trolling luers

[petdos]

Hi to all,i want to start useing some of the many lures i ve collected or been given but how do you know whast size ,speed etc,EG bonito,kings etc,any help would very appreciated.Have read a couple of books but didnt really help a begginer,thanks peter.

[fisheyes85]

Hi to all,i want to start useing some of the many lures i ve collected or been given but how do you know whast size ,speed etc,EG bonito,kings etc,any help would very appreciated.Have read a couple of books but didnt really help a begginer,thanks peter.

Hey mate- there'd be a thousand ways to approach/answer this...

I've never trolled lures for kings (mainly slow troll live baits for this), but have done so for Bonnies. I'm sure a huge range of lures would work for this, but I've found some of this simplest lures will do the trick on Bonito. Two of the simplest lures you can find which will do the job nicely on bonito are the Smith Jig:

and, secondly, a 'half by quarter' (1/2 x 1/4):

(That's the lure on the bottom of the picture).

Both of these lures will set you back about $3-4 and will catch bonito. I'm pretty sure they have their origins in professional fishing circles.

I've found the smith jigs work best quite slow around 3-5 knots depending on conditions. Troll them where you are expecting to find bonnies (around headlands and bommies, etc). Same deal for the half by quarters, just a tiny bit quicker- 4-6 knots. It might take a bit of experimenting to find the best troll speeds for your particular lures.

Any metal slug, such as raiders, halco twisters etc should do the same job as the half by quarter, they'll just work out a bit more expensive.

I'll let someone else chime in for advice on trolling lures for Kingies.

Cheers

Tom

[Slink]

Hi Mate ,

I had alot of success last year in the summer months trolling around the Fads and traps. I was mainly using small pakula uzi's and other skirts as well as the rapala x-raps in the medium size. I caught heaps and heaps of striped tuna as well as a few small dolphin fish. I have only ever caught 1 king trolling a lure as I find that trolling a bridled livie really slow is much more effective.

As far as trolling speeds go I found that around 6-8 knots is really the way to go. Bonnies dont seem to mind what you use , they are not really fussy when they are around and hungry, those pink plastic squid or cheap xmas trees will pretty much smash them every time.

Good luck and hope that this helps.

Brad

[petdos]

Thanks for the info fellas ,deffinatally gives me a better idea how to use them,thanks again,peter.

[Guest Aussie007]

u cant beat the rapalas if the fish are in the area these lures will catch em the fish love white with bright orange or pink gets hammered over green and blues for the bonnies the fluro colours were truly out numbering the darker colours last year around the bay and port kembla