Downrigger Kings - Revenge is Sweet

[Marky mark]

Been meaning to try out more down-rigging for kings and finally got around to having a dedicated morning with no kids on board a week ago so loaded up on really big yakkas at Centurion wreck and headed out to try down-rigging along the cliffs. Put down a yakka to 10m deep just past North Head and about half way to Blue Fish Point the rod loaded up then immediately went slack, I wound in and found I had a yakka head and not much else left, reckon probably a big bonnie because it was a very clean cut. Reloaded and turned back towards North Head and made it most of the way back until another missed strike, this time three big slashes across the bait and nothing much else. Decided to head south instead and travelled about 4km south of South Head in about 15-20m where there were some good bait schools and interesting marks. So began the most frustrating bit of fishing I've done in quite some time. Load up bait, get massive strike and run, get dusted in the bottom and get a shredded leader back. Load up bait, get massive strike, 60lb leader breaks at knot. Rerig everything with 80lb, load up bait, massive strike, palm spool and knot lets go (got to love those little pig tail curly bits on the end of your leader), etc., etc. Six good hook ups, zero fish, much swearing, go home with tail between legs.

I decided to have a long hard chat with myself about this and remembered the old bream on lure fishing days when I would try different leaders and different knots and intentionally test them to failure with a spring balance to see what's working and most importantly to calibrate yourself on just how hard you can pull when a big bream is heading for over and you've only got 6lb leader to stop him. A session in the back yard with a very large batten screw attached to the garden bed, live bait hooks, 50lb braid, 60lb leader and 80lb leader was very interesting. I would tie up a leader, swivel and one or two hook rigs, attach them to the fixed point and heave away setting drags and holding spools until something let go. Learnings in no particular order:

• the trusty blood knot that I have used for years for tying on hooks and swivels really doesn't work well on heavy leaders, gone to a palomar which is easier to tie in a rocking small boat, doesn't slip easily and has much better break strength 
• the bimmini twist and double uni's I was using for braid to leader connection are good knots and almost never failed
• Heavy flurocarbon leader isn't much fun, getting far more reliable knots in good old monofilament 
• when you do get your knots worked out man its hard to break 50lb braid/80lb line, I'm not a gym junkie and was genuinely amazed at how hard I had to pull to get it to fail, even the 60lb leader with good knots was much, much stronger than I had expected
• my trusty 8kg ugly stick rod was way under-gunned in this territory
• whilst I have two big threadline outfits (shimano thunnus 12000 bait runner with the ugly stick and daiwa 4500 catalina with a 5'6" jigging rod) I really prefer lever drag overheads when going for it with heavy tackle, easier to control, thumb the spool and set/adjust drag when under pressure
• the shimano reel had been my go to for downrigging as the baitrunner feature is handy for lowering baits on the downrigger without overruns etc but even though its quite large physically it was really not handling heavy loads and the stem was bending quite alarmingly when trying to bust off the heavy lines

I can highly recommend this sort of back yard session to anyone trying out new gear or techniques, your neighbours may think you are a bit nuts but is totally worth it. Don't forget to attach your trusty vice grips to the hooks so they don't fly off into the grass when the knot fails (I found the first 8/0 live bait hook in the grass before I worked this one out, phew!).

Armed with these learnings I bought a relatively cheap lever drag overhead (penn fathom II) and another 5'6" rod, loaded it up with 50lb braid, 60lb leader, chucked the catalina in with 80lb leader just in case and set off yesterday with 11 yo son on board and a very limited time window. Caught some yakkas at obelisk beach this time and they were way smaller, only about 6" or so and looked tasty. Then off to south of South Head, loaded up the downrigger and started idling along looking for bait schools and marking anything that looked interesting. Fairly soon had a hit and miss and once again the dreaded head of bait only, another big bonnie I guess. I resisted the temptation to put on a 2 hook rig as these little yakkas looked really good with just the rubber band through the eye socket. We went back and forth for 45 mins or so and I was starting to stress for time when there was a good strike and line started peeling off at strike drag. I grabbed it, cranked the drag up to about 50% of what had broken the gear off and the run stopped and I got some line back. When straight up and down the fish went for it again and I thumbed the spool just a bit to slow them up then won a little line, eased the drag back a touch and handed it off to the young fella to finish the job. Happily after a few more runs and a good fight for him we grabbed a 73cm king and promptly called stumps given the time pressure. Armed with all of this I can only utter the classic big Arnie line, "I'll be back"... 

[BaitDropper]

Great write up Mark and congrats on your catch.

It looks as thou you have one of those downrigger shop downriggers ???   I have the same..

I luv the down rigger fishing, in all honesty, it is one of the most productive methods( for me)..

What I have done, as I'm still unfamiliar with all the live bait haunts locally ( still learning the area), is I have set up with Garfish, with the head starters, frozen and ready to go and they are working out to be near as good as live bait itself. I'll always try for live bait, of course, but the o'l garfish with beaks cut off set up in a head starter rig, is working wonders.

Sounded like a successful day was had by you..

[kantong]

well done on your perseverance and getting some results!

[slowjigger]

7 minutes ago, BaitDropper said:

Great write up Mark and congrats on your catch.

It looks as thou you have one of those downrigger shop downriggers ???   I have the same..

I luv the down rigger fishing, in all honesty, it is one of the most productive methods( for me)..

What I have done, as I'm still unfamiliar with all the live bait haunts locally ( still learning the area), is I have set up with Garfish, with the head starters, frozen and ready to go and they are working out to be near as good as live bait itself. I'll always try for live bait, of course, but the o'l garfish with beaks cut off set up in a head starter rig, is working wonders.

Sounded like a successful day was had by you..

Do you fish them on strike drag our use a bit of drop back?

[BaitDropper]

I always set up with rachet on and minimal drag, I used to use those de bro release clips, but found that no 14 rubber bands better, especially for live bait.

I found, that when the initial take happens, a lot of the time the fish hasn't taken the hook, it's there second attempt after the first take that seems to be when they get hooked, so I like them to take the bait first with out to much resistance.  I don't no how mark sets up, so that is only my opinion or way, but it works for me.  As per Marks method, live bait, definitely rubber band thru the eye socket, bait seems to last a lot longer if your careful. But with the Head starter set up, and thawed garfish, I think with that method, it's just the action of the head starters that make it work. But less drag for me is way better.

[Marky mark]

Thanks BaitDropper, yes its from Andy at the downrigger shop, they are good but the big, long boom with 8lb weight is a bit of a pain to be honest. That's a good hint with the gars, bait gathering can be a pain (although the young fella jagged a 30cm bream on the 6lb yakka handline this trip and had a ball) and the idea of just clipping something on vs grovelling around trying to hold wriggly yakkas, needles and rubber bands is tempting! 

I use the rubber band wrapped around my braid to a big swivel/coastlock snap attached to 50cm or so of heavy mono leading to the bomb. I also tried the release clips but found they were very inconsistent whereas the rubber band busts the same every time. I run about 5m of my line out then attach the bomb to give a bit of setback then fish a pretty hard strike drag and hookup rate seems to be good so far on smallish yakkas especially. Being in 15-20m of water and often being solo or with my kids I find there isn't much margin for error and when they find the bottom is inevitably curtains so fishing no or light drag would scare me a bit but I stress I'm really just starting to get my head around this stuff. Its weirdly hypnotic though and I suspect this outside fishery may last a lot longer than the big kings that bomb into the harbour for summer/autumn then head back outside again so hopefully plenty of fine tuning to come!

[BaitDropper]

Hey Mark,  Yes, do what works for you I always say. My low drag comes from my early dealings with big kings back in NZ, so I've used that theory from there.

I have 2 down rigger weights, from memory, there only 5lb..  I put a new rod holder closer to the back so the boom arm was well past the motor. When down rigging for marlin with a lure on, I'll use my heavier gear and won't put it in the down rigger rod holder, works OK and I feel safer with that set up.  But in regards to the weights, yeah I'm sure mine are 4 or 5 lb, and because, especially with live bait, your cruising along at snail pace so 5 odd pound is ample for me.

As far as the Gar's go, to be honest, I go down and buy them from the local fish mart, I am never able to catch them, in fact I've had little success collecting live bait, I pre set up 4 or 5 of them and freeze them with the Vac sealer, with the head starters already attached,  you can troll them along side X raps on the surface, the set up makes them sturdy enough, so without live bait, I immediately have options.  Maybe I should get out of bed earlier to get into some more serious livebaiting 😁, or I'm in the completely wrong locations..

Down in Melbourne, I used my Down rigger a heap, it's mainly sandy bottom, so I would set up the weight so I was basically bottom bashing with it, and I had a ball with that method following the channels after big winter snapper. Be nice to have an Elecky version, But I'd rather put my coin into other things.

There a great addition to the " fishing Arsenal " but do take a bit of getting used to, or getting a method of using them especially when solo for sure, I have a small bait well with a lid on both corners of my boat, the one on the side I use the down rigger, I foam lined, so the down rigger weight just drops inside for storage, if you follow.. keeps everything tucked away when moving about and easier to dispatch everything when I want to use it..

Edited April 15 by BaitDropper

[BaitDropper]

Pictures ( now that it's working for me )  are better than trying to explain..

Mark, the weight in the picture is a 4 pounder, I'll use this on most occasions, my other is a 6lb er, which I'll swap to if currents are running.

I removed the Du Bro clip, main braid line with clip attaches to top of weight, I then crimped up about a meter of 80lb mono, which attaches to the underside of the weight, then I attach rubber band to main rod line then direct to clip at the end of the Mono from the weight. I like to have a good 3 to 5 meters of line past the trace from the weight, sometimes way more, up to 10 meters..  It's good to play with the length some times, but when dropping a lure, I definitely run much more line out from the weight....

But as I said, it's what ever set up works best, for what your fishing for, is always best..

[Yowie]

Kingies can be annoying. You think you have him, up off the bottom, then down it goes, you can feel the line on rocks, then gone.

One nice one for a second effort.

[whiskey299]

Nice work, shame about loosing so much fish.

I've fished North Head a few times and can without doubt tell you alot of sharks roam that patch, this includes hammer heads and whalers.

I can pretty much guarantee a shark hookup every time I fish there.

[jenno64]

Very detailed report Mark with plenty of good info for aspiring downrigger fishos. Nice king too👌

Edited April 17 by jenno64
typo

[Marky mark]

21 hours ago, BaitDropper said:

Pictures ( now that it's working for me )  are better than trying to explain..

Mark, the weight in the picture is a 4 pounder, I'll use this on most occasions, my other is a 6lb er, which I'll swap to if currents are running.

I removed the Du Bro clip, main braid line with clip attaches to top of weight, I then crimped up about a meter of 80lb mono, which attaches to the underside of the weight, then I attach rubber band to main rod line then direct to clip at the end of the Mono from the weight. I like to have a good 3 to 5 meters of line past the trace from the weight, sometimes way more, up to 10 meters..  It's good to play with the length some times, but when dropping a lure, I definitely run much more line out from the weight....

But as I said, it's what ever set up works best, for what your fishing for, is always best..

Yep that looks very similar, I've just bought a fish shaped 8lb weight to replace the 4lb ball I had and its very heavy! When I was towing big horsy yakkas around at 2 knots the 4lb ball was hanging back a lot but the 8lb is overkill for sure, either I'll stump up for a 6lb fishy thing or hack some bits of the 8lb one I have now. I crimped my weight line to the swivel not the clip so I can put the clip in the rubber band wrapped around the main line but otherwise same same. I also use 4-5m of lay back behind the weight to let the bait swim a bit and to give it a bit of slack to let the fish get the bait down before it loads up. Heading back out tomorrow arvo for another quick session so I'll let you all know how I go.

[BaitDropper]

Look forward to your next report Mark...

Yeah, my other weight is a 6lb, I may set that one up as well and take with me, your right, the 4lb one can drag a bit.

After taking the photo yesterday, I realized, when I removed the De Bro clip, I just put on a snap swivel, but it on backwards, so I've just re crimped a new leader off the weight ..

Yeah, there's a heap of ways to set up, as I said, what ever works is the best way...   I was looking at the prices of the down riggers yesterday, they've near doubled since I bought mine, 12-13 years ago. I like them, because nothing much can go wrong with them and there tuff.....

I'm going to head out next week, so I'll get some action shots on the down rigger !!!   ( hopefully 😁)

goodluck

[PaddyT]

As someone who downrigs a lot you are better off with the heavier bomb -especially with livies-also personally i dont faf around with rubber bands (neither does a certain sydney guide who catches more kings than anyone i know) -8/0 livebait hook straight in front of the eyes. Dont even bother trying circles for downrigging. Another tip is dont take your eye off the rod, if you get a knockdown bite that doesnt hookup drop the bait back with the bail arm open or in freespool, the king will be there waiting.

[BaitDropper]

So you use Du Bro clips to attach the main line to the trace off the weight then ???

 

[Marky mark]

No, just like you I ditched them and just have a snap swivel off the bomb and use a rubber band wrapped around the main line and connected to the snap. Went to try again today but the good old weather man got the forecast backwards, instead of a quiet morning and windy afternoon we had 20 knots from the south at 10.30am so we gave up and grovelled around Middle Harbour for a few blurters and salmon instead. Very murky water and bait hard to find.

[BaitDropper]

That's a bugga Mark,  The good O'l weather always changes things...  At least you got out..

 

PS.  Na I was asking Paddy the question about rubber bands/ Du Bro clips.....    Our methods are very similar.. 

           Myself, I recon rigging the live bait is worth the effort with a rubber band, the live bait lasts a heap longer.  I even wind in and put the livie in the tank, rubber band still attached and re use same one an hour later... worth the extra effort and I think that extra bit of shock the rubber band gives, with zero in the braid line, helps too.