Hi All,
Took a trip to Dundee recently with Swoffa from the forum to see if we could get a Billie on Fly. This was a first for me and it was a great chance to talk teasers and tactics with someone who has racked up some nice captures in recent times. The trip down to Dundee was uneventful and I must say the road is a vast improvement! We got to Dundee for the launch by tractor around 7 and headed out to the long lost grounds. The sea conditions were a little lumpy but we made good time and were soon sorted out and working the area. A couple of false casts by me to understand what I needed to do if we raised a fish soon made me realise that some practice is in order! This particular style of flyfishing requires heavy rods and big flies and my skills were not really up to it but Swoffa was nice enough to overlook that fact. We spent a good hour of so around the Long Lost grounds with not much going on, the water was a bit green and there were no birds or bait schools in the area. At this point the sea conditions were getting pretty calm so the decision was made to head south to the Sail City wide grounds. At Sail things were looking up, Birds were working the area along with small pods of Tuna and we were marking some nice bait schools on the surface. As the day progressed the conditions got better and bettter but the fishing didn't and we didn't sight a fish despite the presence of good sized bait schools in the area. With nothing doing we headed back to Long Lost with the conditions in the area looking totally different to the morning with nice clean water, scattered bait and Frigate birds on patrol. With not much time to go until stumps we trolled in a due east direction to shorten our run home at this point Swoffa was looking at his sounder marking some bait and I was looking forward at a couple of boats working the area. Rookie mistake...... The first time that day there wasn't a set of eyes on the teaser and I bet you can tell what happened next right? Swoffa turned around and said to me "Ummm... Where's the Teaser?!?" I looked around and my first thought was "Oh great bl..dy Macs' have taken it off above the Bird" but I couldn't see the tow line. At this stage me and Swoffa have taken a long WTF moment and some seconds pass before i go to pull in the teaser line. Well, the line wasn't cut a Billie still has hold of it and has sounded with it. So here I am trying to get the teaser back from an unknown fish when out of the corner of my eye I see a huge boil where the Soft Grassy on the end of the other teaser used to be and Swoffa is yelling that there is a good Black on the end of it. It was all over in the blink of an eye but I put a hail Mary cast in just in case with no real expectations and didn't get a look. Funnily enough neither me or Swoffa was that fussed about it, I think we were both just blown away by it all. On the way home the words "Dude, where's my Teaser?" brought on several fits of laughter from both of us. I guess that's the thing about Billfishing even if you don't catch them the fish still have the ability to blow you away. Many thanks go to Swoffa for the trip and for putting up with me chewing his ear about Billies all day. So the final stats for the day read a bit weird at 1-2-0-0. Ok, so the first fish wasn't sighted but I think i can safely call it for a Billfish considering the company it was keeping. No fish for the day but it kept the fever alive.
Cheers,
John.
Cheers,

Hard lines John and Swofa....sounds like they were hard to find but you cant be watching the teaser all the time. What weight rod were you using and do you actually use flies? Or those skirt things you bill fishos use?

Also are you not tempted to drop some baits when the sails arent playing the game?

Cheers for the report

Hey Mud,
I was using a 9' 10wt with a sink tip and floating running line. Warren (Swoffa) uses an 8' 10wt with an ultra fast sinking line from memory. And yes, we do use flies for this. 4 to 6 inch double hook mutants that are a nightmare to cast, good thing 20 to 25 foot is a standard cast. Me and Warren were talking about the bycatch thing the other day and to be honest whilst it is a temptation to stop and try for something else on slow days the feeling we both had about it was that if you choose to go Billfishing you really should stick with it if you want the runs on the board although I do think for some crews taking a limited time out during a slow day may be a good thing. But it is a slippery slope and without putting decent blocks of dedicated trolling time in you may find you don't end up doing much Billfishing. I'm probably not the best person to ask as increasingly I will refuse to fish for anything else if targeting Billies as I consider it a distraction and if I want table fish I will chaase them specifically.
Cheers,
John.

You never know when they are gonna pop up. But like you said its all part of the experience.

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Ah no good what was on the end of the teaser that was swallowed a soft pusher or a bait ?? Must have been hungry !!

Both Doug, the first teaser had a belly strip sewn in and the second teaser had a soft head with no bait. No pissing about they just engulfed them.

That's a good yarn

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Funny what a big marlin will do.

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Rule Number 1.......always keep your eye on the teaser.
Rule Number 2.......see rule number one.

Thanks John, I had a great day even though we didn't manage to get amongst the billies. The "Dude, wheres the teaser" call will live in my memory for a hell of a long time.

Cheers

Warren

DH,
I've been contemplating replacing one of my daisy chains with a skipping Queenie/Mack on 24kg for a while now as a big bait for the Blacks whilst still acting as a sailfish/small black teaser and the other day has sort of cemented this idea now. Yeah Warren, I'm still getting a silly grin thinking about it. Many thanks once again.
Cheers,
John.

I was going to start a new post bit this one seems to fit the topic. I have just set up my new teaser but as a NOOB to this sort of carry on I am realy just guessing. I have been hell bent on getting out and chasing some billies and Macks ( if my boat ever gets here) , but I need to know what you guys reckon is the best way to set up a teaser and also what spread to use. I have a bird and also a 9 squid a frame, how far apart should the two be?? Also how far back from the boat should the bird be? (working on it will be the closest to the boat). What sort of lure spread have you found to be the best to target these species. I was thinking that a spread to cover as much of the water column as posible would be best ( with 4 lines), such as a pusher or jet head, an X rap 30, a 5m laser pro and something around 2-3m. Is this the right type of thinking for these critters?Any help to bag a feed and some fun would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Read this:

http://fishingterritory.com/blogs/tragic/

It'm not an expert by any means and it doesn't cover lure fishing for various reasons primarily the poor conversion ratios on sails but it should get you started.
Cheers,
John.

maybe u should put some hooks on ur teasers and put that on a rod lol

hey when you say they do you mean there was 2 of them like one still had the first teaser while you spotted the second ????

Hi Doug,
DeepBlack was trying to reel in the port side teaser with what we reckon was a large black marlin when the second black hit the starboard side teaser. Double hookup on blacks on the teasers!!!!!! Not only did it grab hold of the teaser but totally proceeded to rip the teaser cord off the spool, the spool was spinning that hard that it flicked up, got tangled around the throttle and sent us back to neutral.

Definitely two black marlin and they fought pretty hard on 400lb teaser cord!!

Still can't wipe the smile off my face "Dude, where's the teaser"