nothing big but we got lots of ratchets going off which is always fun.

Also have a look at some our underwater pics of the Dolphin taking our lures, most of the time they bite and attack the middle of the lure. I am thinking about putting the hooks further inside the skirt, not outside skirt. Most other lure manufacturers seem to the run their hooks right back so the hook completely exposed outside the skirt. I have been following their lead. I am not sure anymore if that’s the best place to put the hook after looking at our underwater photos.

www.scentblazer.com if want to try some of our lures!

Peter – SB Lures

[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

we did a test a couple years back as well. we ran just a bait chamber with pilchards inside against a very popular lure that's commonly used off Sydney, we literally ran them side by side a few metres apart. The bait chamber rig got 3 quite decent dollies that day, the "popular" lure got zero. I think that says a lot about the value of having the bait inside in terms of getting the fish to strike

[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

Hi Peter, I have never used a scent blazer only other brand lures and i have great success with them. Do scent blazers actually out fish other trolling lures?

Yeah for sure. This is what we have found, there will always be days when it doesn't matter what you are running, the fish are hungry and aggressive and they will take anything and on those days our lures will work just as well and better than other trolling lures. But the reality is you don't get those kind of days every time you go fishing, most days the is fishing slower. If you had an underwater camera you would find that fish are coming up on your lures and swimming off them without striking a lot of the time. That's where our lures come into the picture, we put real bait inside the lures so they taste and smell like the real thing. Basically we are ticking that extra box by having the lures taste like a real fish and we have honestly found that more often than not they will strike at our lures and not just swim off them.

If you have time, check out this link it explains how we came up with the idea for lures and how we tested them. We basically worked out what was working and what wasn't by getting years of underwater footage.

http://www.scentblazer.com/FishingAdvice/WhyuseScentBlazer.aspx

Also we have some recent underwater footage of us fishing for Dolphin Fish. To prove a point we ran one of our lures without any bait inside behind the camera for around 2hrs around the FADs and we got footage of heaps of Dolphin Fish coming up behind the lures, looking but not striking. We pulled the lure in and filled it with pilchards, then continued filming, in quick succession Dolphin Fish started smashing and hooking up on the lure, basically the bait was the difference between turning them from lookers into biters. We are going to compile a video about it soon.

I recommend you run one or 2 of them in your spread filled with bait. On any given day it could be the difference between getting a fish and getting nothing. Even without the bait inside they swim like a normal trolling lure, they catch fish even without bait inside.

[Tough week on the Harbour. Kings Salmon Bream]

yeah I agree with that, with a falling barometer the fishing generally shuts down and they seem to go off the bite, a lot of the time you can see the fish but its almost Impossible to get them to take anything

we mainly fish with lures, so our tactic when the barometer drops is to run smaller 3 inch lures, run them long run them slower, go around 5 knots instead of 6-8. And even down rig one of the lures to get the lure right in the fish's face so they don't have to swim up to the surface to get it.

The fish seem lazier and less hungry, so I would say you have more chance of catching a fish with a smaller lure or bait that's run a bit slower once the barometer has dropped.

I think best the time fish is just before the barometer drops, they seem bite like crazy just before it drops. But anyway I am crazy fisherman so I don't care what the barometer is doing, I will fish anyway, I figure if I have a lure or a bait in the water I'm in with a chance

[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

Hey all, we went off shore last week for a quick afternoon trolling session. Did our usual route Whale Fad, Manly Hydraulics then we headed North East. We couldn’t find Manly Hydraulicsagain,itmust drift a fair way off its mark at times.

Water was really blue and warm just 200 metres off North Head, so we put the lures straight out, the fish could be anywhere in that water. Ran a couple of our Scent Blazer trolling lure chains, a couple of bigger trolling lures and one small pink prototype lure which we are currently calling an“Atom”, it’s only about 3 inches long. We put pilchards and skipjack tuna in the bait chambers of the lures’, we got a skipjackon our last outing that we kept for bait.

We were sounding schools of bait the entire trip. Hooked a few a Dolphin fish, between the Whale and Manly Hydraulics on the lures chains, but they kept coming off, so we changed down to smaller trolling lures to try and get a better hook up.

I even cut the skirt off one of the lures to make it look smaller and I put a few mismatching beads inside and called it “The FrankenLure”, just a weird looking thing. We finally ended up catching some Dolphin Fish, they were really, really small, 1lb or less.

We got around 6 hook-ups in the entire session and landed 3 very small Dolphin Fish. 2 of them were caught on The Franken Lure. We also got another hook-up on the lure down rigged on the Troll Pro but it couldn’t break the rubber band off. That Dolphin Fish looked a little bit bigger. We got to use weaker rubber bands when we down rig on the camera ?. We got excited when we saw a free jumper about 3 miles directly North from Manly Hydraulics around Long Reef Wide, it was about 500 metres in the front of boat. We trolled towards it but no hook-up, it may have been full of small Dolphin Fish.

One notable thing we found when we looked at our underwater camera footage this time. Only single Dolphin Fish were coming up on the spread, in the last month or so, there where big schools of Dolphin Fish up on the spread. We also go some underwater footage of a massive school of what looks like some sort of small trigger fish(leatherjacket) while the boat was stopped toreel in a small Dollie. Some of Dolphin fish we have been catching in the last month are sometimes full of small trigger fish, maybe we should use leather jackets fillets inside the lures to match the hatch.

Does anyone know what kind of fish they are?

Peter – SB Lures

[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

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[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

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[Sydney Offshore – Micro Sized Dolphin Fish and one free jumper]

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