hook up rates for luderick

[faker]

ehhh guys i hook up to luderick and drop the fish quite a few times and am wondering if its because i am using a barely used 4-8kg rod. i loosen the drag alot when fishing for luderick so it can take some drag to compensate for this.

but i am wondering considering i have a few swallowed hooks is my hook too small or my rod too stiff so i am pulling hooks?

if that is case i can always change to a eging rod to get a slower action rod to take the lunges

[Peter K]

What size hooks? Anything from size 8-12 is pretty commonly used. I have used super sensitive 1-2kg rods for luderick as well as much heavier gear. Sometimes even a thick bamboo stick with almost no bend at all. You can compensate by moving your arm/adjusting with the wrist. If your needing to high stick fish or using longer rods off the rocks then 4-8kg could be needed. 

Are you dropping the fish when trying to lift it out of the water, or is the hook coming loose when the fish takes the weed? Perhaps your striking to early? You can loosen the drag, however ledges and rocks are the blackfishes natural habitat so they can easily fray through your line and snap you off. Sure 4-8kg is considered quite heavy gear for luderick, but it is possible. Is their a reason for fishing with such a rod, what sort of areas/enviroments would you be fishing? Estuary, rocks etc. 

Let the fish have a quick pull of the line to allow the hook to really sink in, then the fish should be landable. Note that luderick do have pretty soft mouths, hence, if your trying to set the hook hard or are fighting the fish pretty hard, it may rip through the mouth. 

[faker]

12 minutes ago, Peter KH said:

What size hooks? Anything from size 8-12 is pretty commonly used. I have used super sensitive 1-2kg rods for luderick as well as much heavier gear. Sometimes even a thick bamboo stick with almost no bend at all. You can compensate by moving your arm/adjusting with the wrist. If your needing to high stick fish or using longer rods off the rocks then 4-8kg could be needed. 

Are you dropping the fish when trying to lift it out of the water, or is the hook coming loose when the fish takes the weed? Perhaps your striking to early? You can loosen the drag, however ledges and rocks are the blackfishes natural habitat so they can easily fray through your line and snap you off. Sure 4-8kg is considered quite heavy gear for luderick, but it is possible. Is their a reason for fishing with such a rod, what sort of areas/enviroments would you be fishing? Estuary, rocks etc. 

Let the fish have a quick pull of the line to allow the hook to really sink in, then the fish should be landable. Note that luderick do have pretty soft mouths, hence, if your trying to set the hook hard or are fighting the fish pretty hard, it may rip through the mouth. 

i am using around size 10. fish are coming loose after hooking them and them shaking it off. using a 4-8kg rod because its a rod i rarely use for lures so i turned it to fishing luderick among harbour rocks and fish can easily reef me. i can feel the weight of the fish at that point

[Peter K]

Size 10 Good....

4-8kg is come for large kingies/snapper, that is not ideal for luderick. 

Are you maintaining constant tension on the line? Luderick don't have crazy headshakes and shouldn't be letting themselves off all that commonly.

What size reel are you pairing with a 4-8kg rod, line class/weight rating too.

Keeping luderick on after some practice is pretty straight forward, perhaps try a few session on your eging rod and see if that makes a difference for you. 

Not sure what else can be suggested.

[faker]

32 minutes ago, Peter KH said:

Size 10 Good....

4-8kg is come for large kingies/snapper, that is not ideal for luderick. 

Are you maintaining constant tension on the line? Luderick don't have crazy headshakes and shouldn't be letting themselves off all that commonly.

What size reel are you pairing with a 4-8kg rod, line class/weight rating too.

Keeping luderick on after some practice is pretty straight forward, perhaps try a few session on your eging rod and see if that makes a difference for you. 

Not sure what else can be suggested.

15lb main line and 6lb leader.

I feel weight of fish as it struggles a bit and then weight drops as if it spat it.

Edited September 14 by faker

[Peter K]

1 minute ago, faker said:

15lb main line and 6lb leader.

I feel weight of fish as it struggles a bit and then weight drops as if it spat it.

Not sure what to say, you may be ok with 15lb. 6lb is good. As for spitting the hook, are you using a luderick float rig? If so, the hook should sort of auto set when the float goes under, all you then need to do is give a small lift to further set it then reel it in. Perhaps your putting too much weed on, the fish is engulfing it, however, the hook isn't able to actually set because of the amount of weed???

[faker]

9 hours ago, Peter KH said:

Not sure what to say, you may be ok with 15lb. 6lb is good. As for spitting the hook, are you using a luderick float rig? If so, the hook should sort of auto set when the float goes under, all you then need to do is give a small lift to further set it then reel it in. Perhaps your putting too much weed on, the fish is engulfing it, however, the hook isn't able to actually set because of the amount of weed???

using a Iso rig for luderick since its far easier to get buoyancy neutrality on them

[Steve0]

It sounds like you are getting your hook through a small piece of skin rather than setting it properly. Give the Luderick a little longer to take the bait in, lift gently to set the hook, and as above, ensure the bite of the hook is not going to fill with weed.

The rest is about controlling the lunges. Old-fashioned centerpin people like a bendy rod that does a lot of the work for them.  If you are managing Luderick size fish on what you are using, fine, but not ideal. Otherwise, I've never tried an Egi rod, but imagine if they handle good size squid and are long enough for the situation you fish, they'd be OK.   

 

[Green Hornet]

Aside from all the good info above, if you have a dedicated blackfish reel/spool and are using braid, ditch the braid and respool with mono. The stretch in the mono helps a lot when it comes to keeping a small hook in a fish’s mouth.

Dango or Sunline Float in either 12 or 15 pound are popular mono lines among blackfishermen. You can use regular mono, but are going to have to apply Vaseline or some other type of floatant to the line periodically.

[sashkello]

You mean that you drop them within first few seconds of reeling in? Or when you lift them?

They do shake a lot, can't do much about it. But from my experience not hooking up properly might be due to three main reasons. 1. You pull too early and they haven't taken the bait for real yet. 2. The hook is too big or not sharp (doesn't look like a problem in your case). 3. The bait is set up in a way that makes it hard to take whole or the hook goes straight back through the mouth and is protected by the weed too much.

I think it might be number 3. Bunch up your weed tightly, make sure you don't have much fluff around the back of the hook, mostly the bait should be concentrated around the barb. And barb is exposed. 

Also, don't have your drag too loose. The rod seems to be powerful enough, just use soft wrist/hand to absorb sharp moves. I set my drag pretty tight for them, only a bigger 40+ luderick would take any line. Just don't muscle it too much either, but certainly don't let it run pretty much at all. I use a 5-8 9" Catana for luderick and catch them consistently. A bit of bend helps, but there is absolutely no need in a 12" specialized bendy rod, that's a bit of a luxury, not a necessity.

[rickmarlin62]

A soft action rod is better  luderick tend to bounce n roll  also  hook style  try size 8 or 10 in a 540 mustard french style hook   i run 12lb main  6lb in estuary for trace or 8lb of ocean rocks

[faker]

5 hours ago, sashkello said:

You mean that you drop them within first few seconds of reeling in? Or when you lift them?

They do shake a lot, can't do much about it. But from my experience not hooking up properly might be due to three main reasons. 1. You pull too early and they haven't taken the bait for real yet. 2. The hook is too big or not sharp (doesn't look like a problem in your case). 3. The bait is set up in a way that makes it hard to take whole or the hook goes straight back through the mouth and is protected by the weed too much.

I think it might be number 3. Bunch up your weed tightly, make sure you don't have much fluff around the back of the hook, mostly the bait should be concentrated around the barb. And barb is exposed. 

Also, don't have your drag too loose. The rod seems to be powerful enough, just use soft wrist/hand to absorb sharp moves. I set my drag pretty tight for them, only a bigger 40+ luderick would take any line. Just don't muscle it too much either, but certainly don't let it run pretty much at all. I use a 5-8 9" Catana for luderick and catch them consistently. A bit of bend helps, but there is absolutely no need in a 12" specialized bendy rod, that's a bit of a luxury, not a necessity.

Thanks.

 

I hook them they struggle a bit and fish gets dropped 

[Burger]

How is your line control?
By this I mean, is the line between rod tip and float nice and straight or have a big bow in the wind?

A big bow can mean you’re not setting the hook well and ‘just’ picking up the slack line.

It’s important to keep contact with your float, but not impede its drift in any way.

[DerekD]

Size 10?? Why so small? Try a size 6 panfish. As someone said above, it sounds like you are not getting a good hookset when fishing a small gape hook.

[faker]

5 hours ago, Burger said:

How is your line control?
By this I mean, is the line between rod tip and float nice and straight or have a big bow in the wind?

A big bow can mean you’re not setting the hook well and ‘just’ picking up the slack line.

It’s important to keep contact with your float, but not impede its drift in any way.

There is a bit of slack. More then I would like but too tight and float goes in wrong way 

[Burger]

Just now, faker said:

There is a bit of slack. More then I would like but too tight and float goes in wrong way 

That sounds good, you definitely need some slack to allow to drift naturally.

Remember moving the tip of a 10’ rod thru 90deg moves it 14’, so plenty of slack will get picked up.

[Burger]

Do you have a photo of your usual hook baited up? And what hook type are you using?

Im curious about you iso float too, as I very traditional in my rigs and may learn something new!

[sashkello]

Yeah, it sounds like hook doesn't get set and you drag the fish for a bit while the bait is in its mouth... Size 10 should be OK, but yeah it is on a small side, I use 8 or 6 mostly, but did catch them on 10 as well. And maybe you're the opposite of those people who strike so hard the whole contraption hooks fishos behind them. Maybe your drag is so loose that there is not enough force to set the hook.

[faker]

43 minutes ago, Burger said:

Do you have a photo of your usual hook baited up? And what hook type are you using?

Im curious about you iso float too, as I very traditional in my rigs and may learn something new!

Using one of these. One of good things about iso rig is they already measured out the buoyancy neutrality but i use a 4-8kg 7 foot spin rod that i rarely use because I i just switch to a shore jigging rod at that stage

 

 

 

Edited September 15 by faker

[faker]

12 hours ago, DerekD said:

Size 10?? Why so small? Try a size 6 panfish. As someone said above, it sounds like you are not getting a good hookset when fishing a small gape hook.

correction size 8 on mustard needle sneck luderick hooks. the size 5 iseama ring eye black 5 has a wider gap but but smaller lengths 

 

Comparison below

 

Edited September 15 by faker

[Burger]

That hook size looks fine, however I’m curious about how much of that float is out of the water when ‘neutrally buoyant’.

My float only has about 1cm of stem the diameter of a small pencil showing. I’m sure I’ve posted a pic of it before.

Edited September 15 by Burger

[faker]

30 minutes ago, Burger said:

That hook size looks fine, however I’m curious about how much of that float is out of the water when ‘neutrally buoyant’.

My float only has about 1cm of stem the diameter of a small pencil showing. I’m sure I’ve posted a pic of it before.

Only a couple of millimeters. I normally strike once i see its a ruler length under water but on 7 foot rod. it might be i am not striking hard enough and thing is luderick has a bad habit of swallowing the size 5 iseama hooks

[Burger]

1 hour ago, faker said:

I normally strike once i see its a ruler length under water

That’s a good starting point, but it’s not quite that simple. The other week, a couple of times, my float went under but only a few inches then sat there. I waited 5 secs before striking and hooked up each time. Strike time can vary each drift, each day, each week.

Nothing wrong with a fish swallowing your hook! Sure is better than not swallowing it 😅

Have you got a hook disgorger? If not, go old school and make one from an old toothbrush.

[faker]

6 hours ago, Burger said:

That’s a good starting point, but it’s not quite that simple. The other week, a couple of times, my float went under but only a few inches then sat there. I waited 5 secs before striking and hooked up each time. Strike time can vary each drift, each day, each week.

Nothing wrong with a fish swallowing your hook! Sure is better than not swallowing it 😅

Have you got a hook disgorger? If not, go old school and make one from an old toothbrush.

Not sure what u are referring to

[Little_Flatty]

20 minutes ago, faker said:

Not sure what u are referring to

What @Burger is saying is that luderick behaviour can change even over the course of a session. Your ruler length method may work one day, but other times like Stu said, a float may only go under an inch or two and then you will need to strike. Regardless, he waits five seconds as a rule in either scenario.

I’m finding timing the downs a little challenging myself. I guess I’ve been using a lot of different baits (cabbage, various types of string weed…whatever I can scrounge) and different floats (ranging from an 0.8 ISO float, to wagglers, to an extra long stemmed float). I’ve only settled on one float recently and am starting to get to know how to use it over the past couple of weeks. Good fun!